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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls


Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls

These springrolls are my favourite, I prefer them over deep fried springrolls and they are super easy to make and the fillings are totally up to you, the ones that I am going to do today are filled with prawns, avo, apple, celery, fresh coriander, fresh basil and them served with a sweet chilli, I have done ones with kudu carpaccio, roasted peppers and blue cheese also a winner, you can do them with cos lettuce, smoked salmon and horse radish spiked cream cheese with balsamic reduction and capers, you really can explore your creative side with these, so here is how to make them.

Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 3 minutes
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 ripe avocado cut julienne
2 sticks of celery cut julienne
1 red onion very finely sliced
1 apple cut julienne
Small handful of fresh coriander
Small handful of basil
A couple of cos lettuce leaves shredded
4 rice paper springroll sheets (Village Square Super Spar stocks them or other wise most Asian stores do as well, like rice bowl in P.E)
12 Prawns 26-30 is the best size to use, if not you can use shrimps. Pan fry them with a little butter, garlic, salt and pepper

Method
This is soo simple, all you need to do is soak the rice paper in cold water for about 30 seconds, take it out and let it drip dry, arrange the ingredients onto the bottom 3rd of the rice paper, do not make them go all the way to the sides as you will need to fold the sides in over the ingredients and then roll everything up, its that easy, I have served them here with a little julienne vegetables on the plate, balsamic reduction and sweet chilli sauce.

I am very picky about the ingredients that I use so the sweet chilli sauce that I use it a real Thai one that I get from P.E it is the best sweet chilli I have ever come across, but you will only find it in specialty Asian stores, the brand is Madame Wong Sweet Chilli Sauce for Chicken, you can use your favourite brand, some tips with sweet chilli sauce is that you can personalize them to be unique, pour the sweet chilli into a food processor and put in a couple of peppadews and basil pesto and blitz it all together and you will have a beautiful sauce that all you friends will be asking where you got it, and if you like it a little spicier add some more chilli to it and blitz. Hey pesto, you can literally do this will any of the store bought sauces, change them a little, make them your own.

Bon Appetit.