Breaded Pork Cheese Rolls Recipe

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First, I did not use bread for this breaded pork recipe. I used Vietnamese rice wrappers because I did not have panko at home and I had not baked bread yet. But you can still use bread crumbs or panko if you want.

This is a breaded pork recipe mum used to cook for us over weekends as treats long before cheese sticks or cheese whatever came about. I never really thought much about how progressive she was till today. Mum used panko. Mum never liked us to eat outside food much, nor unhealthy snacks like preserved fruits (you don’t want to know how the made these especially in the past), ice sticks (all colouring and sugar), those 10 cents satay looking things selling at your mama shop downstairs (all additives), etc… It helps that she is a fantastic and innovative cook.

Not only is this breaded pork roll crispy, it is also super juicy, flavourful and tender. With the melted cheese and the sweet crunch of the carrot within, this is very much like those special treats Enid Blyton used to write about, that bursts in your mouth with every bite. I could just have this with rice if I was allowed.

I know some people do not like to fry food at home as it can be oily and messy. Well, the mess is easily minimized and honestly, basically home is one of the best places to have deep fried food if you want to be health conscious but not so much that you avoid deep fried food. When you eat it outside, you don’t know the type of oil used and the quality of oil. I do not know what is wrong nowadays that we had a few bad experiences with fried food in restaurants. They are either fried at wrong temperature (will be too oily or black) or the oil was so bad I could taste it. So I am quite picky where I have my fried food after.

Mess can be minimized by having a neat and organized work station with items placed according to work flow. Have the raw items on the left and cooked items on the right of the pot so that your food goes in one direction. Use an oil cover to prevent hot oil splattering and a pair of long chopsticks for easy control and it keeps your hands far away from the hot oil. Most importantly, monitor your temperature and make sure your raw food is dry before putting it into the hot oil as water causes splatter. Lastly, of course having a good range hood to suck up all that smoke and oil definitely helps.

Actually when I first saw a chicken Cordon Bleu, I thought of this dish. But this uses pork and is bite sized. In my recent trip to Germany, I ate Schnitzels (breaded pork chop) made me crave for this again because this dish though more troublesome, is way more interesting! The trick to this dish is to have the right ratio of cheese, pork and filling.

I will usually use 肉头 or pork shoulder butt because it is has a good surface area thus making a rather big piece of pork after you slice to roll the ingredients with. I slice it while it is still semi frozen to about 0.5cm thick and let it defrost totally. To make the meat bigger yet for easy rolling and more tender, I use the back of my knife to chop on each slice of meat repeatedly from left to right first one way, then again rotate it at 90 degrees and repeat so that a crisscross pattern forms on the meat and the meat is thinner, bigger and more tender.

Then marinate it with ginger juice, salt, soya sauce, pepper, mirin and Japanese rice wine for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, I will slice up the carrots into about 2 matchsticks thick and cut up a slice of cheddar cheese by cutting it into 2 equal rectangles and then cutting strips of about 1cm thick. Next, prepare 3 plates and fill one with all purpose flour seasoned with paprika, salt and pepper, another with 1 egg beaten, and the last with crumbs seasoned with paprika, salt and pepper. In the olden days, we used 苏打饼 Wheat Crackers and pound it with a mortar and pestle. Then panko came about and that was the shortcut way. I did not use panko as I don’t do much deep frying at home. But I recently came to possess quite a few packs of Vietnamese rice wrapper and I watched a video on the many uses of Vietnamese rice wrapper by “French Guy Cooking”, and one of them is to replace panko. So I decided to try by pulverizing or crushing the rice wrappers to tiny pcs using my trustee Bamix.

From my observation, difference of using wheat crackers, panko and Vietnamese rice wrapper are as follows. I personally prefer the taste of panko least because it seems that end product tends to be oilier after taste than the other 2. But then it is the most convenient. I find wheat crackers more fragrant, but Vietnamese rice crackers lighter in texture. So I guess it depends on your preference.

After preparing everything, we are now ready to roll. Take a slice of pork, placing it on a plate or cutting board. Place 1-2 pcs of carrot and 1 piece of cheese in the middle. Then roll the pork up and set it on a plate with the seal facing down. When rolling, make sure that no filling is poking out from the sides of the roll. Once all of them are rolled up, it is time to coat.

You can explore a variety of fillings. Mum sometimes puts a silver of hydrated dried mushroom with the carrot to give an additional fragrance. You can have a stick of cucumber with a stick of carrot or replace the cheese and carrot with a stick of mango. Or just go for a thick piece of cheese. Whatever rocks your boat.

Coat the pork with flour, then egg and lastly, bread (rice) crumbs and place on a plate. Once all are coated, time to fry! I chose to fry it the conventional way with oil as I did not want to experiment too much today. I have bought a spray nozzle for spraying oil. I will try that with my air fryer another time.

For oil frying, heat the oil to 170C (I always stick my trusty thermometer in when deep frying as it helps me keep an eye on the temperature). I used a pair of big chopsticks to hold the meat, flip and take it out. I find this easier to maneuver than tongs, and the small surface area causes less damage to the coating. Fry till golden brown and place the rolls on some kitchen towels to rest. When they are all done, I will plate the rolls. Best eaten while hot, but beware of the hot cheese within!

One note on choice of oil to use when deep frying. Here, I use canola oil because I happened to only have that or Olive Oil at home. I usually do regular cooking with Olive Oil. Not extra virgin, just regular olive oil.When cooking, it does not matter if your Olive Oil is extra virgin or not as the heat will destroy the extra anti-oxidants in extra virgin Olive oils and make them useless. You can use a wide variety of oils, but you may want to find out the smoking point of the oil you use and make sure it is safe for the purpose. Smoking point is the point when the heat breaks down the oil’s chemical bonds and oxidation happens. In short, not healthy for you. Apparently, the healthiest oil to use for deep frying is Avocado oil, but it is pretty expensive and since I don’t eat deep fried food often, I am still contemplating if I should use that.

For the longest time, I was also quite confused on what oils are suitable for frying. I use Olive Oil in most of my cooking. Anyway, I find this article by BBC quite interesting and well, again just take everything in moderation. Even though now it seems animal fat is healthiest for deep frying (as opposed to how unhealthy it was touted in the past), I will take all of this in moderation after all, too much fats can not be great for you.

This is a great party food that will be a sure hit with the crowd young or old. You can try our teriyaki chicken wings or another personal favourite, prawn paste chicken, or visit our home page for other recipe ideas.