Asian Interlude - Rolls

The Engineer and I had some homemade Asian-inspired meals recently. The Engineer made sushi rolls (which he hadn’t done in a really long time). As you can see, we could not procure sushi-grade fish for this meal, so we ended up with a simple fare of smoked salmon, avocado and cucumber. It was enough to get back in the swing of things (we fully intend to get our hands on sushi-grade ingredients in the future). I’m posting a series of simple step-by-step photos for creating the rolls; you can get recipes for the rice online, as well as videos. Suffice it to say that we really appreciated our meal – and at least we knew exactly what was going into it, which isn’t true in many restaurants.







We also tried Vietnamese-style spring rolls. They are quite simple, and you can fill them with whatever you want; we had a veggie version here. Start by putting one (ONE) sheet of rice paper in a bowl of warm water to soften, then transfer it to a plate and put your fillings on top. Fold the top flap, then the sides, and roll it toward you to close it. The trick to rolling these is to do it with just the right tension: too hard and they’ll tear, but too loose and they’ll fall apart. You can see from my finished picture that some are looking better than others – you’ll get better as you make them, don’t worry. We served them here with a carrot-ginger sauce that I really liked (though be warned it’s quite vinegary, which is an acquired taste) as well as with a great peanut sauce (though next time I make it, I might just not add water and skip the stovetop altogether).