Cucumber Fresh Rolls with Peaches and Basil

Name: Cucumber Fresh Rolls with Peaches and Basil
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Cuisine: Asian
Ingredients: 1 Peach, thin slices; 1/2 Cucumber, peeled and sliced thin vertical slices; 1 Bell Pepper, Yellow or Red, seeds removed and sliced; 4 Rice Papers, I usually buy Three Ladies Brand from Asian Market. One packet has 40-45 rice papers.; 1/4 Cup Peanut Sauce, Optional for serving. To make peanut sauce at home, check recipe in steps.; 1 Cilantro, small bunch about 10 leaves with strings; 8-10 Basil, basil leaves

Late Summer - Farmer's Market Special Week

Posted By Savita

Appetizers Snacks In Season

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This is the Farmers Market Week series and today we are talking cucumber and fresh rolls. In late summers, cucumbers go on sale and how many bottles of pickles can we make with them - 4 bottles or 10 bottles? I recently started making fresh batch of cucumber pickles and I have to tell you guys, fresh pickle taste way better than bottled ones. So I am not pickling cucumber this season – okay not more than 2-3 bottles.

However, cucumber is my favorite summer veggie and I always explore different ways to use it in my cooking.

Today’s Cucumber Fresh Rolls scream my love for cucumber and fresh rolls. Fresh Cucumber and sweet peaches with sweet basil – the best way to enjoy farm fresh veggies.

I never had fresh rolls until few year back when I ate’em accidentally. Vishal and I were on a Vegas trip. We reached late night and there were not many options to eat. Or I should say we were so tired that we hardly looked for options. We ended up in a late night eatery where he ordered fish sandwich and I ordered fried spring rolls. Instead of fried rolls, I got someone else’s fresh shrimp roll order. Since Vishal now had to wait till waitress correct my order, I decided to eat fresh rolls and call it a day. Just finish meal, go to the room and sleep as fast as possible.

But those fresh rolls - which I was eating with weird expressions - were delightful.

So good that I thought about writing a review for bad service and I dropped that idea once I ate’em. In-fact since then I started experimenting a lot with flavor of fresh rolls at home.

My accidental shrimp rolls were: shrimp, mango and avocado rolls. However, today I am sharing a vegetarian fresh roll recipe with you.

Pairing Ideas:

Cilantro Tomato Chutney Tamarind Chutney

Cucumber Fresh Rolls with Peaches and Basil

Total Time: 10 mins Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 0 min

Cuisine: Asian Category: Appetizer, Snack Difficulty: Easy

Yields: 8 Half Rolls Serves: 2

SEE PRINTABLE RECIPE

Ingredients

1 Peach (thin slices)
1/2 Cucumber (peeled and sliced thin vertical slices)
1 Bell Pepper (Yellow or Red, seeds removed and sliced)
4 Rice Papers (I usually buy Three Ladies Brand from Asian Market. One packet has 40-45 rice papers.)
1/4 Cup Peanut Sauce (Optional for serving. To make peanut sauce at home, check recipe in steps.)
1 Cilantro (small bunch about 10 leaves with strings)
8-10 Basil (basil leaves)

Directions

1. Slice - Slice all the vegetables. If cucumber has big seeds, please de-seed the cucumber. Remove seeds from bell pepper too.
2. Arrange - Luke warm 2 cups water in microwave for about 2 minutes. Pour the warm water in a deep wide dish like deep plate or wide saute pan. Insert one rice paper into the water and rotate it once in water till all paper is soaked just once in water. Remove and lay it on a cutting board. Place two basil leaves at the bottom. put two pieces of each veggie on the top lengthwise.
3. Roll - Lift rice paper from one end and gently roll it around veggies. Towards the end, fold both open ends inside and roll over the rest of paper. I am no fresh roll wrapping expert guys, butt I can tell you these fresh fillings taste amazing with rice wrapper around'em.

Additional Notes:
In photo, you can see, rice roll towards the end of rolling where you will need to fold in the open ends inside.
4. Repeat with all rice rolls and keep placing them on a plate rubbed with 2 drops of oil and two drops of water - this little trick prevents gluing of sticky rice papers on the plate.
5. Serve - To make Peanut Sauce - Combine peanut butter with 2 tbsp oil, 1 tbsp honey, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce and 1/2 tsp rice vinegar. Mix well and then heat in microwave for 20 seconds twice. Stirring after heating every time.

Additional Notes:
I have not added ingredients to make sauce in the ingredient list. This is my quick chunky version of sauce which I make with Chunky Peanut Butter, you can buy peanut sauce from store if you like.