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!!!

Death by chocolate cake

Ehem,here is where I say how busy it's been and blah blah blah, except I'm not gonna. Let's just accept that this blog is not updated daily, not weekly, sometimes not even monthly. Such is life.

Anyhows, here finally comes the recipe for the amazingly rich dark chocolate cake, originally found at Suolaa & hunajaa . I have made it twice, for my other half's birthday (/our engagement party) and for my sister-in-law's birthday. Same cake, different fillings. Many of the pics on this post were taken by Kate, thank you!!

Chocolateeee...

 Death by chocolate cake

Sponge

200g good quality dark chocolate

6 eggs (separate whites and yolks)

2 dl caster sugar

120g almond flour

50g butter

0,5 dl flour

1. Melt the chocolate and butter over boiling water.

2. Whip egg yolks and sugar until fluffy. Whip the egg whites separately into a firm foam.

3. Add the melted chocolate-butter into the egg yolks.

4. Add flour and almond flour.

5. Gently mix in the egg whites.

6. Bake for about 30 minutes in 180 degrees celsius. The time depends on the oven, just be careful not to overcook to avoid the cake from being too dry. 

7. Allow to cool before filling.

Filling

The original recipe had a chocolate mousse filling but I thought that would have been a bit too much, because the cake is also iced with chocolate. I made a fresh lemony filling instead.

1/2 jar of Lemon curd

1 tub of mascarpone

1. Mix the lemon curd with the mascarpone until smooth. Taste and and add lemon curd to desired amount. I prefer plenty of lemon! Next time I would like to make my own lemon curd so I could make it more sour.

2. Cut the sponge and fill. Moistening the sponge first with juice or booze optional. I think I splashed some Coientreau on it...

Chocolate icing

180g dark chocolate

1,5 dl cream

1. Melt the chocolate over boiling water.

2. Bring the cream to boil.

3. Mix the cream to the chocolate until smooth.

4. Spread on the cake and allow to set. Decorate to taste. I had candied violet petals that we found in a little epicerie in Paris, as well as chocolates.

The other version had lemon quark as the filling and groundcherries on top.

Lemon....

Idiotic "I made a cake" grin!

Can I have some cake please? with puppy eyes

May you bake this cake and eat it too! I know I will make this one many more times...

Double party!

A couple of weeks ago we had good reasons to celebrate, with the chef getting older and us just having returned from Paris after getting engaged! Champagne, a lot of good food and friends, what else do you need? The pictures are mostly by my friend Ekaterina, we loved the results! Thank you once more.

Ta-dah!

I have to mention our rings, we made them ourselves from silver clay here. It was a fun day and we love the rings. Most people have never heard of this technique or this company so I thought I should share.

Menu du jour

Champagne is always a good idea! This one came from Paris.

Mushroom and truffle

Food!

The menu included asparagus salad, endives with tiger prawn mayonnaise, mushroom and truffle tartlets, smoked whitefish, Andy's famous focaccia, selection of charcuterie, Munster cheese, Bleu d'Auvergne, asparagus frittata, dark chocolate cake with lemon curd & mascarpone as well as  macarons (not home made this time...).

Recipes coming soon...

My Paris

 Hello again!
The spring has been busy, working, studying and other stuff. I have been itching to write about our trip to Paris, here you go finally! In this post just some of the thousand photos I took during our five days. Our trip revolved around food, naturally, and I will be posting more in depth info of the restaurants we visited. And yes, I loved the city, it was even better than I had imagined! I am not an overly romantic person but Paris charmed me, the atmosphere was amazing. We also got engaged in Paris, and couldn't be happier!

View from Montparnasse tower during sunset

Shakespeare & co bookshop - loved it!

Brasseries everywhere

Tour Eiffel at night

Lovelock bridge near Notre Dame, very crowded

Ahhhhmazing crepes & cider at Breitzh cafe in Marais

RIP Jim Morrison @ Pere Lachaise cemetary

Space Invader street art everywhere

View from Pompidou museum of modern art

Andy Warhol @ Pompidou

Pierre Herme macarons, my favourite!!

The perfect picnic

Laduree Macarons

 To be continued....

Vegetarian Easter Lamb

 Every now and then it's fun to make vegetarian versions of meat dishes. I decided to attempt an Easter lamb dish with soy mince and think it was pretty succesfull! I improvised with the recipe as well as the measurements, and the "meatballs" were really easy to make.

Vegetarian Easter Lamb "Meatballs" with Brussel Sprouts and Spinach

1 bag of frozen soy mince (I used Hälsäns kök färs)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
Chili paste, to taste

1 pot of sour cream
100 g feta cheese
Zest of 1 lemon
Plenty of fresh mint, finely chopped
Crispy fried onion, 2 tbsp (the stuff you normally put on salad)
1 egg
1 dl almond flour

Brussel Sprouts
Spinach
1 Garlic clove, finely chopped
Butter
Lemon juice
Salt and pepper

1. Heat some oil on a frying pan. Sautee the onion until soft, then add garlic, chilli and the soy mince. Fry for around 5 minutes, season to taste.

2. Mix the sour cream, feta, lemon zest, mint and crispy onion together in a large bowl. Add the mince and mix together. Add the egg, mix again, finally adding the almond flour until the mix stays together to make the meatballs.

3. Make even sized meatballs from the mix on a sheet of parchment paper and bake for around 20 mins in 200C.

4. While the meatballs are cooking, clean the brussel sprouts by cutting the stem and removing outer and browned bits. Cut the sprounts in half or quarters according to size. Wash the spinach. Warm up the butter on a frying pan and fry the sprouts until slightly browned. Add the spinach at the end and cook until just wilted. Season to taste.

5. Plate and serve! Goes well with a soft red wine, yesterday we opened a bottle of Australian Shiraz/Cabernet that was a gift from a friend and had been waiting for while. What a tasty meal it was!