Not the Prettiest Rolls

I've always wanted to make my own Vietnamese roll, but was not so sure how and where to buy the ingredients. Turns out that you can find the rice paper and all easily in any Asian grocery in town. Silicon Valley is really blessed with goods from around the world. Through this dish, I fall in love with cilantro; I can eat cilantro with everything, even thinking of putting it in my juice. I rarely find Cilantro in my hometown, Semarang; as it is not a popular vegetable there. Chinese parsley is the more popular variety (and I don't like it).

I really enjoy the texture of the rice roll and the overall taste of this healthy dish. I don't feel guilty at all even if I eat ten of them. Mine might not be the prettiest, but to me, they taste wonderful :)

These three are the basic ingredients other than the rice paper and hoisin sauce.


Once all the preparation is done, "relaxed" a piece of rice paper by dipping it quickly in a bowl of warm water. Spread it on a big plate. Arrange the shrimps in a row. I happen to have grilled pork, so I sneaked some in also.


You can either top the shrimp with the other ingredients then roll and dip, or like me, I'd like to spread the sauce over the rice paper first and arrange the fillings on top. Just like popiah.


Once all the fillings are in, fold the top and bottom edge, covering the fillings. Then take the right edge over the filling and roll.


The result should be better than this :( The rice paper is sticky so it's hard to be neat. Further more I'm better at eating than making a neat roll. This is good enough for us (so many excuses)


Anyway, the next day, I make a stir fry from the left over bean thread like this. And make more rolls. I love rice paper rolls. You can literally fill 'em with anything edible. And it would still be tasty.


The process is the same. Spread the sauce and arrange the filling.


Add veggie please...The color will boost the transparent roll.


Fold and roll. Tada! The result is still not pretty, but edible. And they were gone in seconds courtesy of my husband. He can eat anything, he's such a sweet guy.


But he told me once, "After cooking for myself for ten years, I can eat anything..."

What's that suppose to mean?? ;p



Shrimp & Vegetable Rolls (yields about ten rolls)
Ingredients:
1/2 lb boiled fresh shrimp (boil 'em with head on, and keep the stock for soup)
100 gr of boiled bean thread
10 Rice Paper
2 stalks of green onion chopped finely
a handful of fresh cilantro chopped finely
5 leaves of lettuce torn lengthwise
5 tbs of hoisin sauce mix with 1/2 tsp of chili paste

Methods:
Soften the rice paper by dipping it quickly in a bowl of warm water, put in a big plate.

For each rice paper, spread a teaspoon of the hoisin sauce-chili paste mixture over the middle part.

Arrange the halved shrimp in one row. Add a little bean thread on top of it, lettuce, cilantro and green onion. Fold and roll the rice paper carefully. You need to practice to make a perfect roll and so do I :)