For many individuals, the primary issues that come to thoughts once they consider Vietnamese meals are scorching bowls of phở and crusty bánh mi. However, for me, the meal that greatest represents Vietnamese delicacies is the rice roll platter. Typically served as a wonderful unfold, the rice roll platter can accommodate all our nuanced regional variations, from the North’s extra elegant fare and the middle of the nation’s punchy spices to the South’s candy tooth, in addition to our nationwide commonalities, like our love for rice and our liberal use of uncooked herbs and greens. 

Though a rice roll platter tends to require an extended checklist of elements, it’s meant to be a easy preparation that’s simply and instantly customizable; consider it as a deconstructed gỏi cuốn, or recent spring roll, the place you may decide and select no matter you need to embrace in every roll as you eat. Some combos are so standard that they’ve turn into the enduring dish for a specific place, just like the cá lóc cuốn bánh tráng (rice paper rolls with grilled snakehead fish) of the South’s Mekong Delta, and the bánh tráng thịt luộc (rice paper rolls with poached pork) of Da Nang, the main metropolitan heart of Central Vietnam. Up North in Ha Noi, nem thính cuốn (rice paper rolls with pig’s ears in toasted rice powder) can be a must-try. 

Helen Le, the Da Nang-born creator of the YouTube channel Helen’s Recipes and writer of two cookbooks, believes rice paper rolls embody the best steadiness of taste and diet in Vietnamese delicacies. “You might have carbs from the rice paper and vermicelli,” she says, “and the protein will be fish, meat, or tofu. Then there are herbs and greens. Lastly, a daring dipping sauce will carry the whole lot collectively.”

Every of the elements included in a rice roll platter is rigorously chosen, so I requested Le to stroll me via how she picks and prepares every part, and I additionally requested Lauren Lopez and Vicky Tong, the sisters and recipe builders behind the weblog Viet Dwelling Cooking, and Jimmy Ly, chef and proprietor of Madame Vo BBQ in New York, to weigh in as effectively.

The Rice Paper

Making rice paper is a labor-intensive and time-consuming course of. It entails grinding rice and turning it right into a batter, steaming the batter on muslin material stretched over a pot of boiling water to type rice sheets, chopping these sheets into rounds, after which drying these rounds on bamboo screens, which imprint the rice paper with the wavy sample of the bamboo weave. There are some villages in Vietnam specializing in producing rice paper, and a few households have been in enterprise for over 200 years. Among the many most well-known is Trảng Bàng, a city within the Southwestern province of Tây Ninh, recognized for its smooth, dewy rice paper. And whereas the most typical type of rice paper is bought plain, there are variations made out of coconut milk and candy potatoes, and a few are peppered with sesame seeds, dried bananas, or salted shrimp, amongst different issues. 

Although grocery shops within the US are inclined to solely carry plain rice paper, looking for the translucent wrappers can nonetheless be complicated. Ly advises in opposition to those made out of 100% tapioca flour since they are often trickier to make use of as wraps. “As a substitute, search for wrappers made with rice flour or a mixture of rice flour and tapioca flour,” he says. “As a high quality examine, rice paper must also be gluten-free. Go for Three Women (Ba Cô Gái) or any labels with the purple rose.”

Lopez and Tong additionally favor wrappers with added tapioca flour. “They supply a chewier texture and are extra pliable,” the duo shares. “Attempt manufacturers with the time period ‘banh trang deo’ on the package deal.”

Moreover, Le stresses the significance of treating rice paper correctly. She cautions in opposition to dunking the sheets into water till they’re soggy, the way in which Gordon Ramsay does in a broadly circulated video. As a substitute, she says, “Use your damp hand to rub its floor and watch for 15 to twenty seconds. It’ll take a while for the sheet to soak up the water.” 

The Herbs and Greens

On a rice paper platter, uncooked herbs and greens—by no means cooked—occupy essentially the most house. Leafy greens resembling Bibb lettuce and mustard greens work effectively as a crisp and durable base, whereas greens like carrot, daikon, and cucumber add crunch. Different much less widespread textural accoutrements embrace banana blossoms and lotus stems. 

Fruits like pineapple, inexperienced banana, and star fruit can be included, together with all kinds of herbs, among the hottest of that are mint, cilantro, basil, perilla, and fish mint (which, regardless of its identify, is just not a kind of mint, however heart-shaped leaves that odor barely fishy and have a tangy aftertaste.) 

As you set collectively your individual collection of greens and herbs for a rice roll platter, you need to have a mixture of floral, earthy, bitter, bitter, and herbaceous notes, which is able to assist complement the meaty ingredient of the meal and supply distinction to the salty dipping sauce.

