Mac and Cheese Spring Rolls with White Truffle Aioli
Robert Atkins eat your heart out! Carb-phobic consumers, cover your eyes. This whopping mouthful of an appetizer is my submission in Davio’s Boston’s Spring Roll Creation Contest. Davio’s is famous for their Philly Cheese Steak Spring Roll, which my tastebuds first got the pleasure of devouring six years ago at Spinazola, a foodie-centric Boston fundraiser. Since then, reminiscing that magical experience has led me to their downtown restaurant, and urged me to wolf down about fifteen during halftime at Gillette Stadium. These spring rolls are everywhere!
I stumbled upon this exciting contest on Facebook last week and noticed that I only had one night left to submit my recipe. My competitive nature led me to the Super 88 Asian Market in search of spring roll pastry dough because I wasn’t going down without making them for real in my own kitchen. The winner gets their spring roll creation on the Davio’s menu along side the gold medal winner from Philly.
Trying to stay within the same “comfort food” genre that Davio’s spring rolls fall into, I decided to give Vietnam a taste of the Deep South. Good old fashioned, homemade macaroni and cheese was the poison that I picked to become gift wrapped and fried. In the past, I have made several versions of homemade macaroni and cheese but I wanted to stick with something basic for this contest. I started by creating a light roux (equal parts butter and flour) whisked over medium heat to act as the base for my cheese sauce.
Once the flour taste is cooked out, and a golden blonde paste is formed in the bottom of the pan, I poured in my milk and kept my forearm busy whisking away. The three cheeses I picked were Gruyere, Fontina, and Parmigiano-Reggiano because they are amazing melting cheeses, and they all have distinct, pungent flavors.
The Gruyere is funky and creamy, the Fontina is sharp, and the Parm is nutty and salty. I slowly added all three cheeses into my Bechemel and let them melt away and thicken the sauce. After everything was incorporated, and I needed to put yellow police tape up around my stovetop to keep me away from licking the spoon, I boiled my pasta.
I chose Ditalini because it was a micro-macaroni, perfect for stuffing inside of a spring roll wrapper. Once the mini tubes were al dente, I drained them and tossed them into the bubbling cauldron of cheese sauce. I was tempted to grab a fork and dig in, but this was a competition and I needed all the product that I made to practice my rolling technique.
Spring Roll pastry is different from spring roll wrappers, which I learned the hard way, after Siobhan came home with the transparent rice noodles. The transparent variety is typically eaten raw and stuffed with seafood and julienned vegetables, but in southern Vietnam, the deep fried pastry is more common.
I finally found them, tucked away in the frozen section of the market and thawed them out on my countertop. To keep the pastry moist, I topped it with a clean, damp kitchen towel, which helped prevent the sheets from cracking.
These sheets are paper thin, and need to be peeled away one by one while you’re rolling them up. I gently brushed them with egg wash, which acts as a glue, and dropped a handful of macaroni and cheese in the center of the square. I made sure that I let the mac and cheese cool down before rolling them because the heat wouldn’t be good for the delicate pastry. Pinching, rolling, tucking, and folding… roll after roll until I reached my capacity and figured I’d have a heart attack if I made one more. I felt like I was smuggling pasta from a buffet into my neatly folded handkerchief.
Once my makeshift deep fryer full of vegetable oil came to temperature, I started dropping these cigar-like tubes of deliciousness in one by one. The frying process was long and grueling, but my skin, and kitchen survived the trauma. I dissected my test victim and sliced it in half, revealing a gorge of flowing cheese sauce and a perfect bisection of tiny noodles.
Threre wasn’t even enough time to blow on it to cool it down, before my brain told me to dive right in and take a bite. They were like Russian Matryoshka dolls of fried cheese… cylinders inside cylinders of mouthwatering, cheesy, euphoria. Just to add an orgasmic punch to the appetizer, Siobhan separated some eggs, and made a quick aioli laced with tons of white truffle oil. The three cheeses alone were something to ogle about, but when dipped in the aromatic truffle sauce, it was time to bring out the bibs. The crispy, thin skin of the spring roll wrapper was the perfect vessel to hold this down home, comfort classic.
I ate two spring rolls and then took a break to watch some t.v, but I kept finding myself sneaking back into the kitchen for more carb on carb lovin’. I would pair this dish with a dry, crisp Sauvignon Blanc and a trip to the cardiologist. You will need a fresh wine, with triumphant acidity to cut through the richness in this spring roll. The other Davio’s fans have some great ideas, so it will be a true test to see if these fried, steakhouse sides hold up in the spring roll battle. Win or lose, I now have my go-to appetizer recipe for the start of the 2010 Patriots season.
