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(soft soothing music)

- [Narrator] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- [Narrator] The following episode of Charlotte Cooks

is brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College

and viewers like you, thank you.

- Coming up on this episode of Charlotte Cooks,

we're making a gingered butternut squash spring roll,

stay tuned.

(scraping)

(pattering) (sizzling)

(soft upbeat jazz music)

Hi there, and welcome to this episode of Charlotte Cooks.

Today we're gonna be making a delicious vegetarian dish,

using gingered butternut squash and those wonderful

rice wrappers that you find in Thai restaurants

that they wrap up shrimp and basil

and we're gonna make some of those today.

I'm gonna show you how to handle 'em

and put all kinds of fun ingredients inside of this.

But our ingredients today are gonna be totally vegetarian

and we're gonna start off with the butternut squash.

Now, peel your squash, use the neck,

the necks are usually pretty darn solid

and then when you get down to the bottom

you're gonna start seeing some seed parts.

Dice it up, all you're gonna do is

just make some nice slices.

Squashes are hard, so when you're trying to cut this,

instead of trying to manage it like this,

put the tip of your knife on your cutting board

and bring the back end of your knife down

and that's gonna give you more control

rather than trying to cut it like this.

You see how unstable that is?

Put the knife down, and bring the back of your knife down.

And that's gonna give you some actual leverage on your knife

and prevent you from slipping and really cutting yourself.

So then we're gonna just take it

and we're gonna cut it into some juliennes.

Well, they're gonna be bigger than julienne,

but we're just tryin' to make 'em into some cubes.

And we're gonna give it a nice little saute.

So once I turn this on this side,

cut it in cubes.

Do they have to be perfect and exact?

No, they don't.

So, just nice and carefully slice all your butternut squash

and then we're going to drop it into a bowl

and get started on our saute.

So I have it already cut up over here.

So I'm gonna drop this into my bowl.

Now you might use a whole butternut squash for this,

you might not, and that's okay.

So whatever you have left save it for another use,

'cause butternut squash is very versatile.

So what I'm going to use in my saute now,

you want a nice deep dish and you wanna dish with a lid

because one thing we're gonna do when we cook this squash

is we're gonna cook it so it does not fall apart.

We want it to hold the shape that it has.

And that's just part of the appeal of the final roll.

So we're gonna turn our heat on high.

We're gonna add a little bit

of vegetable oil to the bottom of our pan.

We're also going to add a couple pieces of butter.

And the butter's just there to give it some flavor.

And the oil is here to give the butter a higher smoke point.

So if you ever just sauteed with butter,

you're gonna notice that the butter burns.

If you add a little bit of vegetable oil to that

it raises the smoke point of the butter

so you can saute in that a little bit longer

before it actually starts to burn the butter.

So because the oil's there,

it's not actually gonna burn the butter.

Once this is all melted, we're going to add an onion

that we've already done a nice dice in.

(sizzling)

Stir that around in your pan.

And now I've also got some ginger here.

The ginger I've put on a microplane

or you can even use a box grater

and you want to use a lot of ginger.

This is about a half a cup of ginger I'm gonna put in here.

So drop that in there, there we go.

While this is softening I'm gonna show you

how I did this ginger and it's really very easy to do.

Ginger is one of those wonderful wonderful spices.

Can't really call them herb

because it's not leafy and green.

But let me show you how I prepared that.

I used a box grater and a box grater

is a really good thing to use.

A box grater, a piece of ginger, and a spoon.

This is all you need.

So to peel your ginger,

I'm gonna take this little piece right here,

to peel your ginger you just take your spoon

and peel the ginger like this.

And see how that's happening?

It just takes the skin right off the ginger

and once that's all off, you just put it on the box grater

and give it a nice little shred.

Now you can use a microplane for this too.

But when you're doing a volume

like about a half a cup or so, just use a bigger apparatus

so that you can work faster, that's all.

If you don't have a box grater, don't worry about it.

But I'm tellin' you, most people have box graters

before they have microplanes at home.

So on your box grater, you wanna choose a hole

that is relatively small.

