Showing posts with label vietnamese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vietnamese. Show all posts

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Cellophane Wraps Continued (and Finished)

So, let's see...where did I leave off last time? Oh, right, mixing the spices into the noodles. I forgot to say that you should also add the chicken and veggie mixture into the noodles and spices while you are mixing. Well after your done with that, then your ready to start putting it all together. You're gonna need two big plates, two small dishes, and a shallow pan. This was our set up: The small dishes are for any dipping sauce you want to use. We used sweet chili sauce. In the shallow pan, you will put cold water to soak your rice paper in. We (i.e. I) didn't have a shallow pan, so I washed out the fry pan and put some cold water in it. The water doesn't need to be hot. I previously believed that you needed hot water to soak these in, but after a cooking lesson at a local Vietnamese restaurant, I learned that cold water is better...but I'm not sure why. So the rice paper should only be dunked 2-3 times, and you should pull it out almost immediately. Don't let it soak in the water. After dipping the rice paper, we just put it out on our plate, since we were planning to eat it immediately after finishing wrapping it. If you are planning to make several before eating them, or if you want to fry them in a batch, you should lay a damp paper towel out on a tray and when you're done wrapping it, put the wrap on the damp paper towel and then cover it with another damp paper towel. The towel doesn't need to be soaking wet. The moisture will keep the rice paper from drying up.
Next, comes the wrapping. This is pretty easy, but if you want your wrap to look like a work of art, then it's gonna take some practice. First, put a small to medium portion of the noodles mixture close to one side. Leave about one inch to an inch and a half of space from the edge. Next, take the bottom edge and pull tight over the noodle mixture. You want the noodles to fit firmly snug in this first pull-over. If you don't wrap-over firmly enough, then your wrap might be floppy or messy. If you pull too tightly, then your rice paper could rip. When you've rolled the mixture into the rice paper so that the top of your noodle mixture is now face down on the plate, it's time to fold in the sides. Just like so, thank you, X. And then you roll over until your wrap is complete. The rice paper will stick to itself because while you are wrapping, it will be drying, so there's no need to close it with slicking the edges or anything. Here is a finished picture of X's wrap. She chose to forgo the avocado and just had a nice plain wrap. I on the other hand....I chose to add avocado mixed with lime juice into my wrap. And this is a perfect way to explain how to make your wraps look pretty. If you want to add decorative herbs or place shrimp in the shape of hearts, you should place them above your main mixture. When you go to wrap it, follow the directions above. During your first wrap-over, wrap only the main mixture, fold in the sides and keep wrapping until finished. When you turn it over, you will be able to see your design. The avocado helped cool down the spiciness of the wrap and it made it a little creamy. Initially, I had planned to make a batch of wraps and then pan fry them to make them crispy on the outside, but severe hunger and impatience put my plan on hold. Oh well, there's always next time! These were really delicious and totally worth the time they took to make. I really can't say enough about how satisfying these were. I should also add, we made enough food for 3-4 people. If you make these with a full pack of cellophane noodles prepare for some leftovers.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Cellophane Wraps

Today's post is Vietnamese Cellophane Wraps! So I had been planning on making these things for about a month and a half now, and last week, I finally decided to bite the bullet and wash the 7 dishes that I needed to make this dish. I also invited X over to be my sous chef, which meant making her chop everything. Yay! So these are very simple and easy, but they take a long time to make, since there is a lot of dicing and chopping required. Let's start with the ingredients....So, there are quite a few things you will need to make these wraps. You can, of course, add more vegetables, or change the sauces used to produce whatever taste you desire, but I can only vouch for this one. We used, large round rice paper wraps, cellophane (bean thread) noodles, optional avocado, snap peas, bell pepper, chicken, garlic, lime juice, sweet chili sauce, mirin, and pepper flakes. I also have oyster sauce and ginger paste pictured, but both were vetoed by my sous chef, and I didn't care enough to argue. Plus, maybe the oyster sauce would have been a little funky with the sweet chili sauce and ginger paste. So then I set X to choppin' and dicin' all the vegetables, like the snap peas and the garlic, and whatever else we had. You want to dice the garlic up as small as possible.
Then we sliced the avocado into strips. You want to keep them in strips, because they will be placed flat on the large rice paper and then rolled into the wrap form. If you cube them, they will make your wrap lumpy and potentially break through the rice paper. I guess you could also mash the avocado up and dollop it onto the rice paper. You might want to be careful about this too, b/c when you try to spread it on the wet rice paper, the paper might rip. And so the chopping continued. I pulled out 3 very small bell peppers. People in America will only need 1 or 2 bell peppers. First, I cut the top off the bell peppers and then I slice them in half. I pulled out most of the seeds, but let a few escape my notice to add a little heat to the mix. After cleaning them out, I chopped them up pretty small. Wait...those aren't my hands! X chopped those!
And so the chopping continued....(Nice work on the garlic, X!)
Then it was time to cut the chicken. I think we used 2-3 strips of chicken. We also cubed them pretty small. So, after everything was done being cut and diced and sliced and every other way to cut things up, we started cooking the chicken and the veggies.
We started cooking the chicken, and after it turn white on the outside, we added the snap peas and the bell peppers. We did not add the garlic, because we decided having it raw would add more flavor to the wraps. Now, during our chopping and dicing, I had put a pot of water on to boil to cook our cellophane noodles. These things only take about 5 minutes to cook, and they need to be watched carefully. If they aren't cooked enough, then you'll never be able to break through them with teeth or knives. If they're cooked to much...
Well, this is what happens. Well, this will also happen if you cook them too soon and then let them sit in a small container for too long. These noodles wouldn't budge with a chisel and hammer, and after 5 minutes of prying and burning my fingers, I was struck by genius. I put them under cold water. I ran them under cold water while loosening them up with my fingers, and eventually most of them came out of the strainer.
Once the noodles were free from their self-imposed prison, I started to add the spices. Like I've said before, I don't measure my spices, and I don't really know what I'm going to add until the time I'm doing it. My best advice would be to eye how much food you've got and then add in small amounts and taste until you've got the desired flavor. I will say, that you are probably going to use a lot of sweet chili sauce with this recipe. Like a lot, a lot. Don't be afraid to pour it in.
So, the noodles are going to comprise a large portion of the inside of the wrap, so we wanted to make sure they had a lot of spices mixed in them. We added pepper flakes, garlic, some mirin to help the mixture stay moist, and sweet chili sauce for heat and a sweet flavor. We also added lime juice for a nice tang. After you're doing adding everything, mix it all together until the spices and garlic are spread evenly throughout the noodles.
And this is where I'm ending the post today. I have a lot more pictures for this dish and it was simply too long for one post. Please look forward to the next half and the completion of this dish!