Yummy Vietnamese Style Rice Paper Rolls

 We love these Vietnamese style rice paper rolls, and we've been making them for about a year for parties and whenever we fancied them. Quite often that is! I've started to prefer these to sushi, maybe because I've eaten too much sushi, but these are also fresher with more vegetables and herbs, and the sauce is amazing! We use the same recipe for an Asian salad dressing which we make ALL the time. I've been wanting to blog the recipe since the first time we made them but never managed to get decent enough pics until now. I guess it's more like a rolling tutorial than a recipe but here it comes. Hope you like!

 Vietnamese style rice paper rolls

Ingredients
Rice paper sheets (from Asian Supermarkets, in Helsinki there's many in Hakaniemi)

Fillings of your own choice, for example
Chinese cabbage, rice noodles, bean sprouts - these are needed to bulk the rolls
Crunchy veggies chopped into stripes ; peppers, carrots, sugarsnap peas, cucumber, courgette
Prawns, tofu, mushrooms or other form of protein, marinated to your liking.
Avocado, cause it's tasty!
Coriander and mint leaves

Cold water on a plate

1. Place a rice paper sheet in the water for about 30 seconds or until it has softened.

2. Place the soft sheet on a plate and fill. Start with the herbs so that they will be visible and your rolls will look prettier! Don't overfill as then the rolls won't stay together.

3. Wrap the roll. Fold the bottom up first, then the sides and roll. Try to make them as tight as possible, so that they are easier to dip and eat without making a huge mess. (We always make a mess anyway) I also make lots of different filling combinations so you never know what you gonna get!

4. Repeat until your pile of rolls is big enough. We always, always make too many. Eyes bigger than bellies etc. You can make a salad out of the excess veggies and dipping sauce, just mix them up and it will be good!

(Picture instructions below)

Dipping sauce

Soy sauce 0,5 dl
(Sweet soy sauce, 1 tablespoon, optional)
(Yuzy vinegar, 1 tablespoon, optional)
Rice wine vinegar 0,2 dl
Honey 2 teaspoons
Fish sauce 1 teaspoon
Juice of two limes
Chili, 1, chopped finely
Ginger, 3 tablespoons, finely grated
Garlic, 2 cloves, finely grated
Scallion, 1, finely chopped
(Some sesame oil and sesame seeds, optional)

Mix all ingredients together.
We never actually measure the ingredients, but taste and add stuff if needed,
so the measures here are estimates only.

Dip

Assembly line

Ready!

Herbs first

Fillin'

Rollin'

Voila!

Wine recommendation Cono Sur Vision Single Vineyard Riesling

YUM YUM YUM Enjoy!!!

Monday dinner

 It's starting to look and feel like winter finally, with heaps of snow and temperature going down to -20 celsius soon. On days like these nothing tastes better than my home chef''s Asian style noodle soup. We often have it on Monday nights, and it always tastes so good. He makes the broth separately with lots of spices, the flavour is intense with chilli, ginger, garlic, star anise and a hint of sweetness. The broth is poured on a bowl full of chopped vegetables and cooked noodles. Plenty of coriander is needed, as well as either tofu or prawns. I might share the recipe one day as well.
It is really a weeknight dish for us normally but you could make it more special and enjoy a glass of medium dry Gewurtztraminer.

We have sun!!!

Spicy Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

 This soup has amazing thai-style flavour, a combination of sweet, spicy and acidity that really tickles the tastebuds. It is absolutely great as a starter or even as a light meal on its own, as it is quite creamy and filling. Serve an off dry or medium white wine with it and the flavours will be even more wonderful. I love a good Riesling but I'm pretty sure that a Gewurtztraminer or a Pinot Gris would work as well. Go for something from Alsace and you're at least on the right track.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup
(New food for thought, Jane Noraika)
(Serves 4)

1 onion, finely chopped
sunflower oil
25g of root ginger
2 tsp roasted and ground cumin seeds
1 small fresh chilli (I cheated with jarred chilli paste)
600g sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
400ml coconut milk
750 ml veg stock
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper
fresh coriander

1. Fry the onion in a large saucepan. Add the ginger, cumin and chilli and cook until the onion is translucent.

2. Add sweet potato, coconut milk and stock, cook until the sweet potato is soft.

3. Process with a blender until smooth. Add lime juice and seasoning. Serve with coriander. I also added some crayfish tails.

I spy with my little eye...

Thai Fishcakes

...some recipes with spices that just need blogging!

Have been occupied with studies, work, cold (weatherwise and healthwise) and just an all round lack of motivation. Tonight's meal will not be blogged, ever ; it was a very politically incorrect pizza made from a base of a Mexican tortilla. Have to say it was deliciously thin and crispy without a trace of sogginess, for once being able to not go overboard with the toppings, opting for a simple margherita. But I just could not face any Italian reading about a tortilla pizza. Although I do have an Italian friend who tells me it's ok to have french fries on pizza... Hmmm.

While eating the horrendously delicious cheesy pizza I enjoyed watching Julie and Julia, which all the other food bloggers have all most likely gone to see in the cinema ages ago. I loved the characters and the two stories intertwining, and really it was a nice movie to watch after a day of writing uni reports in a cold. A feel good movie. Also inspiring if you're writing a blog and have kind of forgotten to post anything for a while. Naturally I share many of the feelings of Julie about blogging but I have very different aspirations from those of hers regarding to blogging. The movie is based on a true story a few years back from now, and five years ago food blogging was still a new thing. Getting people to read your blog was probably a lot easier. I definately feel like a drop in the ocean and feel like no-one is reading this. Feel free to introduce yourself if you are!

To the recipes, then. I have a couple of dishes that Andy cooked a couple of weeks ago. It seems that recently I haven't really been cooking much, it has mostly been Andy. He cooks better, I write better, so I guess it kind of works. Although he cooks better than I write, I guess.
Both recipes have spices so if you have a cold like we do, these will open up your sinuses for sure.


Thai Fishcakes
Recipe from Olive magazine, February 2010. Original recipe used prawns but we had some bland frozen white fish lying around so used that. Swap for something else if you like!

Serves two

Ginger, 1 tsp, finely grated
Fresh Coriander, handfull, chopped
Shallot,1, finely sliced
Red chilli,1, seeded and diced
White fish, 400g
Lime, zested
Fish sauce, 1 tbsp
Oil

Put ginger, coriander, chilli and shallot in a food processor and blend until fine. Add rest of the ingredients and mix until chunky. Season with black pepper and form into six flat cakes. Place on baking paper, brush both sides with a little bit of vegetable oil. Grill in the oven at 200 degrees for 3 minutes on each side.

Serve with a salad, rice or noodles if you like. We also had a way too hot chilli sauce, won't be posting that!


Pineapple with Star Anise and Cinnamon Caramel a la Andy

Brown granulated sugar, 100 g
Pineapple, fresh or tinned, in slices, 200g
Star anise, 2
Ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp
Unsalted butter, 20 g
Dark rum, to taste... depends how much you like alcohol. We had 5 cl or so.

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Make the caramel by putting sugar in a frying pan on high heat. Don't stir. When it gets to a light caramel colour, add the spices and the pineapple. Once the caramel is darker and coats the pineapple, add the butter. Once butter is melted, add the rum and cook for a minute or so until the alcohol of the rum has evaporated. Serve with your favourite vanilla ice cream!