Fresh Spring Rolls

This has been the summer of Spring Rolls. The fresh kind. These are not a terribly involved in terms of cooking, they are more about assembly.

To make these, we need rice vermicelli, tofu, cucumber, carrot, green onion, and Thai basil. Unfortunately, no Thai basil was available at the store today, so mint and sweet basil were used as a replacement. Mint is closer to the flavor of Thai basil than regular basil.

The tofu was cut into strips, then briefly fried and finally dried.

The carrots were grated - by hand this time, not using the food processor. The green onions were split and cut into thirds. The cucumber was seeded and cut into strips.

Wash and clean some lettuce leaves to rest the rolls on.

The assembly process is involved, so no pictures were taken. To make them, soak the spring roll wrappers in water until flexible. Layer some of the herbs, add some noodles, some carrots, cucumber, and green onion, and finally some of the tofu. Roll up like a burrito and voila!

But before the can be eaten, we need some peanut dipping sauce. This is the real reason why one eats fresh spring rolls. Fry up some crushed garlic, add some tomato paste, hoisin sauce, peanut butter, and water. For a little kick, some asian chili-garlic sauce was added too.

Yummmmm.