I couldn’t find a suitable topic to add this to - sorry about that!
Anyway, after years of really liking nems but not being all that keen on buying commercial versions, I thought I’d have a go using the Brick that’s on promo at Lidl at the moment. I’ve been looking on line at recipes but was wondering whether any of you have a favourite recipe for these (doesn’t have to be authentic, and using brick it probably wouldn’t be) but some of you are really good at recipes so I thought I’d ask…
PS - I have a Vietnamese cookery book but there are only 2 recipes in there and they use things that are difficult to get…
Using brick sheets would make them more like lumpia so you could put beanshoots etc in.
For nems I use glass noodles, minced pork, shrimps or crab meat (or a mixture of 2 or 3) a bit of shredded carrot, leaf coriander ginger and shredded black mushrooms all squirged up together with nuoc mam, just keep tasting the mixture until it suits you. (You can also mix an egg or 2 in and fry it in round flat cakes).
I have to improvise as my great-grandmother (the Viêt one) got people in to make them at home in vast quantities, but there was never a written recipe.
Thank you @vero ! I thought you’d have ideas, knowing about your great-grandmother! I’d never heard of lumpia so just looked those up as well - very interesting indeed…
I have seen glass noodles in one of our local supermarkets - can’t remember which! I take it you would normally use feuilles de riz rather than brick? We went with some French friends to what they described as a Chinese restaurant and it wasn’t but it was very interesting, particularly around the question of spring rolls. It was because I missed the ones from the UK that I tried nems, since they looked similar, but I really didn’t like the spring rolls in the restaurant because of the flaccid wrapping. Are they normally steamed in Vietnamese cooking?
No we fry them and they should be translucent a bit frizzled, bubbly in places, and crunchy. Flaccid means they have been sitting around
We do them not fried as well but much bigger and more salady inside.
Then there’s a rice ‘jelly’ roll in a banana leaf (or tinfoil) with minced pork coriander dongu and oyster sauce which is a bit gorge.
Feuilles de riz (or the bean ones) are a bit fiddly, you have to keep them really damp, but they are worth it.
Using brick sheets you could always do the nem mixture but fold them like samosas and bake them, which might be easier.
You could make baklava with your brick sheets too!
We use rice rounds from either Grand Frais or Super U….I forget which. I find brick is too thick and not pliable enough. (edit: Too thick for borek or baklava or samosas. I think it could be a French preference to prefer brick to filo - but for me it’s filo every time)
And stuff then with an assortment of what’s in the fridge. The essentials to me are nuoc nam and carrot. Then a squishy protein, plus less squishy veg. Lettuce and mint leaves also preferred to wrap them in to eat.
Great ideas there, @vero and @JaneJones - thank you very much
It’s incredibly difficult to find filo pastry (and feuilles de riz) around here so that’s why I’m trying with brick to start with! I haven’t eaten baklava for more years than I can remember so that is definitely one for the list. Coriander is difficult too, believe it or not, so we grow it but our success rate is highly variable but we really love it. When my partner was having to follow a strictly vegetarian diet, we used a awful lot of coriander…
I have made a note of the lettuce plus mint requirement…
You need pliable lettuce, it stops you burning your hands and is a good way of keeping the herbs in place. Dip in a mixture of nuoc mam and lemon juice with a pinch of sugar and a bit of chopped chilli if you like and some crushed peanuts.
Possibly wear a bib
Although my Fr grandmother’s family lived in Saigon her mother-in-law (my great grandmother) lived in the north (Hanoi and Cao Bang) and we eat essentially northern Viêt/Yunnan food
but we really love it. When my partner was having to follow a strictly vegetarian diet, we used a awful lot of coriander…