Aulacese (Vietnamese) Spring Rolls with Vegan Ham Balls & Dipping Sauce

“We are going to make some vegan ham balls to roll with rice paper. Rice paper you can buy in the Chinese shop or even in supermarkets. It’s very thin so they call it rice paper, it’s made with rice flour. In Âu Lạc (Vietnam), we use it a lot. And mostly people use it to make vegan ‘nem’ sour meat roll or to make spring rolls. Either fresh or fried spring rolls. So now we’re going to make some vegan ham balls with salad, to roll with the rice paper.”

“You see, this kind of vegan ham, normally, they already put salt or seasoning in it, so you be very gentle with your seasoning. Just a little bit of black pepper, ground black pepper, optional, you don’t have to. Some mushroom seasoning.” “Now you mix it well; mix it well. You can use your fingers or you can use chopsticks. To mix it all together, finely, just mix it.”

“OK, now we’re going to make this into balls, small balls and grill them, that’s it. I think we can prepare the oven already, put it like 20 minutes, 200°C.” “You can use a little starch on your chopping board, just a little starch or flour, put your hand in the flour a little bit. Then you use that to roll your vegan meatball and put it on the tray.” “I think it’s done. It looks golden brown so it should be done.”

“OK, all you do is, dip the rice paper into the warm water. Not hot, just warm water. Even if you don’t have warm water it’s fine, cold water is fine. But in cold water it takes longer to soften, that’s it. You dip the whole rice paper or turn it around until it’s all dipped in the water, and you leave it on your plate. Then you put the salad on it. Maybe we have to soften the salad a little bit and then you put one of this perilla leaf on it. One or two, it doesn’t matter; you can spread it like that.”

“Now your rice paper is already softened and you just cover over and roll it. See that? That’s all you need to do. And now you can enjoy, just like that. See that! I am trying. The vegan ham ball is just nice.”