Thursday 7 May 2009

rice paper rolls - made by me

Work has been keeping me busy and once again, I'm back to my backlog of posts. This was from a couple of weeks back when we had a family get-together at our place. Everyone was bringing a dish or two and when mum asked whether I was making anything, of course my hand went up (figuratively speaking). 

It's well known that my dad makes a good bowl of soup. Here's what he found when he was buying fish. I watched mum clean the abalone - look how pretty it is! Needless to say, the soup was awesome and perfectly sweetened by the abalone.
Ok...so here I am. I decided to make Vietnamese rice paper rolls. Couldn't quite decide on the one kind so ended up making two different types - one with poached chicken, the other with caramelised pork (recipe from Donna Hay Magazine Issue 43).  You'd hardly think it would take that long but it ended up taking me about 2 hours to get everything ready to start wrapping. Mind you, I was fighting with dad over the stove cause he needed it for his curry and soup.  Really you can't have too many cooks in the kitchen! Mum did her best to mediate.
In progress. 
By the time I finished, the original two plates of rolls was reduced to one. Feedback from the cousins was positive and by the end of the night, all rolls were gobbled up (which is quite rare in my household considering every family gathering we have, we tend to have enough food to feed 20 for the week).
Tops to Donna Hay's hoisin peanut dipping sauce which I served with the rice paper rolls. It was so easy to make and tasted great. I don't think anyone even touched the store bought dipping sauce which I also put out on the table. 

Anyway, would like some tips on how to wrap rolls so that they don't look quite so messy. Anyone care to share?

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