Make a Vietnamese Rice Paper Roll Platter

For many individuals, the primary issues that come to thoughts after they consider Vietnamese meals are sizzling 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 stupendous 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 an extended record of substances, it’s meant to be a easy preparation that’s simply and instantly customizable; consider it as a deconstructed gỏi cuốn, or contemporary spring roll, the place you possibly can choose and select no matter you wish to embody in every roll as you eat. Some combos are so standard 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 heart 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 writer of two cookbooks, believes rice paper rolls embody the perfect stability of taste and diet in Vietnamese delicacies. “You’ve carbs from the rice paper and vermicelli,” she says, “and the protein could be fish, meat, or tofu. Then there are herbs and greens. Lastly, a daring dipping sauce will deliver all the things collectively.”

Every of the substances 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 House Cooking, and Jimmy Ly, chef and proprietor of Madame Vo BBQ in New York, to weigh in as nicely.

The Rice Paper

Making rice paper is a labor-intensive and time-consuming course of. 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, slicing 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 specializing in 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, identified for its gentle, dewy rice paper. And whereas the most typical type of rice paper is offered plain, there are variations produced from coconut milk and candy potatoes, and a few are peppered with sesame seeds, dried bananas, or salted shrimp, amongst different issues. 

Despite the fact 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 towards those produced 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 test, rice paper must also be gluten-free. Go for Three Women (Ba Cô Gái) or any labels with the pink rose.”

Lopez and Tong additionally favor 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 package deal.”

Moreover, Le stresses the significance of treating rice paper correctly. She cautions towards dunking the sheets into water till they’re soggy, the best way Gordon Ramsay does in a extensively circulated video. As an alternative, she says, “Use your damp hand to rub its floor and await 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 house. Leafy greens akin to Bibb lettuce and mustard greens work nicely as a crisp and durable base, whereas greens like carrot, daikon, and cucumber add crunch. Different much less widespread textural accoutrements embody banana blossoms and lotus stems. 

Fruits like pineapple, inexperienced banana, and star fruit may also be included, together with all kinds of herbs, among the hottest of that are mint, cilantro, basil, perilla, and fish mint (which, regardless of its identify, is just not a sort of mint, however heart-shaped leaves that scent barely fishy and have a tangy aftertaste.) 

As you place collectively your personal collection of greens and herbs for a rice roll platter, you wish to have a mixture of floral, earthy, bitter, bitter, and herbaceous notes, which can assist complement the meaty component of the meal and supply distinction to the salty dipping sauce.

The Starch: Rice Vermicelli 

In Vietnam, bún, or rice vermicelli is extensively 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.” Nonetheless, the English translations could 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 “contemporary noodle,” though it’s not truly contemporary) on the package deal—you possibly can by no means go incorrect 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 approach includes rolling a slab of the meat right into a log and securing it with butcher’s string earlier than poaching.

For individuals who favor grilled meat, choice is nem lụi, a specialty from the town of Huế that consists of fatty pork pounded right into a thick paste, then molded on a lemongrass stalk and cooked over charcoal. You can too discover a variation of this meat-on-a-stick in Nha Trang, the place pig’s pores and skin is added to the combo for some texture. Alongside the streets of Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, distributors lure clients 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 akin to ginger, onion, and scallion. Travelling southward to the Mekong Delta, the place life is blessed with loads of freshwater fish, snakeheads are a well-liked selection 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, because the proteins are seasoned minimally and the opposite parts are raw.

For Le, mắm nêm (fermented fish sauce) is the proper accompaniment to Da Nang’s rice paper roll platter. Like fish sauce, mắm nêm is produced from anchovies, however whereas the previous is strained to supply 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 differ from pork and beef to seafood like fish and shrimp (I’ve but to return 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 widespread fish sauce-based dipping sauce. These in Southern Vietnam like their nước chấm candy and daring, mixing in sugar and chiles, whereas Northerners favor 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 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 produced 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 parts and also you’re able to eat, prepare the unfold in your eating desk, beginning with a beneficiant part for the herbs and greens, adopted by separate serving dishes to your protein, rice vermicelli, and rice paper. You’ll be able to 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 parts in its backside third, leaving some house 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 all the things in every chew. To shut it up, fold the house 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 at liberty to take pleasure in one proper after you assemble. 

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

October 2021