I love Vietnamese spring rolls, However, the truth is that I had never seen it until I came to the US when I was 18. It’s fresh, it’s refreshing, it’s full of veggies, and it’s delicious! It might sound like an easy statement to make, but for a meat lover like me to say so, it’s such a great compliment to a mostly vegetable dish!
Since I love cooking, I was desperate to find out how to make this dish. The things in the rolls are not terribly hard to figure out, but the wrapper though, it’s a mysteriously beautiful and delicious covering that I can’t figure out. What in the world is the transparent and chewy wrap? I gave up quickly. Since I didn’t know how to make this dish, we always order this dish when we go to Vietnamese restaurants, until I accidentally came across one random youtube clip teaching on how to make this. I was like….that’s it? It’s so simple!
Today I’m showing you this super easy but fancy appetizer, time to impress your friends with this perfect cold appetizer in this hot summer!
Vietnamese Spring Rolls Ingredients:
- 10 Rice papers
- 15 shrimps
- 1 green leaf lettuce
- 7 oz of pork belly (or pork shoulder)
- 6 oz of dried rice stick (1 roll in a pack)
- 1 Tbsp of peanut butter
- 5 Tbsp of Hoisin sauce
- ¼ tsp of garlic powder (few shakes)
Recently, many of the supermarkets have an Asian food section. You can easily find rice paper and rice sticks there. If not, you can get them at any Chinese or Vietnamese supermarket. As for shrimp, I strongly suggest frozen shrimp from costco. Shrimp from costco equals quality that is unbeatable. If you think pork belly is too greasy, you can use pork shoulder, I got some from costco as well, specifically for friends that don’t like fatty pork, and it works just as well.
Mix your sauce first. Take peanut butter and Hoisin sauce at 1:5 ratio, mix it well. Add a pinch or a few shakes of garlic powder to add to your flavor. If you have crushed peanut, it will be great, it’s very important to the sauce, however, considering that you don’t have much other application besides the spring roll sauce, I decided to take out crushed peanut. It’s still acceptable to me and it still taste good.
First, boil two pots of water. After you cook the rice sticks, the water will turn slimy, and it is definitely not the best hot water you want to cook your shrimp and pork!. After one pot is boiling, put in dry rice sticks and cook for 8 to 9 min, turn off heat and let it sits for another 3 min, remove from the pot, drain and rinse with cold water.
At another pot, put in thawed shrimp and cook for 3 to 4 min. If you worried it’s not cooked, cook for another minute or two. Pro Tip: when the shrimp curl up like the perfect C shape shown in picture, it’s ready. Remove the shrimp and rinse it with cold water
After the shrimp have cooled, slice them in half lengthwise.
boil the pork in hot water for 25 min to 30 min. Pro Tip: you can cook the pork early and store it in fridge. Cooked pork belly and pork shoulder can make lots of other yummy dishes!
Cool the pork and then slice them into about 20 slices
Wash the lettuce and peel it. Now, you are ready to wrap the spring rolls
Dip your rice paper in warm water for about 5 seconds, make sure you cover the entire surface with water!
Place your wet rice paper on a flat surface, preferably, your cutting board
Place your lettuce at the side closest to you. Place cooked rice sticks on top of it, wrap it and press down with the edge close to you
Line up your ingredient first. You should have lettuce and rice sticks the first, then pork second and then shrimp the last. The reason is to have the prettiest ingredient showing at the outside. Now you can fold the side edges to the center.
As you row the roll down to the end, make sure you squeeze on the way so your spring rolls are solid and tight.
Done! Bring it to your friends’ potluck party to show off your cooking skills with this fine looking spring rolls
- 10 rice papers
- 15 shrimp
- 1 green leaf lettuce
- 7 oz of pork belly (or pork shoulder)
- 6 oz of dried rice stick (1 roll in a pack)
- 1 Tbsp of peanut butter
- 5 Tbsp of Hoisin sauce
- ¼ tsp of garlic powder (few shakes)
- Cook rice stick for 8 to 9 min in a pot of boiling water, turn off heat and let noodles sit for another 3 min, drain the rice stick and rinse it with cold water
- Boil shrimp for 4 min or until it’s cooked, remove the shrimp from the pot and rinse with cold water
- Use the pot to boil pork belly for 25 min to 30 min, remove from the pot and rinse with cold water
- Slice the shrimps in half lengthwise
- Thinly slice the pork belly
- soak one rice paper in warm water for 5 sec
- line up ingredient in this manner: lettuce at the bottom, rice stick on top of lettuce, 2 pork belly slices, 3 shrimps slices, color side face down
- First, fold the bottom to cover lettuce and rice stick
- Second, while holding down the lettuce, gently fold the slides to the center
- Third, roll the spring roll firmly to squeeze out air at the same time
- mix peanut butter and Hoisin sauce at 1:5 ratio and add a pinch of garlic powder for the dipping sauce