Rice paper rolls

Made rice paper rolls with fish dipping sauce again for a couple of lunches, mentioned it before, I thought it was time to add the recipe:


Bought the rice paper rolls in the wonderful Spice Bazaar in Swords - I love this shop, like a real old skool Indian shop when I lived in Rusholme in the 80's and 90's.

It is all about prep, anything can go into to them, noodles, bean sprouts, veg, meat, fish

Soak a handful of glass noodles in boiling water, then drain, handful of bean sprout (I blanch and freeze then as I never use a whole tray and they don't last long).  Peel carrots with a potato peeler, then thinly slice for very fine batons, thinly sliced spring onions and mange touts.  I had half a dozen small crayfish tails in the freeze, they went in, we had roast pork yesterday, so sliced up a bit of the leftovers.  Into a mixing bowl with a couple sliced fresh chillies, lemon juice (ginger and garlic optional - not this time), a splash of soy sauce and mixed it.

Assembling is a process (and San is way better then me, so I outsourced the hard bit) - YouTube has plenty of examples to watch.

Pour slightly cooled boiled water ( or add cold to boiled water) into a shallow bowl, immerse a sheet (they start like brittle plastic) for about 30 seconds, then do a second, overlap them by an 20%, like a Venn diagram, put a cabbage / lettuce / Chinese leaf / pak choy onto it, add filling, not too much.  Fold one end over and then roll into a cigar - as I said YouTube is your man.  I wrap then in greaseproof paper to stop them sticking

For the sauce, sugar, chilli, fish sauce (I have always used Squid brand), lemon juice, spring onions, basil, mint, coriander leaves, garlic, ginger.... whatever you have and like - mine has a lot of birds-eye chillies in it.  I have a dinky little screw top plastic container that is great for dipping sauce / salad dressing / parmesan for lunches at work - that will do for today and tomorrow