Fried spring rolls and my mother's egg pillow — Reflecting on Vietnam's "wrapping cuisine

When I opened the refrigerator, leftover vegetables had been quietly piling up little by little. On days like this, it's time to roll up some spring rolls, I say — but in our house, we don't deep-fry them. Instead, it's baked spring rolls, cooked in the convection microwave oven. That's because I want to cut the calories and get them crisp and light. Back when I lived in Japan, whenever I had leftover vegetables I'd make gyoza, but ever since I started living in Vietnam, that changed to spring rolls. And among everything, for our family's baked spring rolls, my favorite kind of rice paper is the net-woven, lattice-patterned type.

⚫️If I recall correctly, 13,000 VND = a little under 80 yen (about 20 sheets in a pack) Rather than the completely smooth type, these are crispier and lighter, and they're less likely to burst when you fry them, so they're perfect for a sloppy person like me. Tonight's filling is dried shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, lotus root, cabbage, ground meat, and cilantro. I seasoned it with salt-lime and Vietnamese fish sauce, then kneaded and kneaded it by hand. Onto the woven rice paper, I quickly rolled them up. I made too much filling, so they're a bit packed tight. A little of the meat sticks out through the mesh. Here and there, the mesh tears a bit too. Well, that's just what home cooking is, isn't it.

⚫️ Give the surface a quick spritz of oil~ But it really makes me think — Vietnam truly has so many "wrapped dishes." Whenever people gather, out comes a huge spread of meat and fish, and without fail it's accompanied by vegetables and rice paper. Herbs, vegetables, meat, fish. You pile on whatever you like, roll it up, and eat it. The feeling is pretty close to Japan's temaki sushi (hand-rolled sushi). There are also plenty of dishes that come already wrapped from the start. Take spring rolls, for example — just those alone include: · Fresh spring rolls · Fried spring rolls (chả giò) · Steamed spring rolls There are also so many dishes wrapped in banana leaves, like the glutinous rice dishes bánh tét and bánh chưng, which are New Year's foods. The culture of wrapping food is everywhere in daily life. Why does Vietnam have so many of these "wrapped dishes"? When I looked into it, it turns out that in countries with a wet-rice culture, materials that can be processed like paper — such as leaves and rice — are close at hand, and the wisdom of wrapping food to preserve it developed, they say. Also, by wrapping it together with herbs and vegetables, It seems it also carries the meaning of adjusting the balance of flavors right there on the spot. A dish isn't necessarily completed on the plate. There are dishes that are completed in the hands of the person eating them, aren't there~. When it comes to dishes that wrap things up, there's a dish I'm reminded of a little. My own "wrapped dish." That would be my mother's omelet. Our family's omelet was a little unusual. We called it that when the filling was stuffed inside a rolled Japanese-style omelet. Rather than an omelet, its shape was more like a yellow pillow stuffed with sweet bean paste. My mother's specialty dish and a top-tier menu item that often showed up in my lunchbox! A filling made by stir-frying ground meat with onion, carrot, bell pepper, shiitake mushroom, and more, then sweetly seasoning it with soy sauce and sugar. That filling gets rolled up snugly in egg. My mother didn't use a spatula—she deftly rolled it with just chopsticks. Enthroned in the lunchbox, it was the grand, undeniable star. The juices from the simmered stir-fry and the egg's juices always melded together into something soft and luscious, slowly seeping out over the rice. And sometimes, this simmering broth would leak out of the lunchbox, It was actually a bit of a worry, the way it would creep into my textbooks and notebooks. A faint soy-sauce-colored stain in the corner of a page, along with its smell, would always bring my mood down. My mother's omelets—some days their beautiful yellow was dazzling, and on other days, maybe because she looked away for just a moment, the egg turned into a strangely charred black pillow. Memories of the culture of wrapping things up—and while I was lost in such thoughts, the baked spring rolls in the oven were crackling and sizzling away.

⚫️ 25 minutes at 170℃ — just leave it be and you're good~ I wonder if it's cooked all the way through. To start, pick one—go for a misshapen one—

⚫️ You squeeze some lime over it, and dab on a little mustard and black pepper before eating. Hehehe, the ultimate nibbling, disguised as "taste-testing." I want a beer~. Relocation Life Ranking