Vietnamese-Style Prawn Summer Rolls

Ingredients

• 12 rice paper wrappers
• 300 g cooked king prawns
• 100 g rice vermicelli, cooked and cooled
• 1 carrot, cut into matchsticks
• 1 cucumber, cut into matchsticks
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 50 g fresh mint leaves
• 50 g fresh coriander
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tbsp crushed peanuts
• Nuoc chham dipping sauce (fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic and chilli), to serve
• Vietnamese pickled daikon and carrot (do chua), to serve
• Cos lettuce leaves, for wrapping, to serve

Method

1. Get your mise en place sorted before you touch a wrapper — prawns sliced in half lengthways if they're large, vermicelli drained and loosened with your fingers, vegetables in neat matchsticks, herbs picked. Once you start rolling you won't want to stop.
2. Make the nuoc cham first so the flavours have time to marry. Whisk together the fish sauce, a generous squeeze of lime juice, sugar to balance, finely minced garlic and chopped chilli. Taste and adjust — it should land sharp, salty, sweet and hot in roughly equal measure. Season with a pinch more sugar or another squeeze of lime until it sings.
3. For the hoisin-peanut sauce, spoon the hoisin into a small pan over low heat with a splash of warm water and stir for 30–60 seconds until it loosens into a glossy, pourable sauce — this short warming pulls the hoisin from sticky paste into proper dipping consistency. Off the heat, scatter over the crushed peanuts. Taste — a tiny pinch of salt ties the sweetness together.
4. Fill a wide shallow bowl with warm (not hot) water. Dip a rice paper wrapper in for 10–15 seconds until pliable but still holding its shape — pull it out while it still feels slightly stiff, because it will continue to soften on the board. Over-soaked wrappers tear; under-soaked ones won't seal. Lay flat on a clean, damp surface.
5. Across the lower third of the wrapper, arrange 2–3 prawns in a neat line, pink side down — that's the side you'll see through the finished roll. Top with a small tangle of vermicelli, a few matchsticks each of carrot and cucumber, a slice or two of avocado, and a generous pinch of mint and coriander leaves.
6. Fold the sides in over the filling, then roll tightly from the bottom up, tucking the filling snug under your fingers as you go — tight rolls hold their shape, loose rolls collapse the moment you dip them. Set aside seam-side down on a damp board (not touching each other, or they'll fuse) and repeat with the remaining wrappers and filling. You should get 12 rolls.
7. Plate the summer rolls fanned out, set the hoisin-peanut sauce and nuoc cham in small bowls alongside, pile the do chua and cos lettuce leaves on the side for wrapping, scatter the toasted sesame seeds over the rolls, and finish with lime wedges for an extra squeeze at the table.