The Starch: Rice Vermicelli 

In Vietnam, bún, or rice vermicelli is broadly obtainable and can be utilized instantly; there’s no must boil it in water. It has a shorter shelf life than its dried counterparts within the US, which are sometimes marketed as “rice sticks.” Nonetheless, the English translations will be fairly complicated, as I’ve purchased rice sticks and rice vermicelli that weren’t bun in any respect. As a substitute, search for the Vietnamese time period “bún tươi” (which accurately interprets to “recent noodle,” though it’s not truly recent) on the package deal—you may by no means go fallacious with that. To make use of them, cook dinner the noodles in boiling water for 5 minutes or till they’re now not translucent and rinse them underneath chilly water to stop clumping.

The Protein

There are eating places that serve rice paper rolls with poached pork all through Vietnam, however essentially the most well-known and customary rendition is from Da Nang. It options thinly sliced lean ham with each the fats and the pores and skin intact. The cooking method entails rolling a slab of the meat right into a log and securing it with butcher’s string earlier than poaching.

For individuals who favor grilled meat, an excellent possibility is nem lụi, a specialty from the town of Huế that consists of fatty pork pounded right into a thick paste, then molded on a lemongrass stalk and cooked over charcoal. You may as well discover a variation of this meat-on-a-stick in Nha Trang, the place pig’s pores and skin is added to the combo for some texture. Alongside the streets of Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, distributors lure prospects with the smoke from their griller, the place parcels of floor beef wrapped in wild betel leaves line up.

In Central coastal provinces, steamed mackerel scad is an everyday merchandise included in rice roll platters. The fish is calmly seasoned earlier than being steamed with aromatics resembling ginger, onion, and scallion. Travelling southward to the Mekong Delta, the place life is blessed with loads of freshwater fish, snakeheads are a preferred selection for each steaming and grilling.

The Dipping Sauce 

Le and Ly each agree that the dipping sauce could make or break a rice paper roll platter, for the reason that proteins are seasoned minimally and the opposite elements are raw.

For Le, mắm nêm (fermented fish sauce) is the right accompaniment to Da Nang’s rice paper roll platter. Like fish sauce, mắm nêm is made out of anchovies, however whereas the previous is strained to supply a transparent liquid, the latter isn’t, and the ultimate product has a gritty consistency. To tame its funk and briny style, mắm nêm is combined with sugar, pineapple chunks, and aromatics like garlic and lemongrass.

The proteins in a rice paper roll can fluctuate from pork and beef to seafood like fish and shrimp (I’ve but to return throughout rooster). They are often boiled, steamed, grilled, or poached and are cooked with little-to-no seasoning in order that the flavour of every part within the platter can shine via. 

Those that aren’t a fan of the overtly funky taste of mam nem can go for nước chấm, the extra widespread fish sauce-based dipping sauce. These in Southern Vietnam like their nước chấm candy and daring, mixing in sugar and chiles, whereas Northerners favor a milder taste, mixing their fish sauce with vinegar or lime juice, water, and comparatively much less sugar. 

To resolve on which sauce to make use of, Lopez seems at what goes contained in the rolls. “I wish to have nước chấm with marinated-meat rolls and a thicker hoisin peanut sauce with lighter gỏi cuốn,” she says. Her hoisin peanut sauce is made out of hoisin sauce, peanut butter, and Coco Rico coconut soda.

In the meantime, grilled pork in Huế or Nha Trang comes with a extra elaborate meat sauce, which consists of floor pork or liver (or a mixture of each) cooked down and thickened with glutinous rice flour. Annatto seed oil is added for an orange tint.

Placing It All Collectively

When you’ve gathered all of the elements and also you’re able to eat, prepare the unfold in your eating desk, beginning with a beneficiant part for the herbs and greens, adopted by separate serving dishes to your protein, rice vermicelli, and rice paper. You’ll be able to have a bowl for the water to dampen the rice paper, however I discover a spray bottle can do the trick with much less mess. Don’t overlook a plate and a small sauce bowl for every visitor. 

To assemble a roll, lay the moistened rice paper flat and place the elements in its backside third, leaving some house on each side of the wrappers. There’s no hard-and-fast rule for what goes in first or final, however I like so as to add greens, then rice vermicelli, after which the protein. I distribute them evenly on the rice paper sheet, so I can get a little bit of the whole lot in every chew. To shut it up, fold the house on the edges in, pull the underside of the wrapper up over the filling and begin rolling it away from you, utilizing your fingers to tighten the roll as you go. And be at liberty to get pleasure from one proper after you assemble. 

Whereas rice paper roll platters began out as an informal meal to organize at residence, they now seem frequently on menus, from push carts on Vietnam’s road corners to upscale eating places within the US, like Madame Vo in New York Metropolis. Whereas the elements fluctuate, there stays a deep sense of intimacy concerned within the dish—whether or not at residence or in eating places, the method of tearing crisp lettuce leaves and rolling rice paper sheets connects folks with the bounty that Vietnam has to supply.

October 2021