Vietnamese summer rolls

Tamara West

The gluttony of the Christmas season and the heat has Sid and I turning to lighter meals. Convincing Zoya to give salads a go has been the challenge. Our child, who eats all her vegetables when they are part of a meal, balked when faced with a meal that was made up of only vegetables.

Sid, who doesn’t give up as easily as me, decided to involve Zoya in the kitchen making Vietnamese rolls, adding prawns as they are her favourite seafood. Soaking the rice paper and feeling it change texture was the most interesting part of the recipe for the little chef and she loved wrapping the translucent parcels. For the first time ever we watched our hospobaby tuck into raw vegetables with gusto as she dipped each roll in sweet chilli sauce. The sense of accomplishment on the faces of both father and daughter was a bonus for me.

Ingredients

12 large	Prawns, cleaned and deveined (Main)
100 g	Mung bean sprouts
1	Carrot, finely sliced in matchsticks
1 bunch	Spring onion, finely sliced
1 handful	Coriander
1 handful	Snowpea sprouts
1 handful	Mint leaves
1 tsp	Tamari sauce
½ tsp	Sesame oil
1 packet	Rice paper
0	Sweet chilli sauce, to serve

Directions

1. Heat a saucepan of boiling salted water and cook the prawns for 1 minute or until firm to touch. Refresh in ice water. Cut the prawns in half lengthwise.
2. Toss the mung beans, carrot, spring onions, coriander, snow pea shoot sand mint together in a large bowl. Season with tamari and sesame oil. Toss again.
3. Put warm water in a large bowl. Working with a single sheet of rice paper at a time, immerse the sheet into water and gently soak until it becomes soft. Remove the sheet to a damp tea towel.
4. Working quickly to avoid the sheet drying, add the vegetable mix to the centre of the sheet. Put two halves of the prawn on top of the vegetable mixture. Fold up the lower part of the circular sheet and then roll the rice paper sheet to form a cylinder. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have 12 rice paper rolls.
5. Serve with a bowl of sweet chilli sauce on the side.