This Thursday was the most gorgeous day of the year so far, here in Vienna. The sun was set in a soft blue sky without any clouds, the fresh green on the leaves was so bright and promising. The sun came through the leaves and the play of shadows and lights was mesmerizing.
I am still in STREET FOOD mode and things I can eat with my hands, so I did some research, ventured through all my cook books and found incredible good recipes. To make it my own I wanted to make it pure vegan and here is my version of a healthy - easy - everyone can do it - recipe with only a few ingredients which won't leave you desperate when you go shopping for them.
These are some of the ingredients you need. See how easy it is to roll them. To be honest I don't make them that often and I am pretty slow at rolling my spring rolls. One of my cookbooks tells the story behind their famous spring rolls noting they sell 80 000 rolls a year and they are rolled mainly by one single woman ...
The biggest mistake you can make is leave the rice paper too long in the water and it tears, leave it too short and it won't bend and break. Keep a wet cloth underneath is much better than rolling them on the work surface, the cloth prevents the paper from slipping and absorbs the water best.
Keep a bowl of warm water in front of your tea towel, the instruction on the package said cold water, but that doesn't work. Wet one sheet at the time until it becomes slippery and soft approx. 3 minutes and carefully lift it out. By the time you get more experienced you can wet the next sheet while you roll the first one.
Place the vermicelli (only as much as fits in the palm of your hand), carrots, onions, cilantro and sugar peas, on the lower part of the paper. Place a mint leave or 3 small ones on the upper part (that is for decoration), fold in both sides to the middle so they touch each other and roll the piece as tight as you can before the paper tears up to the top. That makes them 8-9 cm long.
This way you can be really creative with the mint leaves, they will shine through the final roll of your paper and you can make them look all individual! I decided to take a really big leave as you can see and because I love the taste of mint in this dish.
When you are done rolling them you can take a piece of kitchen paper towel, rinse it and wring it out, put it over the ready plate or spring rolls and wrap it with plastic foil. This way the spring rolls keep soft until you serve them and up to 3 hours. The spring roll does not taste that interesting, the sauce will spice it and give it the right flavors. I recommend to make double the sauce as it easily keeps in the fridge for days if you do not use it all.
Print recipe
Preparation time : 45 min
You need
Springrolls
12 round sheets of rice paper (200g)
1oo g | 5 cups cooked rice vermicelli
1 cup spring onions in slices
2 cups julienne carrots ( thin slices of carrots)
2 cups of julienne sugar peas, best if cut length wise
12 mint leaves
1 cup cilantro leaves
Dipping sauce: mix all in a bowl
4 tbsp sweet soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp of lime juice
½ tbsp of fresh chili in small pieces
