Saturday, April 01, 2006

Vietnamese Spring Rolls



My beautiful daughter enjoying a fabulous spring roll dipped in peanut dipping sauce. (you'll have to ignore my school work station behind her and focus in on the mostly eaten THIRD spring roll) . Yes, she agreed to let me share this picture on my flog. These are not hard at all, I don't know why I haven't tried them before.

Being from the midwest US, I found oriental food ingredients pricy and was unsure whether I would like the unique flavor combinations. I am definitely getting over this issue , here I will share a great food network recipe find, made my way (vegan). These are absolutely wonderful and dipped in the peanut sauce I took from Bryanna Clark Grogan's newsletter took them over the top! I was actually inspired to consider spring rolls because Bryanna made a variation of these rolls at her cooking class vacation in Denman Island, Canada. I drolled over the pictures!

Process pictures....
I have arranged the ingredients on my counter so it is easy to assemble the rice wrapper rolls. You see crumbled, pan seared tofu, sauteed shallot/ julienned carrot & cabbage/ fresh lettuce, dried basil, thinly shredded romaine lettuce, and hoison sauce combined with some chili garlic paste. When I still had some cabbage mixture left, but emptied out the other bowls I added some rehydrated soy steak style strips and mango slices for a variation. Both ways were great!

Here I have a slightly damp dish with the soaked/ softened rice wrapper on it (it's translucent) , the filling on the bottem 1/3 of the wrapper. I drizzled the hoison sauce over the filling at this point and rolled it up tight. The original recipe I looked at before making these called for peanuts inside the roll and dipped into a non-vegan sauce... the peanut dipping sauce I used really had an awesome blend of flavors. My sauce choice is also lower in fat.


Five finished rolls set in a dish I can cover and refrigerate. I made 15 rolls , used two containers and stored the sauce in a small container to store for a dinner with guests. They stored well. Just to be sure I gave them a spray with a mister bottle that I keep by my oven for breads, I made sure that there was a little space between each roll to keep them from sticking. I also gave my container a small spray of oil to make it non-stick.

For today I am impressed with my successful and tastey spring rolls. Life is good.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

These look really good. I have been wanting to try these for a long time. I thought you had to either bake or fry these? I am glad you don't have to :-D. I wonder if I can find shallot pepper?

Dori said...

Thanks Michelle. I got my shallot pepper at Pensey's spices. The original recipe says you can saute chopped shallots with the cabbage and carrot recipe. I didn't have access to fresh shallots, so I used the spice from my cupboard.

Eat Peace Please said...

Hi Dori. Thanks for your comment on my blog. I actually have just recently visited your blog, I forgot where I stumbled from though (veganlunchbox, maybe?). I plan on scrolling down when I have time later, although seeing these spring rolls is everything I've been dreaming about lately! Wonderful!

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

I put the ingredients for the Spring Rolls on my Midweek shopping list...& plan to make them this week. I can't wait, they look amazing!
Love the pic of your beautiful daughter -- official taste testers are wonderful people to have around!

spiceislandvegan said...

Dori,

I love spring rolls and eat it all the time. I also use Bryanna's recipe for the sauce. I make spring roll in summer time when I don't feel like turning on the burner. It's wonderful! I am glad you tried it and liked it.

SIV

Catherine said...

Hi Dori,

I'm going to try these. I'm pretty anxious about the rice wrapper, but I got some last week from an asian market and I'm determined not to let them sit in the pantry too long! I'm sure mine will fall apart though, I'm not so good at fiddly stuff.

Harmonia said...

I've seen you on many veg blogs. I think I have visited one of your other blogs about a week ago. Great posts you have here! I have nver done a peanut sauce but have wanted to! Any other tips/suggestions/recipes?