Added boiled water to a large pot, and placed vermicelli inside. While the vermicelli was cooking, we deveined and deshelled  pre-cooked prawns, and then chopped up carrots and cucumbers. Once the hot water in the pot had cooled sufficiently for my fingers, I placed the rice wraps into the hot water just long enough for it to soften. The wraps dry very quickly so make sure that the wrap doesn’t stick to itself.

Once you have the softened wraps, place it on a flat surface and layer in the vermicelli, prawns, carrots, cucumber, and lychees. Drizzled the lychee juice into the vermicelli and then closed up the wrap. The wrap itself is quite sticky so it will close easily, but make sure not to overfill it otherwise it’ll be difficult to eat.

Final Product:

Prawns and Lychee Salad Rolls

Review: 4/5

The lychee juice flavour was a nice addition to the vermicelli, but the vermicelli was a bit stiff and hard. The lychees themselves were not very noticeable until you bit into one though.

Recommendations:

I would leave the vermicelli in the hot water longer. Either use more lychees or just use the juice, as the actual fruit wasn’t very noticeable.

Additions: Thai Peanut Sauce

[Original recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKYvLTXrBkQ]

Heated up (just under boiling) 1/2 can of coconut milk for about 30 seconds, then I added 1 tbsp of curry paste, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp of fish sauce, and 2 tbsp of chunky peanut butter. Once it’s all heated, add the other 1/2 can of coconut milk and then remove the pot from the heat – this is to allow the coconut milk flavour to remain, as heating it usually removes much of the coconut flavour.

Review: 4.5/5

Very tasty and easy to make! The only criticism would be that it doesn’t seem as peanuty as I would like.

Recommendations:

Add more … peanuts? Maybe more peanut butter.

I pan fried garlic, pork balls (quartered), mushrooms, and bok choy. Once heated, I added 1 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil.

Now I added the Shanghai Thick Noodle (bought from T&T), but since the middle was somewhat frozen (fridge problems..) I added about 1 cup of water to the pan to help cook it. Finished it with about a tbsp of sesame oil and oyster sauce.

Result:

Shanghai Thick Noodle

Rating: 3.5/5
The noodles were overly done, mostly due to the extra water I added to help defrost it. Other than that, it would have been a solid 4/5. Tasty, the mushrooms was very flavourful, sauce was well balanced, but the noodles were a bit oily (due to the packaged noodles).

Recommendation for the next time: Use less sesame oil, more bok choy to increase the meat-vegetable balance.