Pohpiah/Spring rolls

Pohpiah – The traditional one which uses handmade pohpiah skin. Have you guys see how the skin is done? It is very unique and I used to be captivated with the person who did it. He has this flat piece of steel wok/kuali. One of his hand (usually right hand) is like having an extension of a huge ball of white, sticky, gluey, wobbly dough. Mr Pohpiah man will then take the dough and swipe it very quickly over the kuali while wriggling his butts and shake his head. The dough stuck to the hands for eternity and remains there the whole time. Then, using the left-hand, he will peel off the pohpiah skin on the wok. Then, he repeats the rhythm with the dough hand. And this goes on and on and on….

Ahhh…talking about poh piah skin already took up a whole paragraph. So, to cut a long story short, I shall put up photos of two rolls of pohpiah that I ate last night at 11pm. Burp. RM2.20 for these huge, bursting rolls. It comes with a little packet of soup to pour over the pohpiah, just before serving. In Penang, pohpiah basah and pohpiah goreng are sold in pasar malam by the Malays too. Basically, pohpiah contains only vege and some prawns.

I like making pohpiah and will probably post a detailed recipe in the next few days. I have several versions so I need time to recollect my memory first. Recently, I made a batch of spring rolls. Spring rolls are fried pohpiah. It is very easy to make and kids love them. They will be munching away a lot of vegetables without knowing they are vegetables (kids hate vege, ok?). Crunch, crunch, yum, yum and they think it is some sinful junkfood.

Below is a photo of the fried spring rolls I made. The photo was taken when they were just out of the wok, before I have time to drain the oil. You can see a sheen of wicked oil on the fried stuff.

Posted by on March 4th, 2005 under Food

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No Responses to “Pohpiah/Spring rolls”

  1. Jason Says:
    March 4th, 2005 at 11:43 am

    U are making fried pohpiah at 8AM in the morning?Wah lew,fried pohpiah for breakfast…I am hungry,but I just ate nasi lemak.*burrrrrrrrrpppppppppp*

  2. lilian Says:
    March 4th, 2005 at 12:43 pm

    heehee, Jason, now I am using this Future publishing mode. I set it to publish at 8 am but at 8am I was snooooorrring till 11 am baru wake up la. That fried pohpiah made a few weeks ago, during CNY.

  3. Jason Says:
    March 4th, 2005 at 1:53 pm

    lazy bugger…really do future publishing.

  4. fishtail Says:
    March 4th, 2005 at 4:43 pm

    Last month, I was fascinated as a watched a popiah skin woman actually making popiah skin near the morning market by the Chowrasta market. Exactly as you said, she skillfully manipulated a huge ball of white, sticky, gluey, wobbly dough while her assistant (daugher?) skillfully collected the money from their customers.

  5. Papi Says:
    March 4th, 2005 at 6:02 pm

    I tell u ah, Melaka got one shop selling popiah, very the damn nice one! Jason, u know ah? In front of Madam King, damn big and juicy, with lards inside, fuiyo. Open 2-4pm only, also sell out. One of these days, I m gonna blog about it.

    Eh, Lilian, quickly post the recipe lar, I love popiah. I wanna ask Mami to fried for me …he hehe

  6. Jason Says:
    March 4th, 2005 at 7:21 pm

    Papi, 2-4pm ah, in front of Madam King’s, hmm, not really sure leh. Coz i always eat the old man at the jonker street there, the crossroad there, just beside the chicken rice stall, got one ah pek sit bicycle and sell one. :P i like that one very much, but always by the time i reach there, the old man dunno pergi mana dah. :) i shall go find out about the Madam King’s one,ok? we go this saturday 2.30pm, ok? let see what papi looks like. Jason stalker on the move. muahahah

  7. Eileen Chua Says:
    March 5th, 2005 at 1:43 am

    Mmmm… Popiah!! Lovely!! I’ve seen one a-ma making popiah skin before. Very cute lah! :) I prefer the white popiah to the deep fried ones.

  8. yingci Says:
    March 5th, 2005 at 4:34 am

    Yup, the white one is very nice, especially with lots of sengkuang :P

  9. timun Says:
    March 5th, 2005 at 7:40 pm

    woah..poh piah..still i prefer penang poh piah than melaka poh piah ..melaka poh piah..erm…i shud say not suit my taste lar..the vege too big piece ledi they cut until…and i preferr the white poh piah than the fried 1…

  10. Papi Says:
    March 7th, 2005 at 3:30 pm

    Jason, maybe same stall leh, I heard they travel here and there one. 12pm to 2pm this road, 2pm to 4pm that road. Last time it was handled by this ‘tua pui’ fat man, damn slow the action wan. If u cannot wait, then he will tell u to go fly kite, damn lansi one. But now the kids took over, they moved to Madam King aldy.

  11. deesee Says:
    March 14th, 2005 at 2:15 pm

    I remember seeing how poh piah phoay was made somewhere near Carnavon street… is the guy still there?

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