Paper…

My girl enjoys popiah (spring roll) but unfortunately, the skin, being made from wheat, is not gluten-free. Anyway, we can’t get good freshly-made popiah skin here anymore and we would have to use the factory made ones available at the shops and supermarkets that we are not particularly fond of.

Thankfully, we have the bánh tráng or Vietnamese rice paper wrappers…

…but these can be quite hard to come by. We did manage to get a pack here and there but the people concerned do not seem bothered to restock once they are all sold out. We got this one from my niece, the one working in Singapore, who bought it in Vietnam for her parents but they did not know how to go about using and eating it so they gave it all to us…

It is not difficult actually – you just dip it in water…

…and place it on a plate, preferably a flat one. It will become soft…and somewhat sticky so one would have to be careful when peeling it off the plate and rolling it up.

I had it before in KL/PJ and when we were in Wellington, my girl and her coursemates’ Vietnamese friend invited us to the house for this.

No, this time around, we did not follow any authentic Vietnamese goi cuon recipe – we just cooked the filling that we would usually have in our popiah…

…and we also prepared these prawns, thinly-sliced omelette and crushed peanuts…

We placed everything in the rice paper wrapper, already soaked to soften…

…and added the lovely super hot chili sauce from Payung Café…

*Archive photo*

…and the crushed peanut…

…before rolling it up…

…and eating it…

Yes, it was very nice and the next day, we had some filling left so we had it again and this time, I went and bought some lettuce that we could use to line the bottom before piling all the ingredients on top and we also added some Thai basil leaves that are growing abundantly in my garden. That sure brought the taste to a whole new level.

If I remember correctly, once we had it with siew yoke and kim chi and lettuce leaves plus some hoisin and peanut butter sauce and it was very nice too. My point here is we do not have to follow what the Vietnamese do – it is up to our imagination how we can use the rice paper wrapper.