Its a common scene at any party:lumpiaall lined up in neat little rows or piled up on a platter for everyone to grab with fingers or tongs to easily munch on.Lumpiaor spring rolls are commonly wrappedinhomemade wrappersthat become shatteringly crisp after frying, which is a fantastic textural contrast to the juicy meat filling that youll find inside.
However, did you know that theres another kind oflumpiawrapper that doesnt even need to be cooked? These are calledrice paper.
What is rice paper?
Rice paperis basically edible paper made from cooked rice. Cooked rice ismade into a paste, formed into thin sheets, and then dehydrated to create these translucent sheets that are easy to use forfreshspring roll recipes.
Where do you find rice paper?
You can find rice paper in theinternational section, Asian section, or even in the chilled or refrigerated section where thelumpiawrappers aresometimes stored, too. (Some people may not know that rice paper is actually a shelf-stable ingredient, unlike the more commonlumpiawrappers.)
These fresh spring rolls are made with no-cook rice paper wrappers.
How do you use rice paper?
These ricepaper wrappers are quite easy to use! The tricky part is learning how to manipulate the sheets so that they will not tearbefore youve wrapped your filling. However, to make it pliable, these sheets need to be hydrated again. To do that, youliterally need to dunk the stiff rice paper into water to soften thewrapper into a sticky and flexiblelumpiawrapper.
While it wont be the same asthe commonlumpiawrapper, these wrappersdo not need to be cookedonce softened, especially if the filling is already cooked. This makes it the best kind of wrapper when you dont want to do more cookingovera hot stove.
Need astep-by-step guideon how to use rice paper? Follow these steps:
- 1Prepare your filling ingredients and position these aroundyour work area and chopping board within reach for easy access. Place a shallowplatenear your work area that is around the size of your rice paper sheets, and lightly fill with enoughwater to dunk the sheets into.Position this nearest toyour work area. Have another platenearby for your finished rolls.
- 2When ready to makeyour rice paperlumpia, quickly and lightly dunk the rice paper into the water. Place thison your chopping board.The rice paper sheet shouldbegin to soften.
- 3Workingquickly, add your filling.
- 4Using damp fingers, roll the softened wrapper around thefilling. (Careful! The softened rice paper wrapper will be sticky sowet fingertips will help you roll.) Since the rice paper is sticky once softened, use its stickiness to seal the roll.
- 5Repeat with remaining filling ingredients and rice paper sheets.
You did it! You made rice paper rolls! While these sheets are great as no-cooklumpiawrappers, you can actually fry these too just liketheVietnamese fried spring rolls orCha Giowhich result in crispy rice rolls. Yum, right?