So just put it on there and shred it up.

(scraping)

(tapping)

And what comes out is your shredded ginger

and this is what we're going to be using for our saute.

Come over here and give this another little stir.

(sizzling)

I'm gonna add a little more oil to this.

Just to cover the bottom of the pan.

And once the onions have started to soften,

ooh, it smells delicious,

smell it, smells great.

We're gonna add our butternut squash.

(pattering)

So our butternut squash, we're gonna put it in here

and that's all we're gonna do.

Don't overload your pan.

Give it a nice stir.

Now there's enough moisture in this

butternut squash to actually cook it.

You don't need to add any moisture to it.

If you added water to this, what would happen is that

the butternut squash would start to fall apart.

And we don't want that to happen.

So we're gonna put

(tapping)

a little lid on this.

Turn this heat down to medium, medium-low,

and we're gonna let that simmer.

And so once this is done, this is gonna be nice and tender,

you're gonna take a paring knife

and you're going to take it

and you're going to push the paring knife into the squash

and that's gonna let you know when it's done.

And you can tell, I just started this,

and you can tell right now that

that squash is still pretty hard.

So we're gonna let that cook and while that's cooking,

I'm gonna put together a couple of things

that we need to wrap our rolls.

One of the first things I'm going to do

is cook up some cellophane noodles.

What are cellophane noodles?

Cellophane noodles are mung bean threads

and they're very very fine.

They're wonderful actually,

they don't have a whole lot of flavor.

But they have a wonderful texture.

You can cook these a couple of ways.

You can put them in some boiling water

like we're going to do today.

You could also take them and deep fry them

and look at what they turn out when they're deep fried.

They're wonderful, crunchy, lovely little noodles.

(crunching)

Mmm, just light, light and fluffy and great as air.

I like using these things as little back up underneath.

You'll see how I use them later on with the rolls.

So we wanna get this water boiling

and once this water comes to a boil,

we're gonna drop our noodles into it,

and we're gonna let them simmer for only one to two minutes.

About a minute and a half is really what I leave them in.

And the instructions on the bag will say

from one to two minutes even longer.

Sometimes it'll say to just

put 'em in there and let them soak.

We want them to still have a little bit of a tooth to them.

We don't want them to be crunchy.

So in the meantime, let me put together

a couple of our dipping sauces that we're going to use.

'Cause you have to have a wonderful

dipping sauce for these spring rolls.

So here's a very very easy chili sauce that we've made

and it's really super simple to make.

All you're going to do is take some orange marmalade,

you're going to take something that's called sambal oelek.

Sambal oelek is a chili condiment

that comes out of Vietnam, comes out of Thailand.

It's spicy hot, it really is.

And so when you use the sambal oelek,

you're gonna wanna add a little bit of this

to your orange marmalade according to your taste.

A little bit or a lot.

(tapping)

You can add a little bit of lemon juice to this as well.

And you just stir this in to be water desired heat you want.

Just like that, and that's all that is.

Just a very very very simple sauce.

There's another soy sauce I'm gonna

show you how to make too,

a soy dipping sauce that is wonderful.

But I really like the sweet chili sauces with these rolls.

They're just really really yummy.

We got a boil on our water now.

We're going to take our cellophane noodles,

gonna drop them right in, gonna grab a little pair of tong

and break them up just a little bit.

Look at how beautiful, I think these are lovely.

Mung beans, that's what these are made from.

So about a minute, minute and a half on these.

Our noodles are done, we're gonna strain them.

Then make sure you rinse them

with cold water to stop the cooking process.

And then put 'em in a bowl so that

they're ready for us to use.

Let's give a double check to our butternut squash here,

see how that's doing.

Gonna take our paring knife once again.

(sizzling)

Ooh, yeah, it's starting to get there.

Let's give it a nice little stir.

Yeah, oh, that smells wonderful.

Can you guys smell that?

It's wonderful. (tapping)

Okay, you can see how sometimes

the butternut squash is starting to break apart

and this is where we're gonna test it with our knife

and make sure that that knife

goes in all the way and goes in easily.

