If you've never enjoyed a homemade egg roll from the annual Hmong church fundraiser in Providence, what are you waiting for?

Fans from around the state wait all year for these tasty treats. The Providence Hmong Church of the Christian Missionary Alliance Women are taking orders now and will ready the packages for pickup on May 22. 

We may all come from different places and cultures, but we share so much. Often, food tops the list. It is not surprising that these Hmong women from Laos, who call Rhode Island home, turn to a homemade dish, prized by many cultures, to offer as a fundraiser. 

The ingredients all blend together during cooking, so the filling is soft from the first bite. All you see inside are the thin bean threads. The mix of shredded carrots and cabbage, ground pork, onions, scallions and cilantro, all seasoned with oyster sauce, is divine and inside a crunchy, paper-thin wheat shell.

For those wondering if these are egg rolls or spring rolls we're taking about, here's Alliance president Mailee Khang's explanation: They are indeed eggrolls, because they are made with eggs and deep-fried; neither of those things is true of spring rolls.

It was seven years ago the women demonstrated how they make the egg rolls for me and photographer Kris Craig and shared the recipe. 

I went home to test the recipe. My daughter was home from college and I enlisted her help. We had so much fun.

While I made the filling and prepared the rolls, she did the deep frying. She still teases me about that day because she had the undesirable job, standing over the stove and the hot, steaming oil. She does more cooking now but didn't back then. She still says I had the easy job, rolling the egg rolls, while she defended herself against spitting oil.

But it was worth it. They came out great. 

The Hmong egg rolls are made with boneless pork tenderloin, shredded carrots, green onions, onions, cilantro, cabbage, eggs, and bean thread noodles, wrapped with Asian rice wrapper and deep fried. This year's flyer also mentions mushroom seasoning but the year I watched, they used an oyster sauce flavoring.

The Hmong cooks said each family has  its own recipe, but they make it work when they cook together. 

They come with homemade sauce and are a bargain as 12 egg rolls sell for $15, or six for $8.

Order by May 19 and pick up Saturday, May 22 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Providence Hmong Church, 46 Dexter St. in Providence. To order, email Khang at mckhang94@gmail.com or secretary Nhia Lee at nhialee2@gmail.com, or call her at (401) 649-5717.

Here's the recipe if you want to make your own. 

1 package, 8.8 ounces to 10 ounces, bean threads (vermicelli clear noodles)

1 pound ground meat (pork, chicken, turkey or beef)

Packages of spring roll shells

Soak the vermicelli noodles in a large bowl with warm water until soft, 15-20 minutes. You can use hot water for a shorter time. Drain them well and cut into 2-inch pieces with kitchen scissors.

Mix all the filling ingredients (noodles, meat, carrots, cabbage, cilantro, scallions, onions and eggs) in a large bowl. Gentle hand mixing works best.

Add the sauce ingredients. Set aside while you peel apart the spring roll sheets. Keep the sheets slightly moist by covering with moist paper towels that have been squeezed out well (not soaked but damp).

Put egg yolk in a small dish. A dot of yolk will secure each egg roll.

Lay the wrap so it is a diagonal in front of you. Put a handful of filling one-third the way up, above the bottom diagonal. Stretch out the mixture across the wrap. Fold up the bottom triangle and tuck under the filling to secure it. Continue to roll up the egg roll, folding in the sides and tucking them in. Moisten the top triangle with the egg yolk and press to seal.

Heat vegetable oil in wide-mouth pot, about a third of the way up. Heat the oil to 375 degrees. Fry the egg rolls in batches until golden brown and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Keep turning the egg rolls so they cook evenly.

Remove from the pot with tongs, draining well, then place on paper towels.

Serve with sweet chili sauce. Find it in the Asian aisle at the grocery store.

Editor's notes: I found the bean threads in the Asian aisle. The package I bought was 10 ounces. The church ladies had 8.8-ounce packages. Less or more noodles will not change the egg rolls.

The spring roll shells are sold in the freezer section and need to sit out to defrost before use. They are very thin, come in packages of 25, and are not the wonton wrappers you find in produce department. I found them in an Asian store. I suggest two packages for this amount of filling.