Vietnamese Spring Rolls

With rice paper wrappings, these translucent little gems are light, bright, and tasty. However, they actually aren’t all that easy to make. The wrappers shred pretty easily so they’re a little finicky to put together.

I used the typical ingredients: shrimp, lettuce, vermicelli noodles, cilantro, mint, sliced cucumbers and shredded carrots. For the shrimp, I parboiled them in salted water with a half lemon. That made them far more flavorful than just a straight boil in water alone. After chopping and preparing the rest of the ingredients, I was ready to wrap.

The wrappers are supposed to be dipped in water to make them pliable. Looking back on it, I think the next time I try it I will spray them with water to get them moist rather than dunk them. When wet, they rip making it difficult to roll the ingredients together. 

After steaming the first few of them, I tried the ingredients in egg roll wrappers. I steamed and oil-fried the egg rolls. While clearly the less healthy option, fried was much yummier.

Shrimp is often the main component of spring rolls, but you can use other items like shredded chicken or pork. Or, you can just go vegetarian and not worry about a meat element. Either way, make sure you’ve got some snappy sauces to dip in. I put out a well of soy sauce but accompanied that with a zippy peanut sauce. The two were a nice contrast.

Here’s the recipe for the rolls and the sauce:

For the rolls:

2 oz. rice vermicelli, boiled and drained

8 rice wrappers

8 large cooked shrimp

1 small cucumber, sliced

1/2 c. shredded carrot

Fresh mint leaves

Fresh cilantro

8 butter lettuce leaves

 

Peanut sauce:

1 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. soy

1 TB honey

1 TB rice wine vinegar

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp sambal oelek

1/2 c. warm water

 

Boil salted water for the noodles, cook, drain, and set aside. Then boil salted water with a half lemon for the shrimp, cook, drain and let cool. In the meantime, dip the rice wrappers in water or spray with water to moisten. Place a lettuce leaf on top of the wrapper as a catch-all for the other ingredients. Layer the noodles, shrimp, veg, and herbs. Curl the ends of the wrapper around the contents like a burrito, folding opposite sides over before rolling. Place in a lined bamboo steamer and steam for about 6 minutes.

For the sauce, combine all the ingredients except the water in a stainless steel bowl. While whisking, stir the warm water in batches to soften the peanut butter. If you like it crunchy, you can serve it with chopped peanuts.

Dip in and enjoy!