Methods to Make a Vietnamese Rice Paper Roll Platter

For many individuals, the primary issues that come to thoughts after they consider Vietnamese meals are scorching bowls of phở and crusty bánh mi. However, for me, the meal that greatest represents Vietnamese delicacies is the rice roll platter. Usually served as a ravishing unfold, the rice roll platter can accommodate all our nuanced regional variations, from the North’s extra elegant fare and the middle of the nation’s punchy spices to the South’s candy tooth, in addition to our nationwide commonalities, like our love for rice and our liberal use of uncooked herbs and greens. 

Though a rice roll platter tends to require a protracted record of components, it’s meant to be a easy preparation that’s simply and instantly customizable; consider it as a deconstructed gỏi cuốn, or recent spring roll, the place you possibly can decide and select no matter you need to embody in every roll as you eat. Some mixtures are so common that they’ve develop into the enduring dish for a specific place, just like the cá lóc cuốn bánh tráng (rice paper rolls with grilled snakehead fish) of the South’s Mekong Delta, and the bánh tráng thịt luộc (rice paper rolls with poached pork) of Da Nang, the most important metropolitan middle of Central Vietnam. Up North in Ha Noi, nem thính cuốn (rice paper rolls with pig’s ears in toasted rice powder) can be a must-try. 

Helen Le, the Da Nang-born creator of the YouTube channel Helen’s Recipes and creator of two cookbooks, believes rice paper rolls embody the best stability of taste and diet in Vietnamese delicacies. “You’ve carbs from the rice paper and vermicelli,” she says, “and the protein may be fish, meat, or tofu. Then there are herbs and greens. Lastly, a daring dipping sauce will carry the whole lot collectively.”

Every of the components included in a rice roll platter is rigorously chosen, so I requested Le to stroll me via how she picks and prepares every part, and I additionally requested Lauren Lopez and Vicky Tong, the sisters and recipe builders behind the weblog Viet Home Cooking, and Jimmy Ly, chef and proprietor of Madame Vo BBQ in New York, to weigh in as properly.

The Rice Paper

Making rice paper is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. It includes grinding rice and turning it right into a batter, steaming the batter on muslin material stretched over a pot of boiling water to type rice sheets, chopping these sheets into rounds, after which drying these rounds on bamboo screens, which imprint the rice paper with the wavy sample of the bamboo weave. There are some villages in Vietnam focusing on producing rice paper, and a few households have been in enterprise for over 200 years. Among the many most well-known is Trảng Bàng, a city within the Southwestern province of Tây Ninh, recognized for its smooth, dewy rice paper. And whereas the most typical type of rice paper is bought plain, there are variations constructed from coconut milk and candy potatoes, and a few are peppered with sesame seeds, dried bananas, or salted shrimp, amongst different issues. 

Regardless that grocery shops within the US are likely to solely carry plain rice paper, purchasing for the translucent wrappers can nonetheless be complicated. Ly advises in opposition to those constructed from 100% tapioca flour since they are often trickier to make use of as wraps. “As an alternative, search for wrappers made with rice flour or a mixture of rice flour and tapioca flour,” he says. “As a high quality verify, rice paper must also be gluten-free. Go for Three Ladies (Ba Cô Gái) or any labels with the pink rose.”

Lopez and Tong additionally want wrappers with added tapioca flour. “They supply a chewier texture and are extra pliable,” the duo shares. “Strive manufacturers with the time period ‘banh trang deo’ on the bundle.”

Moreover, Le stresses the significance of treating rice paper correctly. She cautions in opposition to dunking the sheets into water till they’re soggy, the best way Gordon Ramsay does in a broadly circulated video. As an alternative, she says, “Use your damp hand to rub its floor and look ahead to 15 to twenty seconds. It’ll take a while for the sheet to soak up the water.” 

The Herbs and Greens

On a rice paper platter, uncooked herbs and greens—by no means cooked—occupy essentially the most area. Leafy greens comparable to Bibb lettuce and mustard greens work properly as a crisp and durable base, whereas greens like carrot, daikon, and cucumber add crunch. Different much less frequent textural accoutrements embody banana blossoms and lotus stems. 

Fruits like pineapple, inexperienced banana, and star fruit will also be included, together with all kinds of herbs, a few of the hottest of that are mint, cilantro, basil, perilla, and fish mint (which, regardless of its title, just isn’t a kind of mint, however heart-shaped leaves that odor barely fishy and have a tangy aftertaste.) 

As you set collectively your individual collection of greens and herbs for a rice roll platter, you need to have a mixture of floral, earthy, bitter, bitter, and herbaceous notes, which is able to assist complement the meaty component of the meal and provide distinction to the salty dipping sauce.

