Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Vietnamese spring rolls are the perfect summer dish - simple, light, healthy, satisfying and no stovetop cooking necessary (well if you include rice noodles in your spring rolls then you'll have to cook the noodles, but other than that, you don't have to get near the stove.) It's also surprisingly simple, once you have the right ingredients and know how to make the spring roll wrappers. (Before I made spring rolls myself, I never understood how the wrappers were so translucent.)

Ingredients:
10-12 round rice spring roll wrappers (available at asian grocery stores)
handful of dry rice vermicelli (also available at asian grocery stores)
1/2 lb of cooked shrimp (or cold shredded chicken)
1 cucumber, thinly sliced length-wise
handful of mint leaves and/or basil leaves
spoonful of hoisin sauce
spoonful of rice vinegar

Directions
For the spring rolls:
1. Boil the shrimp until the meat is turns pink (about 5-6 minutes), boil the vermicelli (approx. 5 minutes), slice the cucumber and arrange all the ingredients plus the mint and basil on a dish:
2. Fill a large bowl halfway up with room temperature water.
3. Submerge a piece of the rice wrapper in the water for about a minute or two, or until the wrapper is soaked through and soft.
4. Put the slightly wet rice wrapper on a flat surface, place a few pieces of the shrimp, cucumber slices, 3-4 mint leaves and a pinch of the rice noodles in the center-bottom of the wrapper and roll everything up like a burrito.





For the dipping sauce:
1. Combine the hoisin sauce and and rice vinegar in a little dish, whisk until the sauce is smooth.






See? Really simple and fast - prep time is only about 20 minutes. You can serve this as an appetizer or as the main meal.