And once that knife goes in easily, this stuff is done.

And so an easy in, we're ready.

So you wanna take this, you wanna cool it down completely.

We don't want it hot, so let's cool this down completely.

Let's make a soy dipping sauce

and then we're gonna make a peanut dipping sauce.

And for the peanut dipping sauce,

you're going to need a little pot

and you're going to need a little bit water in this pot.

And this little water needs to be boiling.

So I'm gonna put a little bit of water in here.

And I'm not gonna give you any measurements guys,

because you can figure this out at home.

How much do you need to make?

Do you need to make a gallon, do you need to make a quart,

do you need to make a pint, do you need to make a cup?

So I'm just going to let you guys figure that out as you go,

but these things don't require exact measurements

so put some water in there that's going to be about

the volume that you need for your finished sauce.

So I've got about a cup of water in here,

and bring that to a boil.

While I'm waiting for that to boil,

I'm gonna make the soy sauce.

We're gonna take a little bit of the low-sodium soy sauce.

We're gonna put it into a bowl.

Just a little bit 'cause we're not makin' a whole lot.

To this, we're also gonna be adding

some of our seasoned rice wine vinegar.

The rice wine vinegar is seasoned with both salt and sugar.

The unseasoned comes without salt and sugar

and you can usually tell the difference

because the unseasoned soy sauce will have

a green top and a green label

as opposed to the red top and the red label.

And that seems to be consistent among brands.

So choose the seasoned or the unseasoned.

There are two different kinds

of rice wine vinegar out there.

So put a little bit of that in there,

about maybe tablespoon or two.

We're gonna be taking a little bit

of our toasted sesame oil.

Now this stuff is super strong, y'all.

So don't be puttin' a whole lot of this in there,

just a couple of drops.

All we're using this for is a little punch of flavor

and aroma 'cause it's very very pungent, very strong.

We're also gonna be taking a little bit of ginger.

So we have our ginger that I showed you earlier

on how to do on the box grater.

So I'm just gonna take a little bit of this.

We don't need a whole lot of ginger in here,

just a little bit.

(scraping)

(tapping)

That's about enough, use the edge of my knife

to pick this up to drop this in there.

We don't need a lot of ginger,

once again it's just there for just a splash of flavor.

(clinking)

Okay, so that's really all you need for this sauce.

It's a nice thin, wonderfully flavored,

light, bright soy sauce.

Now for the peanut sauce.

We're gonna take some peanut butter.

Now you can use whatever peanut butter you like.

You can use chunky peanut butter,

you can use smooth peanut butter.

We're gonna add it to our water here.

Now this stuff, when you first put it in the water,

it may seize up on you and it may look really weird.

But don't give up on it.

You don't need all of this peanut butter in here.

Maybe a tablespoon or two, that' all you really need.

Because as it boils, it will thicken.

I'm gonna take a whisk, gonna whisk this up.

(light scraping)

Into our peanut sauce, we're also gonna be adding

a little bit of soy sauce,

(pouring)

just to give it that pungent flavor,

a little bit of soy sauce.

We're gonna be adding, once again,

a little bit of our rice wine vinegar,

just enough to give it a little tang,

alright, just a little tang.

Gonna be adding some minced scallions.

Put those in there,

(light scraping) stir that up.

And a little bit of our hot chili sauce,

not a whole lot, just a little bit.

I'm just gonna pop that out.

Just to give it a little bit of heat.

(light scraping)

So now my sauce is the consistency I want.

See it's nice and thick.

(tapping)

I'm gonna put it into a bowl that we can serve it in.

It'll cool down and you can serve this hot or cold.

I like it basically room temperature,

so just leave that out.

There's our peanut sauce.

So now, we're going to roll our spring rolls.

Couple of things you need to have on hand,

you need to have

a nice damp towel.

Now I chose a dark one here because these

spring roll wrappers are nice and light in color

and I'm hoping that I'll be able to show you

the spring roll wrapper and you'll be able to see it

on the back of this dark cloth.

Our spring roll wrappers, they are beautiful rice pancakes.

They have a lovely texture to them.

