Fried shrimp rolls

Fried shrimp rolls caught my eye while looking through The Foods of Vietnam by Nicole Routhier. It gave a very authentic feel of Vietnam and I could not pass up the opportunity to make them. I enjoyed the process of creating a filling and then folding them into beautiful creations.

Ingredients assembled 

The Ingredients were somewhat common and most were left over from the china project. I used meatloaf mix, which my mom said was a mixture of beef and pork, as a substitute for the beef and pork called for in the recipe. Spring roll rice wrappers were much easier to work with than the spring roll wrappers used in the vegetarian spring rolls.

soaking bean threads 

The cellophane noodles were something that I had dealt with before in Chinese cuisine. They provide mainly texture to the meal but are still important.

filling for shrimp rolls

The filling consisted of the soaked cellophane noodles, meat loaf mix, canned crab meat, shallots, garlic, onion, bean threads, nuoc mam (fish sauce), black pepper, and an egg. I mixed it with my hands to blend it as well as possible.

folding step 1 

The rice wrappers had to be soaked briefly in warm sugar water.  The other steps will be visible in the pictures.

folding step 2

Shrimp is added to the top of the filling which was then topped with more filling.

folding step 3

Corners folded in on all sides.

folding step 3

Start to fold into a continuing triangle formation. 

final step

Continue folds until it resembles a bundle, the tails should come off the top. 

frying 

Once a good number of rolls has been reached it is time to deep fry. The rice paper is very sticky so I limited it to four at at time. 

final product 

The rolls were very good but slightly challenging to eat (because of the tail). I used Mad Hatter as a sauce and it was very flavorful but if I were to do it again I would probably try and pick a more Vietnamese sauce.