Vietnamese Spring Rolls

As far as I understand, Thai spring rolls are narrower with less stuff in them, and often cut up into pieces. The Vietnamese ones are thicker, and eaten as a finger food, I think. They have rice noodles in them, and more fresh herbs. I made Vietnamese ones, because, well, I don't think I can roll well enough to cut up spring rolls.

This is really just a chopping and rolling exercise, its not all that complicated. First, you prepare all the things that are going to go in the spring rolls, then you roll them up and hope that the rice paper doesn't break.

Ingredients:
1/3 package rice vermicelli (they usually come in a big package that is in three parts)
Rice paper wrappers
6 oz pork (I used tenderloin, costco variety...)
~1C fresh basil
~1/2C fresh cilantro
~1/2C fresh mint
1 carrot, julianned
1 cucumber, sliced into long thin slices, but not quite julianned
1 green onion, diced
1C lettuce leaves, diced

Sauce:
4 tsp fish sauce (soy sauce could probably be substituted)
2 tbs fresh lime juice (about one lime)
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 tbs white sugar
1/2 tsp garlic chili sauce (I would go with a little more of this)
3 tbs hoisin sauce (again, I would go with more of this for a thicker sauce)
If you like thinner dipping sauces, add up to 2 tbs water
1/4C chopping peanuts

Pork Marinade:
4 tsp fish sauce
2 tbs lime juice
2 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp garlic chili sauce


La mise en place

First, slice the pork into flat slices, so they'll cook quickly. Marinate the pork for at least 30 min. As it marinates, chop up the ingredients that need chopping. To cook the rice noodles, boil some water, pour it over the noodles in a pot, and put the lid on the pot. Leave those until you're ready to work with them, and they'll be cooked. Once the pork is marinated, cook it until its done, however you like to cook meat. I used sesame oil in a frying pan.

Once the pork is cooked, shred it using a fork. I found that if I held the meat using a knife, I could pull at it with a fork, and it shredded quite nicely.

Fill a large bowl with warm tap water. Place one of the rice wrappers into the water, for about 30 seconds. Once the rice wrapper is pliable, take it out and lay it flat on a cutting board or a table. Start by dabbing a little of the sauce on a small area in the southeastern quadrant of the circle. You're going to keep all the ingredients in the innermost section of that quadrant. Put down a bit of pork, then carrots, green onion, basil, cilantro, and mint. Add some cucumbers, then a little bit of lettuce. Add some rice noodles (use your judgement as to how full you want your wrap to be; the rice noodles taste like exactly nothing: they are just filler to make it roll more easily), then start to roll. dum dum dum!

Its kind of hard to explain this. If you're good at wrapping burritos, you'll be fine. Start with the eastern edge of the circle. Fold it over the stuff thats in the wrapper. Then take the southern edge and fold it northwards, pushing the filling south into the wrapper, to keep it tight. Once you've gotten it mostly around, fold in the western edge, pushing the filling as tightly as you can into the middle. Then finish off the roll. The rice wrappers will dry like a cement, holding it closed.

Repeat with the rest of them. Put the peanuts on top of the dipping sauce, and enjoy!

(I have no idea how many this makes. Somewhere between 12 and 24, depending on how much stuff you put in each one).