Thursday, October 28, 2010

Roller Coasters

This is a relatively simple recipe for some fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls, or roller coasters as Shander likes to call them. I swear getting him to call them Vietnamese Spring Rolls is almost as hard as teaching him to call Lizzie´s brother and dad his future brother-in-law and future father-in-law. He currently calls them his brother in waiting and father in waiting, something which Lizzie, Jessie, Katie, and I have been trying to correct with no success. 

Ingredients for the rolls:
  • 1 lb. Chicken
  • ½ cup Soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp Sugar
  • Pinch of Red pepper flakes or 1 small chilli
  • Rice noodles
  • Carrots, grated
  • Cilantro
  • Basil
  • Rice paper
  • ½ a bouillon cube
Ingredients for the sauce:
  • 2 tbsp peanut butter
  • 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
  • 2 tbsp hot water
  • Tsp garlic powder or a clove of minced garlic
  • Pinch of red pepper flakes.

For the Chicken:
Cut the chicken into thin strips. In a medium sized bowl mix together the chicken, soy sauce, sugar and red pepper flakes. Marinade for at least 30 minutes. After 30 minutes you can sauté the chicken.

For the noodles:
Take the rice noodles and bouillon cube and cover with hot water until the noodles are completely submerged. Boil the noodles for about 3-5 minutes until al dente.

To assemble the rolls:
Make sure that you have a bowl of hot water. Submerge the rice paper in the water. Depending on the quality of your rice paper sometimes it just needs to be quickly submerged and other times you may need to keep the paper in the water for a minute. Place the rice paper on a clean work surface and place the chicken, rice noodles, carrots, basil, and cilantro in the middle. Fold the three sides so that it looks like an envelope and then roll the whole thing.

To make the sauce:
Toss all of the ingredients into a skillet and simmer for about 3-5 minutes. Make sure that everything is mixed well. The sauce is rather sweet but the spiciness will help balance that out.