August 8, 2008

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Unlike Chinese spring rolls, Vietnamese spring rolls, or summer rolls are not fried. Although you can use the rice wrapper to wrap things like shrimp, pork, or crab meat, and dry them. They'll have a different kind of crispiness to them, compared to Vietnamese chả giò.

Many VN restaurants have adopted the wheat flour wrapper, in place of rice paper, to make the rolls crisper for a longer period of time. This makes it confusing for people to know between chả giò and egg rolls.

Anyway, whatever the name, just use the one that you'll remember easily and eat the ones you like.

I think I like to eat things that are colorful. Even though there are no carrots in summer rolls, I like the orange color peeking through, in place of shrimps, for the vegetarian version. The sauce is simply a mix of fried minced garlic, hoisin sauce, chili, soy sauce, and a bit of sugar. Then topped with some crushed peanuts. You can do a fish sauce combination too, of fish sauce, boiling water, garlic, sugar, lime, and Thai chilies.

1 comment:

Tom Eeee said...

my favourite is when they have some fried pork or tofu in the middle - chewy on the outside and crunchy in the middle... yum yum

I'm gonna make sure I get them tomorrow in London - I'm going to the Vietnamese area for dinner.