If you are a culinary health food nut and love to explore different authentic home made cuisines, you may have heard about the buzz on tasty and healthy Vietnamese appetizers called spring rolls or Goi Cuon. It is simple, quick, and healthy. After reading this article, you will be able to easily prepare your very own spring roll appetizer for yourself and your family. Best yet, your kids can learn to make their own spring roll appetizer, too.

Spring rolls or Goi Cuon are great Vietnamese appetizers because they are light and simple. Since the ingredients are mostly vegetables, the food does not set too heavy in your stomach and leaves room for the main dish. But if you eat too many spring rolls in one sitting you will be filled up. This dish is composed of boiled meat, noodles, and vegetables. The ingredients are wrapped in thin rice paper and dipped into *Sweet and Sour Hoisen or *Anchovy Mix sauce. There are many ways to prepare spring rolls. This recipe provides the basic principle on how to prepare spring rolls. One may use chicken instead of pork or turkey instead of shrimp. Have fun and be creative.1 bundle leaf lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces

1 pound bean sprouts
1 bundle mint leaves - Fresh Mint Leaves - Ships out on Tuesdays
1 bundle cilantro
1 pound shrimp
1 cup lemon juice
1 pound pork sirloin
1 (12-ounce) package bánh tráng rice paper -- Banh Trang Spring Roll Wrapper, 12-Ounce (Pack of 8)
1/3 package bún rice stick noodles, cooked* -- Rice Stick - Small
*Sweet and Sour Hoisen or Anchovy Mix -- A Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Family Recipes

Clean and drain vegetables and shrimp. Boil the shrimp with lemon juice in a saucepan until the shrimp turns pink. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Peel the shells from the shrimp and de-vein. Boil the pork sirloin with 6 cups of water in a saucepan at medium high heat. Cook the pork for 15 minutes or until the pork is no longer pink. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Transfer the pork to a bowl and allow to cool. Slice the pork into thin slivers.

Cook the bún noodles*. Separate the rice papers from each other. Fill a large bowl with hot water. Dip a single rice paper slightly into the bowl. Warning: Over soaking the rice paper will make wrapping difficult.

Place the rice paper flat on a plate. Place the ingredients in the following order in the center of the rice pager: a small piece of leaf lettuce, 10 to 20 strands of rice noodles, 5 to 6 bean sprouts, a small branch of mint leaves, and a few leaves of cilantro. Place 3 pieces of shrimp on top, separating them from each other. Place 3 pork slices in between the shrimp.

Wrap all of the ingredients eggroll style*. Serve as Vietnamese appetizers with Sweet and Sour Hoisen or Anchovy Mix.

As you can read, spring roll is easy to create. You may have trouble finding such ingredients as bánh tráng , rice stick noodles , or Sweet and Sour Hoisen, or Anchovy Mix. Have no fear, Pho Queen is here with these and other exotic ingredients available online.

If you are interested in the many more simple Vietnamese appetizers, you may want to check out Ha Roda's cookbook, “A Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Family Recipes.” You can get your fully illustrated copy of the cookbook from here.

* refer to recipes or illustrations in a Vietnamese cookbook by Ha Roda -- A Vietnamese Kitchen: Family Treasured Recipes.
Click here for your copy.