Monday, July 30, 2012

Vietnamese Style Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce


I had a craving for these Summer Rolls the other day. I don’t know why, I have only eaten them like twice before but I couldn’t stand it, I had to make them, stat!


I found about a million recipes, so I took what I liked about each of them and put them together.

The peanut sauce is by far the best one I have ever made; I think it will be my go to from now on.


You can vary the veggies according to what you like.

I did struggle a little with the rice wrappers; I just need more practice, after the first couple I got the hang of it.

What you need,

For the peanut sauce:
¾ cup peanut butter
1/3 cup warm water
3 tbsp. hoisin sauce
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
4 ½ tsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
2 ¼ tsp. chili garlic sauce or siracha
1 medium garlic cloves, mashed into a paste
½ tsp. sesame oil, I like the toasted one best

For the rolls:
12 small shrimp, I bought pre-cooked ones but you could totally cook your own.
4 oz. dried rice noodles
6-12 rice wrappers
2 green onions, sliced
1 English cucumber, julienned
2 carrots, julienned
Bibb lettuce leaves
Fresh basil leaves

To make the peanut sauce, whisk together all the ingredients until well combined; if you need to thin it out a bit more just use a little more water.

For the rolls, I found it best to get all your veggies and shrimp prepped before you start.

I cut my shrimp in half lengthwise.

Cook the rice noodles according to the package directions and set aside with your other filling ingredients.

Fill a shallow pie plate with warm tap water and soak 1 rice wrapper at a time. Once it is soft and pliable, 30 seconds or so, carefully transfer it to a plate, be careful not to fold it on itself, it will stick, bad!

Place the 3 or 4 shrimp halves along the bottom of the rice wrapper about ¼ of the way up the circle.

Layer on some of the rice noodles, the cucumber, carrot, green onion, basil leaves and lettuce.

Carefully fold up the bottom of the rice wrapper over the filling, fold in the sides and gently and as tightly as you can roll the wrapper up.

The back of the rice wrapper package I used had a really good step by step rolling guide on it.

Continue to roll them until you are out of ingredients, as you roll them keep them on a damp plate.

It is best to serve them right away. The rice wrapper gets a bit dried out and sticky of you try to keep them in the fridge.

I made about 6 rolls and had left over filling ingredients so you could probably make 10 or 12 with this recipe.

Dip them in the peanut sauce and enjoy.


They are so light, crisp and refreshing, they totally satisfied my craving.

I just need to work on my rolling technique. Now that I have extra wrappers maybe I will try my hand at spring rolls!


Jen


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