Months ago I was out shopping for groceries and I saw a pack or rice paper. I said to myself “I can do something awesome with this! “.

So here I am, after watching maybe a thousand videos about how to make these rolls I found out there is no “classic recipe” in this area, it is more depending on the taste of the maker, and you can literally put whatever the hell your soul desires! 🙂

I must say that most recipes I read/saw being made did have shrimp in them. However, I do not eat shrimp and I substituted that with crab rolls. You can also use chicken, beef, pork, fish or make them meatless.

Important part of the summer rolls is the dipping sauce, and some people do say that it needs to be thick and sticky. I thought more in the opposite direction and made light liquidy sauce with a lot of flavors. I must say without the sauce they wouldn’t be half as good.

SO, what did I put in the dipping sauce for starters:

•  Spring onion
• Spring garlic
• 1 orange
• 1/2 lemon
• 3 chilly peppers
• fresh basil (or you can use any spices you like)
• Vinegar (I used apple vinegar)
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp of sugar
• 1 tbsp of honey

Give all that a good mix in a bowl, and i will use the moment to mention that two of my hot peppers were raw and the third one was roasted, chop them really finely and don’t forget to remove the seeds before that.

For the rolls themselves I used:

• 2 red and 1 green roasted bell peppers
• 1 green raw pepper
• 1 big carrot grated
• a pack of crab rolls – julienned
• 2 oranges – filleted
• 1 pack of rice noodles
• spring onions
• 1 cucumber
• Lettuce
• And of course rice paper

The next important part is:  Have everything ready before you start rolling the rolls.

First you need to take out the rice noodles and put them in a big bowl, cover them with hot water and let them sit in it until soft (about 15 minutes).

Next step, roast your peppers, julienne whatever needs julienning an grade whatever needs to be graded. Chop your onions, fillet your oranges.

Once the noodles are ready, remove the water, and at a pinch of salt. Add in the carrots, spring onions and roasted peppers, you can squeeze a little bit of lemon in there. Then add about 3-4 table spoons of the dipping sauce and mix well.

Take out a sheet of rice paper, dip it in hot water for not more than 30 seconds flipping it over so it doesn’t get crooked.

Put the wet soft rice paper sheet on a chopping board and add in some of the noodle mixture, cucumber, crab rolls, raw peppers and filleted orange slices. Roll by flipping over the paper on both sides so the mixture doesn’t come out.

Another things to pay attention to is, they need to be made right before you serve them. If you want to make them before hand and serve them in a few hours, you will need to keep them moist. Don’t let them touch each other and cover them with wet cloth.

They are delicious. Enjoy!

-K.