So I was browsing the isles of the supermarket the other day, leaning towards the Mexican food, when a new range of Asian cooking DIY kits caught my eye. I was going to do a blog post about the best there is to offer, but actually the amount there is on sale isn't substantial enough to compare. Trying to contrast these Vietnamese spring rolls with other things in the same section like a Malaysian curry isn't really fair to either party as they are so different.
I chose these spring rolls as I had some prawns in the freezer I wanted to use up, and this pack looked pretty appealing.
Vietnamese spring rolls kit, from Nem Viet. I bought mine from Waitrose for £2.69 and at the moment, they are only stocked by Waitrose and Whole Foods.
The pack contains rice paper to hold your spring rolls together, rice noodles and a packet of sweet chilli dipping sauce. All you need to add are cooked prawns and some shredded lettuce, but it does say on the packet that adding some grated carrot and bean sprouts gives it more texture, so I bought these too.
So all you need to do is cover the rice noodles in boiling water and leave for 5 minutes. Get a large bowl of lukewarm water and a few plates out. Make sure you have your lettuce chopped, carrot grated and your bean sprouts and prawns at the ready.
Dunk your first sheet of rice paper into the bowl of lukewarm water and keep fully submerged for 2-3 full seconds. Take it out and shake a few of the drips off and place on a clean, dry plate. Start stacking in your filling. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I got the hang of it fairly quickly. The photo above has far too much in! It needs half of that!
It is easier to stack the prawns on the top, and the noodles on the bottom, but I like the effect this way gives at the end. Try and line everything up so it is almost in a rectangle. Don't have bean sprouts pointing in all directions or they will burst the rice paper.
Start by bringing one side completely over the filling. Then fold in both the sides, and finally roll it up. Here's how...
The rice paper has to be stretchy enough, so if it still feels a bit rigid just leave it for a few seconds so that it sticks nicely to the other sides.
It took me a few attempts to get it right, but once I had it it was easy.
The one thing you must do between making each spring roll is to wipe the plate clean that you are making them on. The rice paper holds the perfect amount of water and there might be some left on the plate from the previous spring roll, so wipe to make sure it's dry.
I chose these spring rolls as I had some prawns in the freezer I wanted to use up, and this pack looked pretty appealing.
The pack contains rice paper to hold your spring rolls together, rice noodles and a packet of sweet chilli dipping sauce. All you need to add are cooked prawns and some shredded lettuce, but it does say on the packet that adding some grated carrot and bean sprouts gives it more texture, so I bought these too.
So all you need to do is cover the rice noodles in boiling water and leave for 5 minutes. Get a large bowl of lukewarm water and a few plates out. Make sure you have your lettuce chopped, carrot grated and your bean sprouts and prawns at the ready.
Dunk your first sheet of rice paper into the bowl of lukewarm water and keep fully submerged for 2-3 full seconds. Take it out and shake a few of the drips off and place on a clean, dry plate. Start stacking in your filling. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I got the hang of it fairly quickly. The photo above has far too much in! It needs half of that!
It is easier to stack the prawns on the top, and the noodles on the bottom, but I like the effect this way gives at the end. Try and line everything up so it is almost in a rectangle. Don't have bean sprouts pointing in all directions or they will burst the rice paper.
Start by bringing one side completely over the filling. Then fold in both the sides, and finally roll it up. Here's how...
The rice paper has to be stretchy enough, so if it still feels a bit rigid just leave it for a few seconds so that it sticks nicely to the other sides.
It took me a few attempts to get it right, but once I had it it was easy.
The one thing you must do between making each spring roll is to wipe the plate clean that you are making them on. The rice paper holds the perfect amount of water and there might be some left on the plate from the previous spring roll, so wipe to make sure it's dry.
It is impossible to make every one the same, so each looks different, and the size is perfect as it is exactly 2 bites. With the sweet chilli dipping sauce they really are great.
Definitely worth the effort and quite enjoyable to do! There is a bit of a sense of achievement when you get one that looks perfect.
The price ends up working out to just under £6 for 10 rolls. £2.68 for the kit, £2.50 for a packet of uncooked prawns, 50p for bean sprouts, 17p for a carrot and 40p for lettuce. £5.85 is not bad! The one complaint I would have is there need to be more rice paper sheets in the packet, because if you do bulk it out with bean sprouts, there are lots of ingredients left over but no rice paper.
However, I have bought this packet twice now, and highly recommend it for an impressive looking but simple dish.
No comments:
Post a Comment