Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Spot Prawns
June 1st, 2020A Fresh and Healthy Way to Fuse Protein and Veggies
These Vietnamese summer rolls have an Alaskan twist, featuring wild-caught spot prawns rather than the usual shrimp filling. This gives the summer rolls a sweeter flavor and more delicate bite, making them some of the best you've ever had. Spot prawn summer rolls are crowd-pleasers — great as appetizers or entrees. But they're also good options for a picnic or pack lunch.
To turn the rice paper into rice paper rolls, the circles of rice paper will need to be soaked in water until they're just pliable and sticky, but not soggy. It might take a couple of tries to get it right, but you'll quickly get a feel for just how long to soak them before filling them and rolling them up.
If you don't have spot prawns in your freezer, use your palate and creativity to guide the recipe: any variety of seafood can go into rice paper rolls. If you prefer something bold, one of your new favorite summer roll recipes might be made with wild-caught salmon.
Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Spot Prawns
By Wild Alaskan Company
These are crowd-pleasers that are great as appetizers or entrees, and the spot prawns can be replaced with any steamed fish.
Prep time
15 minutes
Cook Time
15 minutes
Total time
30 minutes
Yield
4-8 servings
Ingredients
- Rice paper wraps (larger size recommended)
- Rice vinegar
- Vermicelli (rice noodles - white or brown rice noodles, also called Vietnamese rice sticks)
- Cucumbers, julienned into matchsticks
- Shredded carrot, white and purple cabbage (you can use a pre-made mix to avoid so much grating work)
- Avocado, sliced long
- Cilantro, chopped
- Sesame oil
- Lemon
- Spot prawns, thawed and peeled (one per roll, so if you have 8 prawns, that will make 8 rolls)
- Peanut sauce (store-bought peanut sauce for dipping)
Instructions
1. Boil water. Put vermicelli in a bowl and add boiled water to it until noodles soften. Drain. Add a little rice vinegar and salt, toss.
2. Dress the cabbage/carrot mix with sesame oil.
3. Dress the julienned cucumbers with a little lemon and salt.
4. Steam the prawns.
5. The trick to building the rolls, have everything ready and create an assembly line.
6. To work with the rice paper, take one at a time and hold in the warm water pirex until you feel it soft. It takes a minute to "get" the perfect consistency, so you might need to try a few times til you do. Once the texture feels soft and workable, put on the dry plate and start filling with all the elements - again, you'll start to get a sense of how much you need of each, so as to not over or under fill.
7. Same with the rolling. You will likely have to do a few before you "get" how it works. Start by folding in the bottom, then from top, then the sides. It's moist so things will ideally stick into place.
Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs may increase your risk of food-borne illness, especially if you have a certain medical condition. The FDA recommends an internal temperature of 145°F for cooked fish.
