spring rolls

I just served spring rolls for lunch. When I say that, *I* mean I use the big sheet of rice noodle, soak it in water for half a minute, lay it on a board, fill it with savory goodies, roll it up snug and tight, and serve as is, with a dipping sauce.

Wikipedia tells me "spring roll" has a much broader meaning -- and this probably accounts for why I have occasionally ordered spring rolls at restaurants and gotten things quite different from what I described (typically things that I would normally call egg rolls, but whatever).

In today's lunch, I prepared four dishes of fillings: 1) crumbled tofu that was bought firm, frozen, thawed, pressed, and marinaded in vegan "fish sauce" mixed with crumbled toasted peanuts and diced jalapeno, 2) chopped cilantro and Thai basil blossoms and rosettes, 3) cucumber matchsticks, 4) mung bean sprouts. That's a pretty typical set of fillings we use, but also whatever we have as leftovers I want to use up is common. The dipping sauce is custom-made each time and today's was from peanut butter, minced Fresno chiles, a ton of minced garlic, simple syrup, shoyu, mirin, rice wine vinegar (and it came out too thick).

So that's me. What does spring roll mean to you? What do you like to put inside?

Wow....those look delicious!  Are you using the circular rice paper noodle or does it come in a flat square shape?  We have a fair amount of circular version that my wife bought for adding 'skin' to vegan chicken and turkey copies.  I've tried that as well for making faux bacon and it works okay, but I'm more into using tofu skin now for that purpose.  For egg rolls, I use the standard wrappers that one can find in a grocer produce section.  Tofu crumbles make a great filling and I may also use TVP (soy or pea) or seitan crumbles and make up a marinade with the usual suspects that includes vegan ham/bacon bouillon broth mix.  The pork-like flavor mixed with grated ginger and red-pepper flakes works pretty well.  A generous sauteed panful of thin-sliced cabbage, onion, and carrot provides the veggie balance to the final mixture.  If staying vegan, I use a mung bean or chickpea flour based egg replacer supplemented with black salt and chia protein powder.  This 'paste' is used to coat the wrap and seal the edges with the filling.  But it's spring and eggs are coming fast and furious from the hens!.....so that's what I'm using right now.  The final roll-up is rolled again through a plate of macadamia nut oil to coat the surface and placed in air-fryer basket.  When all in place, only 10 min. in air-fryer with single flip during the cook to yield pretty good egg rolls.  Hope to try your spring roll version soon!

Yum!

Circular noodle/wrap. You can see them on the far left of the first picture I posted, but they're almost out of the frame.

These are a favorite in our house also! A Vietnamese friend served these once as a “roll your own” sort of buffet, which is how I then presented to my kids. Easy family dinner; just slice up an array of veggies, herbs, and tofu or egg, and dipping sauces. Since the kids pick their own fillings, no waste and no power struggles.