Thai rolls my way

As I have mentioned previously in this blog, I love to eat and especially cook ethnic food. When cooking this kind of food I do some adjustments in the recipes, adapting it to my kids tastes. Even though I have to say that I’m a lucky mom because my kids eat almost everything, maybe because I have introduced them to this kind of food pretty early, maybe they like food like me, I really don’t know 😂😂.

The first time I made Thai rolls,I didn’t use the rice vermicelli (I didn’t find them in the market at the time) and also I didn’t like the rice paper wrap, it was gummy and tasteless, on the contrary, my kids loved it so they asked me to redo the recipe (three times more) so I got used to it and now I really like it. Well, maybe the first time I didn’t use rice vermicelli and that affected the recipe, so I strongly recommend you to use rice vermicelli’s. Luckily in Tirana they can be found easily and at a nice price at the supermarket. I am sharing the brand of the ingredients I used for this recipe (not sponsored and not a commercial) because I have tried them and I can guarantee the result (plus these are cheaper that the ones found in specialty stores), anyway you can use each brand you prefer.

Serving: 8 Thai rolls

Cooking time : 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 rice papers
• 1 pack of rice vermicelli
• 200 gr of ground pork
• 3 spring onions
• 2 tbsp. dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp. sesame oil
• 2 tsp. olive oil
• 1 cm of grated ginger
• 2 cloves of garlic (grated)
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 1 carrot
• 1 red pepper

1. Fill a bowl with hot water and soak the vermicelli’s for about 20 minutes until softened.
2.  In a pan add the olive oil, garlic and ginger. Cook them on medium heat until fragrant.
3. Add the ground pork, sesame oil and cook until the pork is tender and have released all its juices. Add the soy sauce and cook for an additional 2 min.
4. Chop the spring onions and add them to the pan. Stir until combined and turn off the heat (the onions don’t need to be cooked through)
5. Take the carrot and pepper and slice them thinly like match sticks. Set aside

Now we’ll start assembling the Thai rolls.

1. Take a shallow plate and fill it with cold water. Soak one rice paper for 2 minutes until soft. Drain the rice paper and start the filling
2. Add few parsley leaves in the center of the rice paper. I like to add 4 to 5 leaves
3. Take some vermicelli, divide them in small portions with your hands, drain well and put them over the parsley.
4. Add a tablespoon of the meat filling and a few strings of carrots and peppers on top.
5. Fold the sides of the roll starting from the left, then on the right. Then fold the side that is facing to you over the filling and start rolling until the edges are sealed.
6. Set the roll over a plate and over with a wet cloth to prevent from drying.
7. Continue with the remaining rice papers.
8. If you’ll end up with leftover veggies, meat filling and rice vermicelli, don’t throw them away. Just add the vermicelli in the pan, the veggies, 1 tbsp. of soy sauce and saute until the flavors are  combined. Use them as a hot side dish accompanying the Thai rolls.
9. Put 2 Thai rolls per person in a plate and serve them with dipping sauces