Nuoc Cham is the Vietnamese dipping sauce made with lime juice, fish sauce, and hot peppers. The rice paper hydration and rolling are the tricky bits of eating and assembling Fresh Rolls, but it's pretty easy to get the hang of it after a while. This is a fun, noisy kind of meal to share with anyone, especially since the rolls are assembled at the table and each person can adjust seasoning on his/her own.
Fresh Rolls with Nuoc Cham
3 carrots, grated, peeled, or matchsticked[1]
1 cucumber, sliced thinly
1 bunch cilantro, stems removed and leaves washed
1/2 cup basil leaves, stems removed[2]
1/2 cup mint leaves
2 heads of Boston Lettuce [3]
1 package of round rice papers.[4]
1 skein of cellophane noodles[5]
1 cup of rice vermicelli[6]
1 pound of steak
chinese five-spice powder[7]
sesame oil
low-salt soy sauce
sugar
rice vinegar
fish sauce[8]
three fresh limes[9]
one fresh hot pepper[10]
two cloves garlic, minced
Take the steak and marinate it in Chinese five-spice powder, soy sauce, and sesame oil, for about thirty minutes. A few drops of sesame oil and enough soy sauce to wet the steak is enough.
Prepare nuoc cham by adding 1 Tablespoon fish sauce, 3 Tablespoons lime juice, 1/2 teaspoons sugar, one clove minced garlic, and half-to-a-third of the hot red pepper. Chop the rest of the hot pepper and put it into a small dish.[11]
If using rice noodles, boil them in hot water for about a minute, then drain and rinse in cold water. If using cellophane noodles, soften according to package.
Prepare bowls of the fresh vegetables and herbs (cucumber, carrot, mint, basil, cilantro, and lettuce). After placing the carrots in a bowl, sprinkle with a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and about 2 teaspoons of rice vinegar and stir.
Grill the meat until it's about medium-rare, then let it sit for a minute and slice it into very thin slices. Put this into a bowl.
Set your table (for two, in this example) with a plate for each and the bowls of vegetables and herbs and meat in the middle. Ladle some nuoc cham[12] into a small bowl for each person. Scrounge up enough serving utensils. Put a pie pan half-full of warm water in a place accessible to everyone at the table[13]. Stack the rice papers to the side.
To eat: Separate one piece of rice paper from the stack, and dip both sides into the warm water. The paper will become hydrated and slowly will become rubbery. If you leave rice paper in water too long, it will completely dissolve. Pull the paper out when the middle just starts to get rubbery, and put it on your plate. Pile lettuce, cucumbers, hot peppers, carrots[14], and whichever herbs you like onto the rice paper, about three inches down from the "top" of the paper. Add beef[15] and carefully pull the top of the rice paper over the pile of stuff. Fold the sides over, as if making a burrito, then compress the package and roll it. Dip in nuoc cham and eat.
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[1] I grate my carrots, because I'm lazy. |