Whoops, and they break as you can see.

So when you find them you gotta handle 'em very carefully

'cause they do break, they're very delicate.

They feel like pieces of leather almost.

(snapping)

But there you could see how they just pop and break on you.

So you wanna make sure that they're not broken,

you wanna make sure that you have nice solid pieces.

Now how do you, you can't roll that can you?

So what are we gonna do?

We're gonna take a little dish.

Make sure that it's wide enough to actually

fit the wrapper inside and so it sits down in the bottom.

And you're gonna put some warm water in this.

Not hot water, warm water, just you know,

kind of like you'd wash your hands in.

Let me get some warm water.

(running water)

So I've got the water ready to put my wrappers in.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put this in there

and let it sit for just a few minutes.

And I'm gonna just do these one at a time.

So while I'm waiting for that to get in there,

I'm gonna pull forward my ingredients

that I need to wrap my rolls.

I'm going to use my cooled butternut squash,

going to use some sliced scallions.

I'm gonna show you a trick on

scallions here in a few minutes.

Some fennel, if you're not familiar with fennel,

I suggest you get used to fennel

because fennel is one of these beautiful beautiful

vegetables that has a wonderful licorice flavor,

but very light licorice flavor,

that adds real enhancement to things.

If you don't like fennel,

you can leave it out, not a problem.

We've got some sauteed shiitake mushrooms.

We have some green beans, we have some raspberry puree.

Ta, yes, it's that flavor pop that

really really really is gorgeous.

We have some radicchio,

and radicchio is an endive that is red

and it's on the bitter flavor

so it's got all these wonderful taste qualities

that are just absolutely extraordinary.

So by now my wrapper is ready.

See, it's nice and pliable.

I'm gonna lay it on this cloth and I'm gonna spread it out

into a nice circle shape.

Now sometimes you'll find instructions that will say

to go ahead and start puttin' your next wrapper in there.

But I find that they get too soft.

If they get too soft, they're really hard to handle.

One of the reasons you put the cloth down

is to help absorb the excess water from it.

You're gonna take some steamed green beans

and you're going to put a couple of steamed green beans

down here in the center just like this.

So what this becomes now is the frame

where you put all of your other ingredients.

So I'm gonna take a spoonful of our butternut squash

and I'm gonna put it in here.

I could use another little spoonful here.

Put that right in there.

Take a little squirt of our raspberry puree.

Put it right on top.

We're goin'a take a little bit of our, whoop, radicchio.

Gonna put that on top.

Take a few of our cellophane noodles.

Put those on top.

Now you see I'm not using a whole lot of anything,

just a little bit and it's all color.

Alright, couple pieces of fennel just for flavor.

Not a whole lot, just a couple little pieces of fennel.

And I have some red radishes here that I chopped up as well.

Couple of pieces of those, adds a nice little spicy heat.

Now to wrap it, just like a burrito,

pull the sides up and the sides might stick to each other

and that's okay, don't worry about that,

don't freak about it.

Fold this over,

once again,

and then fold it up nice and tight

just like you would a burrito.

And wha-la, there you go.

And the beautiful thing about this

is that you can see through the wrapper

and you can actually see what's inside of all of your rolls.

So we're goin'a take our rolls,

I'm gonna put them right here,

and before you serve them, you cut them on the bias.

Give 'em a little cut right on the bias.

So you can take the roll

and you can stand it up on your plate.

Stand it up.

And you can see I put some of these fried noodles on here.

So now I'm gonna go ahead and wrap another one.

(clattering)

Show you how to do this.

I left the mushrooms out of that one.

You guys can put anything you want to in these rolls.

So take another wrapper.

Op, that one's got a little break in it.

Can you use that?

Yeah, you could.

Do you have to?

I'm gonna use it so I can show you

how you can use the broken ones.

Put it in here.

Just let it start getting soft.

Now, there are other ways,

I've seen people do it before where they have taken

the wrapper and actually put it on to the damp cloth

and just take their hands and rub water into it

this way on both sides.

And some people will do this because they feel that it

actually provides less water and it softens them up nicely.

