Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls

These striking rice paper rolls make a great dinner party starter - as impressive as they look, they are really simple to make so you could even get your guests to make their own! They are best eaten straight away.

Rice Paper Rolls with tempeh, fruits and salad herbs

Dietary: Vegan, Gluten-free | Serves 4

Prep time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 50g mungbeannoodles
• 60g bean sprouts, washed
• 1 carrot, cut into matchsticks
• 10cm piece of daikon (mooli), cut into matchsticks
• ½ red pepper, cut into matchsticks
• ¼ cucumber, cut into matchsticks
• ¼ mango, cut into slices
• Handful of lettuce leaves
• Handful of herbs: Vietnamese mint, Thai basil, Coriander, mint/basil leaves
• 12 slices of crispy tempeh
• 12 large round dried rice paperwrappers

Method

1. Soak the mung beannoodles in hot water for 10 minutes until they are soft. Drain and chop them into 5cm lengths.
2. Prepare the vegetables placing each variety in a separate bowl. Leave the lettuce leaves whole and don’t chop the herbs.
3. To rehydrate the dried rice paperwrappers, fill a large bowl with cold water, approx 10cms deep.
4. Dunk one rice paper at a time into the waterfora few seconds then carefully take it out and place on a plate or chopping board.
5. Create a square of the leaves, herbs, matchstick vegetables, fruits and noodles in the middle of the rice paper, and top with a piece of crispy tempeh.
6. Fold the sides in to meet in the middle and roll up tightly over the filling.
7. Cut in two and serve with the cut side uppermost.
8. Serve at once with shoyu dipping sauce.

Crispy Tempeh

Ingredients

• 350g pack of tempeh
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper
• ¼ tsp chilli flakes
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil

Method

1. Slice the tempeh into 12 thin slices.
2. Mix the salt, black pepper and chilli flakes through the flour.
3. Dip the tempeh in the flour to evenly coat.
4. Heat the oil in a wide frying pan and fry both sides of the tempeh until crisp and golden.
5. Drain well onto kitchen roll to remove any excess oil.

Shoyu Dipping Sauce

Fish sauce ‘nuoc mam’ is in all Vietnamese food so for vegetarians this has to be replaced. This is our vegetarian version to use instead of fish sauce.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp water or fresh coconut juice
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• 1 tsp palm sugar
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp shoyu or 1 tbsp tamari

Method

1. Mix the water or fresh coconut juice with the vinegar and sugar to dissolve the sugar.
2. Add the lime juice, garlic and chilli and stir in the shoyu or tamari.
3. Leave to sit for the flavours to infuse together.
4. Green jackfruit has become a very trendy ‘meat substitute’ as when its cooked it has the consistency of pulled pork. Buy tins of green jackfruit which is unripe and not sweet from Asian stores.

Also featured in the June 2018 issue of Vegetarian Living Magazine.

Delicious food photography by Rob Wicks of Eat Pictures.

Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram where we are chatting about all things foodie and, if you like this post, please share it!

To keep up to date with events and goings on at the cookery school sign up for our newsletter.