Vegetable Spring Rolls (Appetizer #1)

Vietnam

In some restaurants, gỏi cuốn, a Vietnamese salad roll, is translated as "spring roll", while some others prefer the term "summer roll". Ingredients include slivers of boiled or fried pork, shrimp, chicken, beef, fresh herbs, lettuce, sometimes fresh garlic chives, rice vermicelli, all wrapped in moistened rice paper, served cold with dipping sauce (nước chấm) or hoisin sauce. The salad roll is easily distinguished from a "minced pork roll" by the fact that it is not fried, the ingredients used are different. Spring roll refer to the freshness of the spring season with all the fresh ingredients, therefore frying takes away that feeling.

The fried version with minced pork is called chả giò (southern Vietnam), nem, or Nem rán (northern Vietnam); it has been mistakenly referred to as an egg roll or spring roll on some restaurant menus. It is different from the Chinese egg roll in that it is typically smaller and contains (in addition to pork or another meat) a combination of bean sprouts, vermicelli noodles, and sometimes mushrooms and carrots. It would be more correctly referred to as a "Vietnamese Egg Roll".

To create a dipping sauce renowned in central Vietnam, add fish sauce, lime, garlic, sugar, small red and green peppers and water. Mince the garlic and peppers. Add the sugar into a bowl of hot water to help dissolve it quickly. Add fish sauce, lime, and the minced garlic and peppers into the sugar water.