Friday nights are date nights for Kevin and I. After work on Fridays, Kevin and I like to squeeze in a quick workout before we go to dinner. Our typical dinner rotation is pizza, sushi, or Vietnamese. This Friday, we ended up going to a local Vietnamese restaurant for pho, rice vermicelli, and summer rolls. We were both hungry so we started out ordering summer rolls. Kevin ordered his usual pho, and I ordered my usual rice vermicelli. When the spring rolls arrived, they were a bit different from the ones I’ve had at other restaurants. The restaurant version had pork and shrimp in it. The ones I typically order only has shrimp. I guess ordering summer rolls for an appetizer on Friday night wasn’t enough, because I craved it again the next day and made some as a snack on Saturday.
Summer Rolls:
· Dried rice vermicelli
· Circular rice paper, used to wrap summer rolls
· 6 cooked shrimps, sliced in half down the middle of the shrimp
· 1 carrot, peeled and julienned
· 1 small cucumber, julienned
· 3 large leaves of butter lettuce, thinly sliced
· A bunch of cilantro
· A bunch of mint
· Warm water (about 160°)
Peanut Sauce:
· 3 tablespoons peanut butter
· 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
· Water, used to smooth out the sauce
Directions:
1) Cook the rice vermicelli according to the package instructions. Prepare all of the ingredients that will go into the summer roll.
2) Cook the circular rice paper by pouring a thin layer of warm water in a shallow dish. Wet the rice paper until softened.
3) To assemble the summer roll, add a layer of cooked shrimp, carrot pieces, cucumber pieces, butter lettuce pieces, cilantro, mint, and cooked rice vermicelli. Fold two sides of the rice paper towards the center and then roll the other two sides around until you form a wrapped summer roll.
4) To make the peanut sauce, combine the peanut butter and hoisin sauce in a small bowl. Slowly add water to loosen up the sauce until you reach your desired consistency. Serve the peanut sauce with the summer rolls.
Takeaways: Summer rolls may also be called spring rolls at some restaurants. It is a very versatile dish that can be made with different ingredients. These summer rolls are very close to the ones I grew up eating at the local Vietnamese restaurant near my childhood home in Brooklyn. The peanut sauce served by the restaurant was usually very thin. I prefer the consistency of my peanut sauce to be in the middle, not too thin and not too thick.