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What's for dinner earlier this week were some of my favorite things to eat:
gỏi cuốn and
chả giò (South Vietnamese names herein). Salad rolls, both uncooked and fried, are delicious. The freshly made former can be gluten-free and as healthful as you wish; same for the latter, which can also be flavor torpedo exemplars of the fryolator arts. If you prefer a deconstructed version,
bún thịt nướng is a bowl dish with essentially similar components (often topped with chả giò) sans the wrapper. Join me below the orange coiled bún for photos, links, and lessons learned.
Gỏi cuốn (pronounced: goy coo-un) are typically composed of raw vegetables prepared as batonnet, julienne, or shredded; cooked rice vermicelli (bún), and cooked pork, shrimp, or tofu. These elements are place on a round sheet of rice paper that has been briefly soaked in water to soften it, then all is rolled within the wrapper. Rolling is similar in principle to the burrito process, but at the same time is different. All rolled foods are not alike.
Chả giò (pronounced: chah zoh) are similar in concept to gỏi cuốn, but are usually smaller, might not contain the noodles, and are deep fried. They can be rolled in wheat-based wrappers similar to Chinese egg rolls. That wrap provides a more uniform "fried" brown color appearance on the roll itself, as well as that in a group of rolls. Rice paper wraps, when fried, can be a bit trickier to manipulate, and differential surface browning can produce a more random or idiosyncratic coloring. Rolling of the chả giò can be slightly different than that of the gỏi cuốn. Chả giò are typically rolled with the "tails" at either end tucked over the first rotation, to provide several thicknesses of wrap to securely seal each end. This is needed to keep the roll from bursting at the seams when frying; it's not as necessary for the less tumultuous preparation of gỏi cuốn.
I decided last week to prepare some gỏi cuốn and bún thịt nướng. Decided ingredients to be carrots, pork, scallions, cucumber, daikon, basil, red cabbage, red pepper, boiled shrimp, and noodles; some of which produce was in the fridge and had to be used. Ingredients for these dishes can vary as you like: sliced hot dogs, onions, and baked beans would produce a non-canonical but still functionally correct dish, I suppose (YMMV). I began by thinly slicing some pork shoulder and marinating it in fish sauce, red wine vinegar, soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, chili sauce, and sugar. While I was at it, I also pickled some julienned carrots in a similar mixture, then used the pickling liquid as the base for a dipping sauce (with scallions, at left in photo).
After a few hours marination, we're ready to roll. First, I fried the pork in a dry pan. The cooking fat and sugar in the marinated meat made it difficult to not eat it as it was.
Mise en place for rolls makes the process easier. Wrappers purchased at a store are packaged as hard, brittle disks that look like translucent plastic. Each wrapper must be soaked for 10-15 seconds in water, or until pliable, in order to be rolled. Soaked any longer and they tend to become a sticky gelatinous mess. Once the rice paper wrap has been soaked, there's a short window to fill and roll before the wrap gets too sticky to work with. I used a dry towel to blot the wrapper just before it becomes totally limp, then lay the wrapper on a plastic board to load it. Some wood boards can be too porous and the wet wrapper can stick to them like glue. Here is the mise with the bánh tráng (rice paper wrappers) from a local big box grocery's "Asian foods" aisle.
Filling and rolling is straightforward. Here is a good photo-tutorial. My results looked thusly:
A companion bowl of bún thịt nướng looked to me colorful and delicious (it was).
This is a decent recipe that outlines composition of the various elements of the dish. But, again - put in it what you like, what you find delicious. Like carrots? Add more carrots. Hate vermicelli? Substitute cooked rice or bread crumbs. It's what you like to eat, after all.
The next day I decided to get crazy with the left vegetables, meat, noodles, and wrappers. While I often enjoy the odd fried whatnot, I avoid deep frying foods at home. There is no outside cooker that could do the job, and deep frying in the kitchen leaves the house smelling something like the manager's cubby in a Carl's Jr. at a rest stop along I-666 - not that there's anything wrong with that. But, in a fit of experimental madness, I threw caution and usual household aromas to the wind, poured some canola oil in a deep pot, and rolled up some gỏi cuốn for me and a friend. Using the mighty power of scientific fryolation, I intended to transform these beauties into some deep fried chả giò.
There are no photos to document immersion of these test subjects in the hot oil. Please just imagine something like BWAHAHAHAHAHA! * cue lightning effect *, with
V.O.:Henry Frankenstein: Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE! Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!
OK. What really happened was this: when oil was to recommended temp (330-350F, or when chopsticks are surrounded by bubbles when tipped into oil), the rolls were gently laid in the pot and submerged in the oil. The thing is - I got too eager. Wheat-based rolls are rather sturdy. Rice paper rolls need more coddling. These must (A) not be put in the pot touching one another, or the wraps will stick and the roll will go to pieces; and, (B) they must be placed in the pot and NOT TOUCHED for at least 45-60 seconds, to allow the outer layer to firm up - otherwise, again, they remain too sticky and if touched will stick to the implement (e.g., chopsticks) and the roll will burst.
Thus, during Trial 1, I was too eager to turn the roll in the oil, nudged it with the chopsticks, the wrapper stuck to the sticks, and... dreams died hard, shot down in flames by the sudden appearance of an unidentified frying object.
Thus was created an abomination to gustatory science. Still, after letting it cook for a couple of minutes and crisp up, then drained on kitchen paper, it was delicious alongside an expedient peanut/vinegar dipping sauce. The fried basil leaves were especially good...
After my humiliation by the universal forces of culinary physics, I decided not to play god and so adhered to the received wisdom of the elders: rolls were laid in the oil and I did not soon %#@& with them.
The results were much more coherent. Fortified with a malted beverage, I resolved to eat my creations then and there, and so destroy evidence of my tampering with the laws of nature. The lone and level sands stretch far away, only footprints remained.
This lady offers a great tutorial in the prep of chả giò.
Gỏi cuốn and chả giò are delicious, inexpensive and simple to prepare, and (mostly) good fuel for your body. Get rolling!