Recipes Discovered

Summer Rolls Recipe

When Seth and I eat at a Vietnamese restaurant, we always get summer rolls. Summer rolls are similar to spring rolls, but they aren’t fried and are served at room temperature. Shrimp, vegetables, herbs, and rice vermicelli (a very thin Asian rice noodle) are wrapped inside an unfried rice wrapper. They are often served with fish sauce or peanut dipping sauce. I don’t really care for fried spring rolls, but there is something about the combination of the chewy rice wrapper and the filling of the summer rolls that I love.

I decided I would make 3 dipping sauces for the summer rolls. The first was the traditional chili fish sauce, which consists of fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, sugar, garlic chili sauce and water. I whisked the ingredients together until the sugar dissolved. The second sauce was peanut sauce, which is another traditional sauce served with summer rolls. >> Read more

Vietnamese Sandwich Recipe

In Hawaii, there is a popular Vietnamese shop called Ba-Le Sandwiches & Bakery. They specialize in serving bahn mi, which is essentially a Vietnamese sandwich. Bahn mi are served on a french bread or baguettes, and are filled with pickled carrots and daikon (Japanese radish), cucumber, onions, and a choice of meat. Lemongrass chicken was always my favorite. These unique sandwiches had amazing flavor and such a range of textures. The bread was crisp on the outside, but fluffy on the inside. The chicken was warm and spicy, but the vegetables were cool and sweet. Since moving, I have been trying to find all of the ingredients to make my own bahn mi, and it has been a long process. I think I finally found the recipes and the ingredients though, so here is my version of the Vietnamese Sandwich. >> Read more