Have you ever eaten at Moxies? I usually only go there to have a few drinks. But, a couple weeks back I was there for a bit of a business lunch and chose an appetizer that I considered a ‘safe’ vegan choice – Avocado Spring Rolls. Now, I don’t know 100% of what they put in their filling but I do know that Moxie’s uses a wheat spring roll wrapper and is not gluten-free.
So, enjoying the flavours the rolls had I set out to come up with a replacement which Levi could enjoy.
Coming up with a knock-off for the filling turned out to be fairly easy since I found this clone recipe online. Except instead of regular wheat spring roll wrappers we tried it with rice paper.
- 2 ripe avocadoes
- 1 lime, juiced
- 3 tablespoons chopped sundried tomatoes in oil
- 3 tablespoons finely minced red onion
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
- 1 teaspoon Thai yellow curry paste
- Rice paper wrappers
- Water, for softening wrappers
- Peanut oil, for frying
- Mash avocado with lime juice until chunky.
- Add tomatoes, onions, cilantro and curry paste. Mix until combined.
- Dip rice paper wrappers in water and let excess drip off.
- Place on a cutting board and put 1 tablespoon of filling in center at one end of the wrapper. Roll the end over and tuck the sides in and continue to roll up – like a burrito.
- Heat about 1 or 2 inches of peanut oil in a deep skillet over medium heat.
- Place the prepared spring rolls in the hot oil.
- Fry on each side until golden brown.
- Remove to a mesh cooling rack to drain excess oil.
- Serve with store-bought sweet chili sauce.
The flavour of these was bang on what I remembered tasting with the Moxie’s rolls. The texture is obviously a bit different, being that the wrappers were different. When we made these for our appetizer night we used our deep-fryer and the consensus was that next time we’d use the skillet method outlined above. The rice paper wrappers had a tendency to puff up and cause the rolls to float unevenly and not allow you to turn them over for even browning.
Oh, and here’s what the rolls look like before frying:
I have looked all over for the rice paper? Not at my Whole Foods ? Where can I search them out?
Hi Nina! Do you have any Asian markets nearby? You will definitely find a variety of sizes and shapes of rice paper at a specialty Asian market. I hope that helps. If you don’t have any Asian specialty markets nearby and your other grocery stores don’t seem to carry them, I’d ask the store management to see about bringing them in. Good luck!
Thanks! I will try an Asian market
Have you tried baking them? I wonder how that would turn out. I’ve never cooked with rice wrappers, so wondering how that would be!
Hmmm … that’s a good question. Rice paper is rather sticky once it’s hydrated and I don’t know if they’d get crispy if baked. I think I might have to give it a try. Maybe brushing them ever so lightly with oil before baking might do the trick. I am going to try this way the next time I make these and I’ll let ya know!
Ok Mia, I did some digging around on the interweb and found a video here: http://kitteekake.blogspot.com/2011/02/sneak-peekview.html
She uses tapioca paper (similar to rice paper I guess, though I’ve never used it yet) but says rice paper would work. She brushes her samosas with a bit of oil and bakes them at 365F for 20-25 mins, flipping half way. So, I imagine the same technique could be used for these Avocado Spring Rolls.
It was fun to run into this video and blog post because I’ve made Cheater Samosa Rolls and struggled with how to make them nicely triangular. Now I have the techniques she showed in her video for that recipe too.
Hope all that helps!
~Megan
Does it have to be peanut oil? I’m allergic to nuts.
You certainly can change up the oil if you’re allergic to peanut oil or prefer not to use it. Just choose a suitable vegetable oil that has a high smoke point so it can fry up nicely. Canola oil should be fine, for example. Enjoy!