But at the same time, you can take this wrapper,

this is a little bit more time consuming,

but that is one way that you can do it,

but right in here is another wonderful way.

So when you pick it up out of your water,

lay it down,

and get it spread out again.

Lay you down here.

Couple of green beans,

now remember leave space at the sides

and space at the bottom.

This becomes the frame for your filling.

Put some of your filling in here.

And whatever it is you like.

You can add a little bit of your raspberry puree.

Now if you're using the raspberry puree guys,

I like putting it in the middle

so that it doesn't sort of bleed out onto the wrapper.

Remember how you could see

through the wrapper really easily?

A little bit of radicchio,

couple of sauteed shiitake mushrooms,

gonna put some scallion on here.

A couple pieces of fennel and some cellophane noodles.

Not a whole lot of anything,

just a little touch of a lot of things.

Because that's what gives these things lots of yummy flavor.

Alright, so we're gonna fold it up burrito-style.

And here we go.

Nice, tight little rolls.

'Kay, just like that.

So if you wanted to put shrimp inside of these,

make sure your shrimp is cooked

'cause these don't get cooked any further.

You could put shrimp inside of them.

You could but crab meat inside of them.

You could put lobster inside of them.

You could do a lot of wonderful things with these.

So here we go, here are our

butternut squash,

our gingered butternut squash spring rolls.

And we are going to be serving those

with some of our delicious peanut sauce.

(light tapping)

Let's take this and put our nice little spoon in there

so we can get lots of yummy peanut sauce.

We can serve them with our sweet chili sauce

that also has some spicy heat to it,

and we can also dip our rolls

into a lovely little soy sauce.

We've got a beautiful little platter of rolls over here.

I hope you decide to make these.

And I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

This can be as versatile as your imagination.

They're absolutely a fun thing to do

with family, with friends, as a nice little summer,

nice little light spring meal.

Just enjoy them, enjoy them, enjoy them.

(upbeat jazz music)

Scallions, alright,

scallions,

okay, guys, when you get a scallion,

and this is one of my favorite things.

I love scallions and I love having scallions on hand.

And whenever you go to the store,

sometimes you buy scallions and you may not use

the whole bunch of them that they have.

But let me show you somethin'.

See this little root end down here?

When you use your scallions,

use this, use the whole bit.

Some people don't like to use the white part,

some people don't like to use the green part,

but I think the whole piece of the scallion

is absolutely delicious.

Let me show you somethin' I go goin' on down here.

Some people call this my farm.

(laughs)

I think it's pretty funny.

When you take your scallions,

take a little piece,

plop it in a little cup of water,

and these things will grow on you.

See all this green stuff?

They all sprouted out the ends

of the scallion just like this.

The thing is make sure you have some root on the end,

because the root on the end is actually,

you'll see it's starting to grow.

And when it starts to grow, you can take it

and you can put it in a little bit of dirt.

Now I'm gonna take these,

I'm gonna put them in a big pot

that I have at home once they're established.

And they winter, they don't freeze in the winter.

They keep growing, they keep growing all year.

And then when you go out to your plant

and you say I need a scallion,

instead of pulling the whole scallion out of the ground,

you can, you can clip it off once again,

just about right when they're about the size of a pencil

is the perfect time to harvest them.

Clip 'em off and they'll grow again

and you'll have a perpetual scallion garden.

It's really kind of fun.

Scallions aren't that expensive,

but I really hate throwing them away when I don't use them.

And I found that this is one of those methods

that I will never ever ever lose a scallion again.

And I have a scallion farm.

(laughs)

You can have one too.

And it's a really neat little trick to use

to use up your scallions, have them growing

and always have fresh scallions on hand.

(soft jazz music)

You can get our recipes off of our website

at pbscharlotte.org or you can email me anytime.

My email is pamela, P-A-M-E-L-A dot roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S

@cpcc.edu, I would love to hear from you.

And thanks for watching this episode of Charlotte Cooks

and we'll catch you next time.

(upbeat jazz music)

(soft soothing music)

- [Narrator] A production of PBS Charlotte.