First Time Making Rice Noodle Rolls!

It has been many, many years since I wrote for a public audience. But I am back, back to share my passion, my newfound love in food and cooking. Since that time, I have adopted a vegan lifestyle and become acquainted with various plant-based food items. While I enjoyed these experiences, I found myself reminiscing about some of the non-vegan food I had growing up. 

Quick fact about me - I am Chinese-American and grew up eating Asian dishes you like to order at your favorite restaurant or Uber Eats app. Just the usual, nothing too wild - Cantonese steamed fish, Malaysian sponge cakes, just to name a few. Oh, yes, and a lot of dim sum.

To my disappointment, local Chinese restaurants have yet to provide options for vegans who enjoy drinking tea and fine dining. Unless you want to just sit there and chit chat with a cup of oolong tea and eat plain rice noodle rolls...forget it. Which by the way, the preservatives in the soy sauce they serve may contain preservatives that originates from fish  - eek! so not vegan! I found that out on a trip to Hong Kong in 2018. 

Seeing as I have to take matters into my own hands, I decided to try my hand at veganizing my beloved dim sum. This is a recipe for beef rice noodle rolls (niú cheung (牛腸粉)) I made this summer. It was much easier to make than I thought and was actually a lot of fun (no pun intended) - thanks to the existence of rice paper. 

The ingredient list is rather short and chances are you have many of them in your pantry. I adopted the marinade from a non-vegan recipe and tweaked it for this recipe - just nixed the oyster sauce and used vegan fish sauce in its place and of course, I used vegan ground beef instead of real ground beef. 

Ingredients:

For the Beef Marinade

1 package plant-based ground beef

1 tablespoon coconut aminos 

1 teaspoon vegan fish sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon potato starch

1 teaspoon spoon water 

For the Noodle Rolls

8 sheets of rice paper

Water in a baking pan

Directions:

First, you are going to mix all of the ingredients for the marinade. Then you are going to serenade the beef by pouring the marinade over the beef and letting the beef soak it in. It doesn't have to be a long act, 15 minutes is good. 

While the beef is receiving love, you can prepare the noodle rolls that will envelop the beef. Fill a shallow baking pan with some cool water. Working with one piece of rice paper at a time, dip the whole thing in water for a couple of seconds and then carefully remove it. It's important to work quickly as you don't want the rice paper to stick to itself. I found it helpful to place it on a large piece of parchment paper - the rice paper can slide off more easily without a round of tug-or-war.

Fill the center of the rice paper with about one fourth of the marinated beef. Fold the rice paper from all sides by bringing it to the center, starting with the left side then the right then the top and then the bottom. Because rice paper has a delicate and fragile nature, I wrapped the noodle roll in another layer of rice paper. Set your finished noodle roll in a ceramic plate. Repeat these steps until all ingredients are used. You should have a total of four noodle rolls.

Last but not least, it's time to cook these noodle rolls. Place a steamer rack inside a large pot. Fill the pot with a few inches worth of water and bring to a boil. Place the plate of noodle rolls inside the basket. Steam the noodle rolls for 15-18 minutes on high heat. Alternatively, you can pan fry these noodle rolls.