Gôi Cuõn (Vietnamese Spring Rolls)

One of my favorite cuisines has to be Vietnamese food. It’s so tasty and healthy because they use the freshest ingredients possible.

Back in LA there are a ton of Vietnamese restaurants to choose from, lots in Alhambra and even more in Westminster. My favorite Vietnamese restaurant is between Golden Deli and Saigon Flavor.

Gôi cuõn is a Vietnamese starter consisting of rice paper wrapped around a medley of fresh greens, chopped mint and coriander (cilantro), rice vermicelli, minced or sliced pork and sliced shrimp. To accompany it you dip it in either a hoisin/peanut butter sauce or nuoc mam. I prefer it with the hoisin/peanut butter sauce.

I’ve been craving gôi cuõn for some time now and always thought that it was too difficult to make. I thought it would be tough to work with sticky rice paper because it can be quite delicate to work with.

Boy was I wrong! It was just about the easiest thing to make. It takes some preparation to gather the ingredients but it is all worth it.

Gôi cuõn is the perfect summer snack as it’s super fresh and healthy. Here’s my recipe for gôi cuõn:

Gôi cuõn

• 12 rice paper rounds (banh trang)
• 200g rice vermicelli
• 400g pork mince or sliced pork butt
• 2 cloves garlic
• 500g cooked prawns (sliced lengthwise as opposed to chopped)
• Romaine lettuce (cos lettuce)
• Freshly chopped coriander (cilantro)
• Freshly chopped mint

Sauce

• Peanut butter
• Hoisin sauce
• Sriracha or any hot sauce like sambal oelek
• Crushed peanuts (to garnish if preferred)
• Hot water

Preparation

1. Cook the rice vermicelli by soaking it in boiling hot water for 20 minutes. Gradually tease the noodles apart with chopsticks to ensure all threads are cooked through.
2. Finely chop the garlic and stir fry with the pork mince, seasoning to taste. I add a bit of fish sauce.
3. Peel the prawns (remove vein) and cut in half along its length (so it still looks like a whole prawn from the side).
4. Wash the lettuce, cilantro and mint and chop.

Method

1. Place all ingredients on the table and have a large wide-mouthed bowl (I use a pan) of hot water on the table. Top this up as required.
2. Quickly dip and rotate one rice paper sheet into the bowl of water. TIP: Make sure you get the entire rice paper wet. Even though the rice paper will still be hard, it will soften on your plate as you start to assemble the roll. Overcooking your sheet will only make breakage more likely!
3. Place wet rice paper onto a flat plate.
4. Place two teaspoons of pork mince about 1/3 of the way up your rice paper sheet. Add vermicelli, lettuce, coriander and mint as preferred. TIP: Resist the urge to overload on the ingredients as this will make it harder to roll.
5. Lift bottom flap of sheet and fold over your ingredient line. Holding your ingredients tightly with your index fingers, roll the whole thing once over using your thumbs, ensuring you try and remove as much air as possible. Fold in the left and right hand flaps.
6. Place three prawn slices “nice” side up onto your roll.
7. Hold the ingredients tightly again and roll over so you now have one compact parcel.
8. Finished! Yum!