It's time we returned to some beautiful food. Though the last few things we've posted certainly tasted delicious, they weren't the most aesthetically pleasing dishes. Last night, however, we made a variation of the most interesting and gorgeous rice and fruit spring rolls from Vegetarian Times Magazine. We've made Vietnamese summer rolls with noodles and such before, but this sweet twist on the dish is meant to be served as a dessert.
The recipe calls for sweetening the rice with honey and vanilla, and features a coconut milk dipping sauce. But since we've been feeling more lactose-intolerant than usual these days, we nixed the dipping sauce and instead created our own duo of sauces: strawberry and caramel. We loved the result, and would definitely do this again. Rolling wet rice into rice paper is slightly more difficult than rolling the noodle combination, but we quickly got the hang of it, so don't become discouraged if the first few look a bit wonky. This is so lovely for serving to guests -- just sweet enough, pretty, simple.
Ingredients:
1 cup jasmine rice
2 tbsp honey
3 tsp vanilla extract
4 kiwi, finely diced
10 strawberries, finely diced, 10 slices reserved
10 small spring roll wrappers
(strawberry sauce and caramel sauces):
1 cup frozen strawberries
sugar
Instructions:
Cook rice in two cups of water, honey and vanilla. Once rice is cooked, set aside and cool. Fold in diced strawberries and kiwis. Dip one spring roll wrapper in water for about 30 seconds, until soft. Lay on a flat surface; spoon about 2 tbsp rice mixture onto the spring roll and top with a strawberry slice. Roll spring roll tightly and tuck in sides. Repeat for all spring rolls, and refrigerate. To make the sauces, melt and mash strawberries in a saucepan with sugar to taste (probably about 1/2 cup). Strain if you like, and refrigerate until completely cool. Then, melt additional sugar into a caramel sauce by heating over low heat. Spoon strawberry sauce over a plate, and place a spring roll on top. Spoon caramel sauce over over top, and serve.
