All it takes to enjoy the profusion of spring vegetables popping up at the markets is a wrap, says Pauline D. Loh.

In the warmer southern climes, April is when cabbages glow green and the carrots shine like bright orange batons. The bamboos, too, will be sending up creamy yellow tender shoots that can be harvested every morning. Mushrooms, too, are decorating the tree stumps on which they grow.

While not many of us have the privilege of seeing them fresh on the ground, we can still admire the spring vegetables at the market and bring home some for a healthy, seasonal feast.

For our family, the seasonal dish must be spring rolls, with juicy filling plumping up the pancake jackets. My Fujianese-Straits Chinese grandmother would spend a whole morning grating and slicing up vegetables and then cooking them down to a pot of delicious sweetness.

In another part of the kitchen, her daughters would prepare the garnish - slices of thin Chinese sausages lightly fried to render the oil, light-as-air omelettes that would be shredded into julienne, and pink prawns that would be blanched and then sliced in half.

In yet another section, the spring roll wrappers would be prepared. A ball of very soft dough would be expertly wiped on a hot griddle and miraculously, it seems, a paper-thin pancake would be ready in mere seconds.