For the past five months I have been visiting San Antonio, Texas from time to time since my boyfriend got a fancy pants job and moved down there. Now, when I think of Texas cuisine, I usually think of steak, ribs and various other kinds of beef. Because it's Texas. I could just be stereotyping, but the people there seem to like cow meat.
So, I don't know if my boyfriend lives in some sort of cultural pocket or what, but there are Asian restaurants EVERYWHERE! Which is cool. Because Asian food is generally awesome. I believe the first Asian place we tried out was House of Pho which is actually a Vietnamese chain restaurant. Here's some more stereotyping, but when I think of chain restaurants I think of greasy heavy food with no nutritional content. However, House of Pho is gooooooooooood. Lots of fresh veggies. Very light food but you will still walk away pretty full. Mostly because if you get the soup looking stuff it comes in gigantic bowls that are impossible to finish. Here is their website! http://www.houseofphosa.com/ Go there! Anyway, I digress.
One of the appetizers they have that I will probably now get every time I go are the summer rolls with shrimp and peanut dipping sauce. I fell in love with them. I went back to Iowa and craaaaaaaaved these things. Unfortunately, I cannot find any place in the Cedar Valley that has them. So, I looked up recipes on http://foodgawker.com/ and turns out they're really easy to just make at home. The problem is that I could not find the rice paper wrappers anywhere in the Cedar Valley either. Fortunately, my boyfriend happens to live about five whole minutes from a Japanese grocery store (I don't remember what this place is called or I would post their website too). I picked up a pack of 50 some rice paper wrappers for less than $5. Seriously, I'm probably set for a while.
Moral of the story, I now make summer rolls all the time. I'd post a formal recipe for them but honestly it goes something like: microwave vermicelli noodles in a bunch of water until they're cooked. While microwaving noodles cut up a bunch of veggies (I always put in spinach because it's full of vitamins and iron and stuff and then throw in whatever else I have. Cucumbers are in season right now). The noodles are probably done so drain them. Take the rice paper wrappers and run them under water to soften them. Pile on the noodles and veggies. Fold 'em up! 15 minutes and you're done! You can add shrimp or chicken or whatever but I'm a poor lazy grad student. And meat is expensive and requires cooking.
I do have a recipe for the peanut butter dipping sauce (or at least a list of ingredients) so here that is.
Peanut Butter Dipping Sauce (for 3 summer rolls)
2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1.5 tablespoons sushi vinegar
splash of soy sauce
couple shakes of cayenne
*Note #1: Today I found a packet of sweet and sour sauce in my fridge from this one time when I had eggrolls so I added that into the dipping sauce too. It was super tasty!
**Note #2: I for some reason find dipping summer rolls to be difficult and messy. So now I just spread some of the dipping sauce over the wrappers and then add the rest of the stuff. Probably not authentic but easy-peasy.
***Note #3: This pic was my dinner tonight. SO FULL.
