Vietnamese Spring Rolls
I love spring rolls. Crispy on the outside, tasty and soft on the inside, a quick and satisfying snack for almost every occasion. The only problem is the closest place where they make a good spring roll here in Budapest is relatively far from my place (meaning, when you immediately feel the craving to devour one or two – it is far). Thus, when we stumbled upon a really cool Asian store the other day, the idea was born to make them at home – yes, I knew it wouldn’t be even half as easy as gathering yourself and going to that actually not so far Asian restaurant to pick up a few spring rolls, but I was certain that we will like them more as we know what is inside (I’m not at all criticising our favorite Asian restaurant, but you never know:)) and I was always interested to try them baked instead of fried. Now we only needed a recipe, picked up the missing ingredients from the Asian store and the fun began 😀 Because it was actually fun, rolling the cute spring rolls up in that delicate rice paper – that I thought will break immediately (somehow it is way more resistant than it seems), and even if it looks like a lot of fuss for those couple of spring rolls, I assure you, it is totally worth that little extra effort, and I have to say when I made them the second time I already considered myself a pro. I made them first fried and the second batch in the oven – they were both equally delicious 🙂 Feel free to experiment with the fillings, the first time I followed the recipe that I found, the second time I added sausages and peas as well, yum!
Vietnamese spring rolls
Ingredients (for 10 rolls):
10 pieces of rice paper (I used square but any shape works I guess)
Vegetable oil for frying
For the filling:
1 small carrot, cut into thin slices
0.5 red bell pepper, cut into thin slices
1 small white radish, also cut into thin slices
1 tbsp dried wakame seaweed, soaked in warm water and squeezed
50 g rice noodles, soaked for about 3-5 minutes in boiling hot water
2 eggs
Preparation:
For the filling, mix all the ingredients. To fill the rice paper: place the rice paper (one by one) in hot water for a couple of seconds. Lift it out and place on a cloth. Place a big tablespoon of filling on the rice paper and check out the photos for the folding technique 🙂 Fry the rolls in vegetable oil or bake in the oven until golden brown. Enjoy with sweet chile sauce! My boyfriend liked the leftovers even more the next day.
Enjoy 🙂
Notes: This filling has a very smooth taste. Add some salt, pepper, chili for a boost 🙂 As for the wakame seaweed – to my (European) nose, it had a very strange odour but it added a nice pop to the filling (both in color and taste). Feel free to experiment with different types of fillings. The variations are endless!
Great step by step instructions! I admire you for going to all the work and learning to make these. They look perfect! Thank you for sharing the recipe and how to do it.
Thank you 🙂 I’ll give (half of) the compliments to the step-by-step photographer boyfriend 😉
Wow! Great job! They look delicious. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thank you Senorita!
Excellent! I love spring rolls & you’re right about how making them yourself gives you that little extra reassurance of the what the ingredients are. I keep thinking about making them myself but always talk myself out of it because it sounds so hard. I’m glad you showed that rice paper part because I didn’t realize that’s what it actually looks like.
Diane – it is actually pretty straightforward 🙂 Although I still keep convincing my mum as well to try it 😀
I, too, love Spring rolls. I’ve never attempted to make them because it’s a lot of work for one person. I guess I have to invite some people over for dinner. They just better not expect to take any of the leftovers home. 🙂
😀 there is always a good reason to invite people around 🙂
I’ve never been successful at making spring rolls (with the rice paper wrapper)…will have to try again with your recipe! =)
Hope it will turn out good 😉
I can learn a lot from this blog 🙂
Congratilationsm your recipes seem like perfect 🙂
Thank you : ))