Summer Rolls

Verity

These are really easy and look really impressive (in my humble opinion)

There's more where this came from!

Ingredients

1 small red cabbage
2 carrots
1 cucumber
Bunch of spring onions
Bunch of fresh corriander
1 or 2 limes
Soy sauce
Marinated tofu (either pre-bought or homemade)
Crushed peanuts
Dipping sauce of your choice (sweet chilli, sriracha etc))
1 Pack of rice paper

These are really easy and look really impressive (in my humble opinion)

Preparation

The key to this recipe is the preparation, which only takes about 10 minutes, so first things first get your veggies and condiments ready and arranged in front of you.

Shred the cabbage and carrot, if you have a food processor with a slicer attachment then that’s perfect, otherwise julienne or grate them
Cut the cucumber into inch long lengths and then match-stick them
Cut the spring onions into inch long lengths and then cut into quarters
Smash up the peanuts (use plain, non-roasted with no skins)
Cut the limes into quarters (if you bash them on the work surface before cutting them you’ll get more juice out)
Get the marinated tofu out and ready in-front of you
Roughly chop the corriander

Making these is a bit like a production line, so arrange all of the above in a way that all the pieces are accessible, then open the rice paper and get a large, shallow dish and fill it with warm water.

Method

1) Soak one sheet of rice paper in the warm water until it becomes pliable, but not totally floppy. This should be about 10 – 20 seconds, it’ll continue to soften up once you take it out of the water,

2) Lay the sheet of rice paper in front of you, and then add into the middle of the rice paper in a line, the cabbage, carrot, cucumber and spring onion, tofu, a pinch of peanuts and corriander and a squeeze of lime. The trick here is to not overfill them as you’re going to roll them up,

3) Fold in the left and right sides of the rice paper, then fold up the bottom of the rice paper to cover the ingredients (think of making an envelope), then roll the rice paper and ingredients to make a roll,

4) Place on a plate and repeat steps 1-3 until you have enough summer rolls.

5) Serve with additional lime and corriander and with a selection of dipping sauces.