A tuna summer roll.
What's the difference between summer roll and spring roll?
I found that the two terms are often conflated.
A summer roll is made with rice paper
and it's eaten cold during summer months.
A spring roll is eaten during the lunar new year
which happens to be in spring.
However, a spring roll is made with flour and water
and it's fried.
So it's eaten hot.
In addition to that, what's an egg roll?
An egg roll is made with flour, egg, and water,
and also eaten hot.
Fun fact of today. (chuckles)
Yay.
(audience applauds)
All right, get, make me some.
I wanna try something. Top chef (chuckles)
Top chef mode. Top chef mode.
(audience laughs)
So just like all recipes,
and I learned this from you, Rachael,
is that you wanna start off with the things
that take the longest.
So in this case,
we're gonna start off with the rice noodles.
You get this on Amazon, Whole Foods,
anything that says rice vermicelli,
that vermicelli is the rice.
What you're looking for.
Quick cooking though, 'cause it's vermicelli.
Just like cooking pasta,
boiling water, drop it in.
Let that sit, stir it around so it doesn't stick together.
And now we're gonna make the pickles.
There's about a cup of vinegar, rice vinegar specifically,
a little bit of water, one cup of water
and then we're gonna spike our vinegar,
so that way those flavors can infuse into our pickles.
And these are very traditional to have.
These are carrot sticks and daikon, that's been cut
into match sticks.
I'm just gonna throw that all in once it's simmering
Delightful.
Yep, and just a quick fun fact,
'cause I'm a walking Vietnamese cuisine encyclopedia.
daikon, what is it?
It's just a really large white radish.
A giant radish.
That's all it is.
If you don't have daikon or you have no access to it,
it's totally fine to do it with carrot.
I have minced ginger, minced garlic, and then
some minced shallot.
And if you're not too excited about chopping things
super small, you can also put this in a blender
and blend it all up to make it easier for yourself.
I do the same thing. Yeah.
Sometimes I just don't wanna pull out a cutting board
and cut everything.
So I have some fermented chili paste.
This is Chrouk Metae.
This is a Cambodian fermented chili.
You can also use sriracha, which I love.
And most people have in their fridge
and pantries at this point.
Exactly.
But a lot of these ingredients are so readily available
online.
You can comparison shop them.
You don't even have to leave the house.
And then I'm just gonna add some fish sauce.
Fish sauce, you wanna make sure you have
a high quality fish sauce.
Yeah. The difference is wild.
Absolutely.
There is a huge gamut of fish sauce out there.
We're doing fish sauce
and we're doing coconut water
just to kind of like add some sweet and natural sweetness
to it. Nice.
Right.
Natural sweet
And then some sugar just to round out..
Bump it up.
Bump up the taste.
Exactly.
And then let's do some lemons.
You can use limes as well.
I like to use lemons 'cause limes can be bitter.
Lemons are the sweeter of the acid.
Right. But in a pinch,
if you only had limes in the house.
Totally fine. It would be okay.
Totally fine. I've even used apple cider vinegar.
So, just some form of that.
Okay, you want the acidity, right?
Exactly.
Okay, so now this is the big question, right,
is how to use rice paper.
I guess this question so much.
What I like to do, this is what mom taught me as a kid.
Use cold water, don't use hot water.
Why use cold water, right?
When you use hot water, it hydrates really fast
and all you need to do is dip it once...
And then you're good.
Yeah.
Oh, that's a good one.
I usually have a little bit, you know like, warmish,
from the tap, no big deal,
but I'm doing that wrong, right there.
Cold is totally fine.
And what I'm doing is I'm rubbing it, the water into...
To get it into, right.
Exactly. And as it..
So it still has it a bite to it kind of.
Exactly.
And as it gets, as it hydrates, it starts to get sticky.
The moment it's sticky, it's ready to go.
Wow.
And then the general rule that I do is
I use the width and length of my finger for...
Good one.
Right?
So, so you're taking your pickles.
He's piling it in there with some mint, a little cilantro.
You add roe to this too?
You can, whatever in greeny shrimp,
I like to get, I'm chefy sometimes.
And I like to add like caviar or salmon roe
or also known as ikura.
But basically you're just using
really good quality tuna in there.
Exactly. Gotcha.
Fun fact, another fun fact.
Summer roll just means salad roll.
It's translated to salad roll.
So basically you can put anything in a summer roll
and you can't be wrong for it.
That's a great way to repurpose your leftovers at home.
Yeah.
I'm gonna repurpose this,
because we have to go to break, but I want this.
(audience applauds)
So Chef Tu, you are awesome.
You are always welcome here at any time.
Here, you have a whole, you have to fill there,
'cause I'm eating.
Can I have some of your sauce?
Yes.
(audience applauds)
Now we're gonna take a break with the summer roll.
Grab a snack, we'll be right back.
(audience applauds)
(upbeat music)