Shrimp Spring Rolls
We recently had spring rolls at my parent’s house. Mike thought they were delicious and now he wants to eat them all the time!
I love the “simplicity” of this dish. You can essentially put whatever you want in these rolls. Traditionally, they contain pork, shrimp, lettuce and I think mint leaves. My family has never been big on making traditional dishes with “normal” ingredients. We put pork, chicken, beef, tofu, or whatever we have on hand in spring rolls.
Another feature that I love about spring rolls is that each person “gets” to make their own. The cook doesn’t have to worry about making spring rolls for everyone, well, at least in my family, the cook didn’t. I really don’t understand how the cook would really be able to make all the spring rolls in the first place. Such a large number of spring rolls would need to be created to feed everyone. I would get hungry looking at all those spring rolls and, of course have to sample my creations to make sure they were tasty.
Mike would also have an issue trying to make all of the spring rolls by himself, but for a different reason. He would be sampling the ingredients, mainly the shrimp.
I also used “spring mix” instead of lettuce, which is more traditional. I had the spring mix for salads and didn’t really want to buy additional lettuce just for the spring rolls. The rolls were still delicious, even with the stronger taste of the spring mix.
The best part of this dish is the peanut dipping sauce. The sauce is, of course optional. When I was growing up, I would sometimes dip the shrimp spring rolls in soy sauce instead.
Now that I’ve grown up, I do love the peanut dipping sauce. Although, sometimes when I’m too tired to make peanut sauce, I do use soy sauce instead.
This dish is great for (slightly) picky eaters, since you can really customize this however you like.
- For the spring rolls:
- ½ pound (31-40) cooked shrimp
- 1 (10 ounce) package dried rice vermicelli noodles
- 1 pound spring mix, washed
- 12 (8 inch diameter) rice paper wrappers
- For the dipping sauce:
- ¼ cup hoisin
- 2 tablespoons peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- ½ teaspoon olive oil
- Slice each piece of shrimp in half, lengthwise. Place on a plate.
- Meanwhile, cook rice vermicelli according to the instructions on the package. Drain well, and place in a large bowl.
- Fill a deep, but wide plate with warm water. The plate should be larger than the rice paper wrappers.
- Prepare the dipping sauce by placing hoisin, peanut butter, vinegar and oil in a medium sized bowl. Stir until well combined. Divide dipping sauce among 4 small bowls.
- Quickly dip the rice paper wrappers in the warm water, making sure water has touched the whole rice wrapper (top and bottom). Do not leave the wrapper in the water too long. Place rice wrapper on a plate.
- Place 3 pieces of shrimp, in a single layer, in the middle of the rice wrapper, along the height of the wrapper. Leave a small amount of room at the top and bottom of the rice wrapper. Place a small handful of spring mix evenly over the shrimp. Place a small handful of rice vermicelli evenly on top of the spring mix. Do not overstuff the spring roll!
- Fold the top and bottom of the rice wrapper over the rice vermicelli. Fold the left side of the wrapper over the vermicelli and roll until there is no rice paper left. Repeat with the remaining rice paper and other ingredients.
- Serve with dipping sauce.
Adapted from White on Rice Couple
