Beef & Vegetable Spring Roll

The components:

Veggies: Whatever veggies you like to eat are perfect. For this one, I used:
-Red, yellow and orange bell pepper, thinly sliced into batons or strips
-Red onion, thinly sliced
-Persian cucumber, cut into batons or strips
-Whole fresh mint leaves
-Romaine lettuce leaf, just the upper part of the leaf, not the stem

Rice vermicelli noodles: Otherwise known as rice sticks. You really only need a handful of dry noodles. Cook those according to package instructions (which usually just means submerging in a pot or bowl of hot water for about 10 minutes. Then draining. But read the instructions to be sure.)

Beef: In a stainless steel or cast iron pan, heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable or canola oil. Add the beef and cook according to package instructions or to desired doneness. Remove and keep the beef in strips.

To assemble:

1. Soften the Rice paper/spring roll wrappers: In a bowl of hot water submerge 1 wrapper and soften for about 10 seconds. (The water should be cool enough that you can put your hand in it, but hot enough — even a wee bit of steam is okay as long as you don’t burn yourself of course — to soften the rice paper). You’ll do this one-by-one so don’t get ahead of yourself and soften 18 of them… it won’t work. Remove from the water and spread the wrapper onto a clean and flat work surface.

2. Lay 3 mint leaves down in the middle of the paper.

3. Top with a couple strips of bell pepper, cucumber and red onion.

4. Top with strips of beef.

5. Lay the romaine lettuce leaf on top.

6. Fold the end of the wrapper closest to you over the mound of ingredients. Then fold in the left & right sides toward the middle. Roll gently upward into a tight package being careful not to rip the paper.

Serve with a dipping sauce of sambal, peanut sauce, or sweet chili sauce.