Authentic Vietnamese Inspired Shrimp and Pork Spring Rolls

Set up your mise en place of red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce leaves, cucumber slices, cooked shrimp, separated mint leaves, tio to leaves, pickled carrots, and pork.

Carefully take one sheet of rice paper and dip it into the bowl of warm water. Turn the rice paper so that way every inch of it touches the warm water. Your goal is to soften the paper so that it is malleable and like a thin, sticky sheet. Carefully and skillfully lay it on top of your flat surface. I used a large plate.

Start with 1 red lettuce folded in half. You want to keep these ingredients centred about 2/4 of the centre section giving 1/4 of the width of the rice paper on each side.

Next, add 1 leaf of the romaine lettuce folded in half too. This will give the roll a backbone because of its thicker leaf. Next, add about 3 pieces of cooked shrimp, about 6 strands of red cabbage, 2 long pieces of green onion, 1 to 2 slices of cucumber, 2 to 3-month leaves, 1 to 2 basil leaves, and finally a pinch or two of the pork floss. You’re going to want to add the pickled daikon and carrots in the roll or leave it to eat with the rolls as you are taking a bite, like a condiment.

Now that you have all your ingredients centred in a neat pile, you are going to carefully fold the bottom side of the rice paper over the pile with your thumbs and then carefully tuck the pile of fresh ingredients in with your fingers into a tighter pile into toward the bottom of the paper.

Tighten the roll by using your fingers on top of it and moving them closer to your body. You want tightly kept rolls and enough paper to fold over the roll’s surface.

Fold and tuck the left and right sides of the roll onto the pile as tightly as possible. Be careful not to manipulate the rice paper too coarsely. These are very thin when wet and extremely sensitive to the edges of vegetables.

Finally, finish rolling upward toward the top of the rice paper.