KumoCafe: Cooking With Us - e40 - Bánh Mì Spring Rolls

Tadow!

Another Monday - Another recipe that is sure to lift your spirits!

This time we jumped right in and made what I like to think of as Bánh mì Spring Rolls (or summer/fresh rolls if you prefer, as we didn't fry them).

We added lots of fresh veggies and fried strips of beef to make this delicious, light, and mostly-healthy dish!

Eat this as your dinner, or serve them as appetizers.
Either way, you won't be disappointed!

Watch hi-res, full screen, and subscribe!

As always, the photo-post, recipe, and transcript follow ^^

As well as cute pix of Brigly!

I know, you may have just seen this gorgeous photo as a youtube capture,

but isn't it time to really take it all in?

The two spring rolls on the left and right turned out fan-tas-tic!

After we figured out how to work with rice paper, that is :)

As usual, I had to welcome you to Cooking with Us!

I really can't say enough about how worth-your-time this dish is.

(But it's *so* worth it!)

I bought a pound of marinated, black peppercorn roast, and sliced it into thin strips.

We then julienned carrots, jalapenos, and a daikon radish.
Theron sliced a couple tomatoes, and I chopped up some green onion too.

We also had cilantro leaves ready to go!

Us and all the work we did in little images around us ;)

As you can see from the middle image on the right, we also made peanut dipping sauce from scratch.

It was awesome.

To try and make this authentic, we used a fair amount of oil to fry our beef.

In it goes!

Keep an eye on this and turn it regularly to get all sides even.

As you can see, it was really bubbling away!
(We cooked it on medium-high heat.)

Then we put it in our toaster between 150 and 200 degrees to keep it warm.

(This is up to you, it's also good cool or room temp.)

Now you're ready to deal with your rice paper!

The instructions we had said to heat water to boiling, and then remove if from the heat.

This proved problematic as our water was way too hot for way too long,

which led our rice paper to glob up and be useless.

Lukewarm water works best, and microwaving it is a good alternative.

I made my first roll out of really messy, bunched up rice paper.

It was still delicious, though!

Waste not, want not!

And as I said, "Let's see if Theron can come up with a better way to do it."

(Answer: Of course he did!)

He discovered that lukewarm water was the key.

Zen-master!

Look how beautifully that circle spread?

(We kept the towel beneath it wet also, so it wouldn't stick to anything!)

Then, Theron assembled his spring roll.

He put in beef, all the veggies, and put his peanut dipping sauce *inside* - genius!

He did the same with the chili garlic sauce.

Then, pull the top and bottom toward the middle, and pull one side over, rolling it into a

...spring roll.

Beautifully done!

The first successful spring roll of the night!

Nom Nom!

After watching the master - I was able to make a flat, perfect spring roll circle myself, and load it down!

Not too shabby eh?

And fantastic!!

I couldn't stop eating these!

Theron: "And what's your verdict now?"

Me: "It's delicious!"

Make it!!

(Happiness, people!)

Also laughing because I said our episode was blundering ;)

You talk, I'll eat.

Wink!

"What are you, Siskel and Ebert?"

He gave it "one thumb up, one thumb down."

Mainly b/c he thought the rice paper was too much work.

He literally loved the flavors.

Proof?

He turned everything into a Bánh mì fajita because he was tired of the rice paper ;)

Just look at that adorable, guilty-face!
He loved it this way too, but then, the smart boy loves tortillas!

(And if you want to do this - go for it, it's an awesome, simple alternative)

Then he got even lazier and ate it as a salad!

But then, no carbs so, why not? ^^

We first made these on June 29th.

But as they are awesome, I decided to make them again for our 4th of July party as an appetizer!

Leigh helped, and Marcial munched :)

Our friends Jose and Fernando loved them too, and asked for the recipe.

Well - here it is! ^^

(Stay tuned for super cute pix of Brigly after the recipe & transcript.

Or you know, jump to the bottom of the page)

Recipe:

- 1 lb beef (ours was roast, marinated in a black peppercorn sauce)

fry in oil, and keep warm in oven till you're ready for them.

- 1 medium daikon radish, julienned (these suckers are large!)

- approximately 5 carrots, julienned

- 4 jalapenos, julienned or sliced into rounds, and cut

- 1 bunch green onions, sliced

- 2 or 3 tomatoes, sliced thin and cut in half

- 1/2 bunch cilantro, just the leaves

- Rice paper.

Heat water to lukewarm. Place one sheet of rice paper in at a time till it is no longer hard, but soft and malleable.

Place on wet surface, fill with your yummy beef and veggies, roll tight, and eat!

Additionally:
- Peanut sauce (you can make your own with creamy peanut butter, hoison sauce (or sweet and sour), soy sauce, and some lime juice.
- Chili garlic sauce

Voila :)

Transcript:
Hi, welcome to this episode of KumoCafe's Cooking with Us!

Today we're gonna try making Banh Mi Spring Rolls.

So I just went and got roast that is marinated in black peppercorn.

See, I'm slicing it thin like this 'cause we're putting them in spring rolls, and also I think they'll fry faster this way.

And we're also gonna julienne some vegetables and everything else and hopefully it'll turn out good! We'll see.

You've got a lot of good ingredients here.

I'm gonna start cutting up the carrots into smaller pieces.

First time chopping up a daikon radish!

And it's pretty yummy.

Putting oil the pan.

For the... beef?
Yup

We've pre-heated our toaster oven... between 200 and 150.

Waiting for water to boil again.

We've never done this before - we're not Asian!

Trying to take a picture of that?

It has really good flavor.

If I knew how to make rice paper it'd prolly be really good.

But it's a mess, so let's see if Theron can come up with a better way to do it.

Well obviously you did better than me.

It's tasty. It's a good appetizer.

It tastes very fresh and... hm... meat's a little better than I thought.

See, told you!

There you go.

Mooow.

So now you're able to do the folding, so...
What's your verdict now?

I think it's delicious.

Good let's eat 'em.
I like it with the sauce inside of it.

Thank you for joining us on this blundering episode of Cooking with Us where we kind of made - I don't know if I would call these Banh mi...

I mean some of the - the stuff that was in it was kind of banh mi-ish... but...

I don't know.

Banh mi-esque spring rolls?

Depends on your definitions of Banh mi.
Mhm

I mean if it's just vegetables with meat in the wrap, then I guess it's banh mi, but.

I say make it.

Try it.

That's one thumb up, one thumb down.

Are you Siskel and Ebert?
Sure.

No it's just us.

So, thanks for joining us on this episode of cooking with us...

And... We'll see you next time.

I'm hungry!

Om!

Even on Brigly?

Brigly, tell them how - uh, you made the girl's whole life at the grocery store today.

Did you?

She's like, "What's happening?! This is the best day of my life!"

Because she got to hold Brigly.

And now - for Brigly pix!

Brigly in the grocery store, making everyone's day - especially the young cashier girl who got to hold him!
"What's happening?! This is the best day of my life!" - young cashier girl ^^