I’m kind restless and really can’t type much, so this will be your typical post with recipe. Haha

For the last pot luck, I made Vietnamese spring rolls as snacks. It’s my first time making it, although it really doesn’t require much cooking at all, there are still chances of screwing up. Like, tearing the paper rolls, or too big or too small rolls. HAving wrapped ‘poh piah’ before, rolling these Vietnamese spring rolls are not too difficult, except that you’d probably eat the first 2 yourselves cause it’s too ugly / loosely wrapped :/

Anyways, I got the recipe off Momofuku’s site. As usual, this is just a reference, I never follow cooking recipes to the dot cause I’m not too fussed up about using teaspoons and cups to measure. It’s more like, dump everything in and eye ball it. She has a step-by-step photo in rolling the spring rolls, so if u’ve never rolled any spring rolls / rice rolls, poh pia in your life before, this may be helpful.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

PICKLED VEGETABLES
1/4 cup rice-wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 medium carrot, julienned

DIPPING SAUCE (I didn’t make this sauce, or rather it was incomplete cause some ingredients were missing; too late. long story)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro stems
2 tablespoons sugar
1 bird’s-eye chiles, minced
2 tablespoons soy sauce

FILLING
1 pounds shrimp, cleaned and de-veined
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
1 garlic, chopped finely

rice vermicelli, soaked, blanched *optional*
1/2 cup cilantro, loosely packed, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup mint, loosely packed, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup basil, loosely packed, coarsely chopped

Vietnamese rice paper
water

Method

1.Make picked vegetables. Heat rice wine vinegar with 1/2 cup water. Add sugar and stir till dissolved. Set aside to cool. Cover the carrots with the liquid and let it marinate overnight or a few hours in the refrigerator.

2. Make Sauce. Combine all ingredients together with 1/4 cup water. That’s it.

3. Make the filling. Heat pan with oil. Add garlic, and shrimps and toss till shrimp is cooked. Season it with soy sauce and pepper. Remove from heat, allow it to cure for 30 minutes before mixing it with the herbs. Soak rice vermicelli (try to get those thicker ones) till soft, then blanch it over boiling water.

4. Wrap. Using a water sprayer, spray water on the rice paper till it’s 3/4 softened. Place it on a plate. Take a bit of the filling, herbs, pickled carrots and vermicelli and put in the center of the paper. Less is more.

5. Fold the bottom flap (closest to you) so it covers part of the filling, then fold in the left and right flap. Then roll as tight as possible to form a spring roll. Repeat until you’ve finished with all the filling.

6. Serve with the dipping sauce.

Th?m Ngon ^^