Wrap & Roll

You remember my post "from the Hell to the Heaven"?
It seems no lines between street food and food served in fancy restaurant.

Wrap & Roll is the same. Easy to buy from street stall as a quick meal.
And we order it in the restaurant with curiosity, how good they are in fancy place ?

Wrap & Roll. It's about many dishes when we eat or prepare, we put some filling on rice paper (bánh tráng). Then we wrap! We roll! We dip it in sauce! And we enjoy!

Most famous. Most desirable. Our fried spring roll. We call "chả giò" in the south, "ram" in central and "nem"  in the north! I don't know why "spring" ? It would originally come from our big neighbor!

Deep fried spring rolls (chả giò) 

Variation of fried spring roll in Quảng Ngãi - ram! 

 The fillings for deep fried chả giò is usually a  mixture creatively imagined by the chef!
 What to put ? How much to put ? What kind of rice paper ? It makes different!
Too much pork? not good! Too much crab? not good!
 It should be a nice balance of several different ingredients! That's our chef secret!

Spring roll in Huế (Central) style 

Spring roll in northern style - nem!  

I did try many times. With different ingredients. Pork. Shrimp.Crab. Wood ear mushroom. 

Green bean. Taro. Egg. Glass noodle... and I feel quite confident about my signature dish! 

You see the dark golden brown color of spring roll's skin? Special tip to get that color! 

And how to make it crispy for long ? Another big secret that no one shared with me so far! 

I just wonder why don't we have a spring roll's fast food shop. All kinds. Deep fried. Fresh. 

Even sweet one with banana that I dream to create some day! 

Fresh spring roll (gỏi cuốn) 

Fresh spring roll (gỏi cuốn). That's really spring! Because of the fresheness from veggies, freshly cooked shrimp,  pork, rice noodle wrapped in freshly moistened rice paper!

If the recipe for chả giò varies in ingredients. Gỏi cuốn is quite loyal to their existing recipe. We may change from pork or shrimp to fish, what I usually do it at home! But we don't call it gỏi cuốn anymore!
Just same concept! Exactly as what we tried at "Đất Phan"- fish cake roll!

If dipping sauce for fried chả giò is fish sauce, fresh gỏi cuốn requires sweet & thick black soya bean sauce mixed with some peanut and chili!

Fish cake roll at "Đất Phan"- speciality from Phan Thiết!   

The last roll in this post is a roll with pork skin! Bì cuốn!
Pork skin (bì) is a mix of cooked pork, shredded pork skin and stir-fry rice powder (thính)! The special taste, aroma comes from rice powder and well mixed with freshly shredded cooked pork meat!

Pork skin can go very well with bread, our baguette (bánh mỳ bì). A traditional  broken rice (cơm tấm bì) can't go without bì! And now with rice paper, rice noodle, veggies ... traditional "bì" make another wrap & roll more glamorous!

Bì cuốn - roll with a mixture of cooked pork, shredded pork skin and stir -fry rice powder!

Where to buy, as this's good for to go! 
Bánh xèo Đinh Công Tráng - 46 A Đinh Công Tráng, dist.1
or many other street stalls with deep fried chả giò, fresh spring rolls!