vietnamese spring rolls follow-up

So it turned out to be a good thing that we didn’t bring out feeble attempts at Vietnamese fresh spring rolls to the potluck bar-b-q, because our friend brought one’s that she had made & there were amazing! She had them so prettily rolled and they were so incredibly yummy.

I got some great ideas from her rolls that I cannot wait to try myself. She had things like fake crab meat, salmon, and avocado in her rolls. I think the next time I make them I might skip the bean sprouts and add avocado instead. It makes the rolls so rich and creamy. She also accompanied her spring rolls with a sweet chili garlic sauce, which was very refreshing & tasty.

Sauces:

We had 3 different dipping sauces with our spring rolls:

1) a mix of: fish sauce, water, lime juice, garlic, sugar, garlic chili sauce

2) a mix of: hoison sauce and crushed peanuts

3) Thai Kitchen's Spicy Thai Peanut Satay Sauce that we picked up from the grocery store’s “asian” aisle

I learned a few things from the sauce experiment:

- peanut sauce is pretty easy to make, so I’ll be trying it myself next time.

- always check the expiry date of items you buy (some items like Thai Kitchen's Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce have a very, very, very limited shelf life - honestly, what am I going to do with a jar of peanut sauce in a few days???)

- sometimes the simplest sauces are the most tasty (we enjoyed sauce#2 the best)

I think next time I'm going to stick with:

1) sweet chili garlic sauce (available in most grocery stores in the "Asian" aisle)

2) a mix of: hoison sauce and crushed peanuts

3) a peanut sauce of some kind, home-made or store bought.