Banh cuon
When it comes to Vietnamese wraps and rolls, we shall start with the basics! Banh cuon starts with a rice flour roll and stuffs it with ingredients like ground pork, prawns, and wood ear mushrooms. The latter mushrooms are used across Chinese cuisine, very common there but unfamiliar in Canada. Banh cuon can be eaten in a number of ways, typically served with side dishes like sausages. Having originated in north Vietnam, this wrap can be served plain or with nuoc cham. The outsides are thin and delicate, the dish itself is light, and it’s eaten all across the country as a breakfast dish.
Bo bia
Bo bia is another rice paper-wrapped Vietnamese dish, inspired by popiah. To a degree, it’s considered Vietnam’s interpretation of the Chinese popiah dish. It is often served with a spicy peanut sauce, sometimes with freshly roasted and ground peanuts. Bo bia is a common street food served in certain parts of Vietnam, usually the product of traditional family recipes. The bo bia rice paper wrap typically holds stir fried jicama and carrots, after having been mixed with Chinese sausage and shredded scrambled eggs.
Goi cuon
Goi cuon is the Vietnamese wrap easiest to make. They are alternatively referred to as ‘summer rolls’, ‘salad rolls’, or Vietnamese fresh rolls. It is very customizable. Goi cuon takes a rice paper wrap and surrounds a mix of shrimp, herbs, pork, rice vermicelli, and other ingredients. It’s traditionally dipped in a nuoc cham, alternative fish sauce, or peanut sauce. Spring rolls themselves can easily constitute an entire category of Vietnamese cuisine with so many unique varieties out there to enjoy.
Cha gio
Cha gio is a type of spring roll similar to an egg roll, very common in northern Vietnam. Rice vermicelli, pork, yam, crab, shrimp, wood ear mushrooms, and other ingredients usually fill the inside, while the outside of made from rice and then deep-fried. Cha gio is sort of an opposite to fresh spring rolls which are usually made from rice paper dipped in water. In recent years, cha gio’s undergone sort of a transformation with some chefs using alternative wheat-flour or gluten-free wrappers. If you’ve eaten Vietnamese before, you’ve likely see or had cha gio as it’s a traditional appetizer served on the menus of Vietnamese restaurants.
What are the important characteristics of a Vietnamese wrap?
If you’re going to do Vietnamese wraps and rolls right, there’s a few things you’ve got to master. Though it looks simple, having the right balance involves knowing your ingredients, how to assemble them, how to wrap them, what dipping sauce pairs appropriately with them, and more. Add too much of the wrong herb or vegetable and you end up with something that wasn’t intentioned. It is both an art and a science.
In recent years, with the health movement in full swing, there’s been a lot of customizations surrounding wraps and rolls. The rich diversity in our cuisine allows us to play with different flour types when it’s a roll being deep-fried, or try different combinations of herbs and rice paper preparing a fresh wrap. The vegan and vegetarian varieties usually use some version of a substitute in the form of tofu or a garden-based protein source.
Why are wraps and rolls important to Vietnamese culture?
Vietnamese cuisine is a representation of our culture – absolutely! – but that’s not just it. Our cooking’s about feeding families. There’s a half-dozen sayings we have around food for this reason, including ‘Learn to eat, learn to speak, learn to wrap, learn to open’. Cuisine brings us together, as a people. No matter how diverse our opinions, thoughts, or feelings are, when something’s on the dinner table, we gather.
Wraps and rolls are easy to make, use farm-based ingredients, and they’re the closest thing traditional Vietnamese cooking has to fast food. The process to make them is fast but they’re family-friendly in terms of giving something mothers can instruct to their daughters and fathers to their sons. As long as we have enough to make dishes like wraps and rolls, in Vietnam, no family goes hungry.
Are you looking for authentic Vietnamese cooking in Toronto – look no further. TorontoPHO is a restaurant that compromises not only of healthy fresh wraps and deep fried rolls but steaming bowls of pho, refreshing salads, and spicy stir fry meals. There’s no Vietnamese joint in the GTA similar. In fact, we’ll fight tooth and nail for the tag of being the best Vietnamese restaurant in Toronto. Our menus are guaranteed to hit the spot and help you curb that craving for tasty, healthy fare. Stop by today.
