One of my favourite things to eat are Vietnamese Summer Rolls, or Gỏi Cuốn. Served cold, they can include pork, and in the UK I’ve had them with crispy duck in, which is lovely. However the more typical variant is a prawn roll. The wrapper is made from rice flour, but unlike a wonton wrapper that you might use for a spring roll, these become translucent when dampened in water. The wrappers are assembled with this in mind, so that the prettiest ingredients are placed at the centre of the roll.
Typically I include the following, though they’re not all traditional…
Ingredients
Rice wrappers
Prawns, cooked, and sliced in half lengthways
Vermicelli noodles – don’t overcook them (also called glass noodles)
Herbs, especially mint and coriander, but I usually include dill too
Chives, or shredded batons of spring onion
Carrot batons, finely sliced
Enoki mushrooms
Dip the wrapper into water briefly – don’t worry about it being firm still, they’ll continue to soften on the board. Lay your herbs, then put the remaining ingredients lengthways, at the end add the prawn. Fold the vegetable section over first, fold in the two sides like an envelope, and then roll over the prawns. There’s a good example of the technique in this video by EatNowCryLater.
I got my 11yo to make these, which is why some are a little irregular, but this is the perfect dish for children to make, if you get all the ingredients together, it becomes merely an assembly job.
If you want to make a traditional Vietnamese roll, you include leaves, bean sprouts, vermicelli noodles, some poached pork belly, and the halved prawns. It is usually served with a hoisin/peanut dipping sauce… I found an example in the Erica Treuille Canapes book, useful little book if you have a lot of parties, manages to ring the changes, which is difficult for canapes…
Peanut Hoisin Dipping Sauce
Ingredients
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
2 Tbsp smooth peanut butter
1 Tbsp tomato ketchup
5 Tbsp water
Combine the ingredients together.
You can buy Eric Treuille’s Canapes book here>
