“I love Vietnamese summer rolls but these have a little twist: a zingy, fresh Chinese salad in place of the usual suspects. In Chinese, the salad is known as lao hu cai, which translates to ‘tiger vegetable’, either because the mixture looks like a tiger’s stripes, or perhaps because the salad’s spicy flavours impart the strength of a tiger. Be warned, you will want to overfill these and I have learned the hard way: they just burst. Fly close to the sun by all means, but satisfaction lies in a complete parcel. Feel free to add marinated and roasted batons or strips of tofu for a little protein.” Joe Woodhouse, author of Weeknight Vegetarian
150g (5½oz) rice vermicelli
1 cucumber, cut into 7.5cm (3 inch) batons, or to taste
4 celery sticks, finely sliced, or to taste
25g (1oz) coriander, leaves picked, stalks finely chopped, or to taste
1–2 green or red chillies, finely sliced, or to taste
1 scant tablespoon rice vinegar, or to taste
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil, or to taste
16 rice paper wrappers
Salt
For the sauce (all ingredients to taste)
75g (2¾oz) tahini
4 teaspoons rice vinegar
1½ teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon honey
¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
100g (3½oz) roasted, salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Bring a kettle to the boil and put the rice noodles in a large heatproof mixing bowl. Pour boiling water over the noodles and allow to soften for 5–7 minutes or until they are sufficiently tender. Drain and cool under cold water, then drain well again.
Meanwhile, combine all the sauce ingredients except the peanuts in a serving bowl. Taste and add more of anything you think it needs. Put the peanuts in another bowl. In a separate mixing bowl, mix the cucumber, celery, coriander and chillies and dress with the rice vinegar and sesame oil. Add a pinch of salt and any other ingredient you may think there needs to be more of.