Vietnamese-style summer rolls

You can arrange the ingredients so they show through the translucent rice wrappers decoratively, or just bung the filling in and they will still look pretty and taste fresh. I’ve used fried onions rather than the more usual prawns, but use seafood if you prefer. You can buy Blue Dragon spring roll wrappers from Waitrose and Ocado, while Sainsbury’s sells wrappers as part of a Nem Viet spring roll kit.

MAKES SIX INGREDIENTS

1 large onion, thinly sliced Vegetable oil for frying 3 tbsp rice vinegar or cider vinegar

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp salt 9cm long chunk of carrot, peeled 4 radishes, sliced paper thin 9cm chunk of cucumber 2 spring onions Small wedge of iceberg lettuce, shredded

12 mint leaves

Leaves from 12 sprigs of coriander 6 rice paper wrappers, plus a few spares

For the dipping sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp water

½ red chilli, finely chopped 1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

METHOD

Toss the onion in a pinch of salt. Heat oil about 2cm deep in a small pan and add the onion. Fry gently until dark brown and crisp, then lift out and drain on kitchen paper.

Mix the rice (or cider) vinegar, sugar and salt until more or less dissolved. Cut the carrot lengthways into very slender slices, no more than 3mm thick, then lengthways again into batons. Put them in a bowl and pour over half the vinegar mix, tossing well.

Put the radishes in another bowl and pour over the rest of the vinegar mix. Leave to one side.

Cut the cucumber in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon. Cut the cucumber into long thin batons. Trim the spring onions to just the white part, 9cm long (the green ends can be used in the meatballs in the banh mi recipe overleaf). Cut the white part of the spring onion into long thin strips.

Arrange the fried onions, spring onions, cucumber, lettuce, carrot, radish and herbs in bowls.

Half fill a large bowl with water. Dip a rice paper wrapper in the water for two seconds, then lift out and lay on the counter. Reject it if it has big tears in.

Lay a spoonful of lettuce 3cm from the top, centred, and top with three carrot strips, three cucumber strips, a few strips of spring onion, and a few pinches of the fried onions. Top with two mint leaves, a few coriander leaves and slices of radish.

Lift up the top of the rice paper and gently roll up around the filling towards you, as tightly as you can without breaking the wrapper. Just before you get to the bottom, fold in the sides to seal the roll.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two hours before setting out.

Mix together the dipping sauce ingredients and store in a small bottle in the fridge. Take two tiny bowls or saucers with you on the picnic so you can each dip your rolls.