The Starch: Rice Vermicelli 

In Vietnam, bún, or rice vermicelli is broadly accessible and can be utilized instantly; there’s no have to boil it in water. It has a shorter shelf life than its dried counterparts within the US, which are sometimes marketed as “rice sticks.” Nevertheless, the English translations may be fairly complicated, as I’ve purchased rice sticks and rice vermicelli that weren’t bun in any respect. As an alternative, search for the Vietnamese time period “bún tươi” (which accurately interprets to “recent noodle,” though it’s not truly recent) on the bundle—you possibly can by no means go mistaken with that. To make use of them, cook dinner the noodles in boiling water for 5 minutes or till they’re now not translucent and rinse them below chilly water to stop clumping.

The Protein

There are eating places that serve rice paper rolls with poached pork all through Vietnam, however essentially the most well-known and customary rendition is from Da Nang. It options thinly sliced lean ham with each the fats and the pores and skin intact. The cooking technique includes rolling a slab of the meat right into a log and securing it with butcher’s string earlier than poaching.

For many who want grilled meat, a great choice is nem lụi, a specialty from town of Huế that consists of fatty pork pounded right into a thick paste, then molded on a lemongrass stalk and cooked over charcoal. It’s also possible to discover a variation of this meat-on-a-stick in Nha Trang, the place pig’s pores and skin is added to the combination for some texture. Alongside the streets of Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, distributors lure prospects with the smoke from their griller, the place parcels of floor beef wrapped in wild betel leaves line up.

In Central coastal provinces, steamed mackerel scad is an everyday merchandise included in rice roll platters. The fish is calmly seasoned earlier than being steamed with aromatics comparable to ginger, onion, and scallion. Travelling southward to the Mekong Delta, the place life is blessed with loads of freshwater fish, snakeheads are a preferred alternative for each steaming and grilling.

The Dipping Sauce 

Le and Ly each agree that the dipping sauce could make or break a rice paper roll platter, for the reason that proteins are seasoned minimally and the opposite elements are raw.

For Le, mắm nêm (fermented fish sauce) is the right accompaniment to Da Nang’s rice paper roll platter. Like fish sauce, mắm nêm is constructed from anchovies, however whereas the previous is strained to provide a transparent liquid, the latter isn’t, and the ultimate product has a gritty consistency. To tame its funk and briny style, mắm nêm is combined with sugar, pineapple chunks, and aromatics like garlic and lemongrass.

The proteins in a rice paper roll can range from pork and beef to seafood like fish and shrimp (I’ve but to come back throughout hen). They are often boiled, steamed, grilled, or poached and are cooked with little-to-no seasoning in order that the flavour of every part within the platter can shine via. 

Those that aren’t a fan of the overtly funky taste of mam nem can go for nước chấm, the extra frequent fish sauce-based dipping sauce. These in Southern Vietnam like their nước chấm candy and daring, mixing in sugar and chiles, whereas Northerners want a milder taste, mixing their fish sauce with vinegar or lime juice, water, and comparatively much less sugar. 

To determine on which sauce to make use of, Lopez seems to be at what goes contained in the rolls. “I wish to have nước chấm with marinated-meat rolls and a thicker hoisin peanut sauce with lighter gỏi cuốn,” she says. Her hoisin peanut sauce is constructed from hoisin sauce, peanut butter, and Coco Rico coconut soda.

In the meantime, grilled pork in Huế or Nha Trang comes with a extra elaborate meat sauce, which consists of floor pork or liver (or a mixture of each) cooked down and thickened with glutinous rice flour. Annatto seed oil is added for an orange tint.

Placing It All Collectively

When you’ve gathered all of the elements and also you’re able to eat, organize the unfold in your eating desk, beginning with a beneficiant part for the herbs and greens, adopted by separate serving dishes on your protein, rice vermicelli, and rice paper. You possibly can have a bowl for the water to dampen the rice paper, however I discover a spray bottle can do the trick with much less mess. Don’t neglect a plate and a small sauce bowl for every visitor. 

To assemble a roll, lay the moistened rice paper flat and place the elements in its backside third, leaving some area on either side of the wrappers. There’s no hard-and-fast rule for what goes in first or final, however I like so as to add greens, then rice vermicelli, after which the protein. I distribute them evenly on the rice paper sheet, so I can get a little bit of the whole lot in every chew. To shut it up, fold the area on the edges in, pull the underside of the wrapper up over the filling and begin rolling it away from you, utilizing your fingers to tighten the roll as you go. And be happy to get pleasure from one proper after you assemble. 

Whereas rice paper roll platters began out as an off-the-cuff meal to arrange at dwelling, they now seem commonly on menus, from push carts on Vietnam’s road corners to upscale eating places within the US, like Madame Vo in New York Metropolis. Whereas the components range, there stays a deep sense of intimacy concerned within the dish—whether or not at dwelling or in eating places, the method of tearing crisp lettuce leaves and rolling rice paper sheets connects folks with the bounty that Vietnam has to supply.

October 2021