In her most recent book, Vietnamese Food Any Day, Nguyen deliberately eschewed Asian cookware like woks and bamboo steamers in order to develop recipes that a home cook could make without any special equipment. “It turned out to be surprisingly liberating,” she says. “I don’t have to cook exactly the way my mother cooked.” She also stuck to readily available ingredients. “Mainstream supermarkets are so well stocked now with Asian ingredients,” Nguyen says, “that anyone can find what they need without going to a specialty market.” Once you master how to make rice paper rolls, you’re limited only by your creativity. “Almost anything can go into a roll as long as it’s soft and thin,” says Andrea Nguyen. Here’s how to roll spring rolls like a pro.
Step 1: Dip Your Rice Paper
Fill a shallow dish or large deep skillet with water that’s a little hotter than bath temperature (about 110ºF). Slide half the rice paper into very warm water, then rotate it through your fingers until paper is completely wet.
Step 2: Build It
Place the wet rice paper on a flat surface. Wait about 1 minute before layering ingredients; the paper should be tacky like a sticky note. Start with a few leaves of greens (we’ve used fresh mint and baby lettuce here); follow those with an egg-size mound of cooked rice noodles, then thinly sliced pickled or fresh vegetables. Rice Noodle Tip: While working on her book, Nguyen had a revelation. Gluten-free rice-based spaghetti in the supermarket was a version of the rice noodles found at Asian markets. “I actually like them better.” So feel free to swap gluten-free spaghetti for rice noodles.
Step 3: Start to Roll
Bring up the bottom edge of paper to cover filling. Then roll away from you once.
Step 4: The Finish
Place your protein next to the rolled edge. (Adding proteins like shrimp last allow them to be visible on top of the wrapped roll for a pretty presentation.) Fold in both sides of paper. Roll to enclose filling. Nguyen’s Nuoc Cham Dipping Sauce is a classic accompaniment to rice paper rolls and lettuce wraps. Sort of like a Vietnamese version of a vinaigrette, the sauce is a refreshing mix of salty (fish sauce), sweet (sugar), spicy (chiles), and sour (lime juice and rice vinegar) ingredients. You’ll be able to find most of these ethnic ingredients (chile-garlic sauce, lemongrass paste, and fish sauce) in the Asian aisle of your grocery store or at your local Asian market.
