Bun Tom Nuong Cha Ram - Vietnamese Rice Vermicelli with Grilled Shrimp and Shrimp Egg Rolls

A post of A Food Lover's Journey for Delicious Vietnam #2 announcement caught my attention. I asked her if I'm allowed to participate since I am just a fan of Vietnamese food. So, I decided to be a part of Delicious Vietnam #2 who is hosted by Ravenous Couple.

To be honest, I didn't know about Vietnamese dish until I moved to Winnnipeg. I have tried many of the food from some Vietnamese restaurants in town. As Vietnam is part of South East Asian, some of the dishes are similar to Indonesian ones.

After the making process was done, I'm very satisfied with the result as it tasted damn close with the restaurant ones!  Thanks so much to Wandering Chopstick for all the recipes that I used here.

The vermicelli is assembly with Tom Nuong (Grilled Shrimp) and Cha Ram (Vietnamese Shrimp Egg Rolls). Compare to Indonesian lumpia, cha ram is very simple to make.

I made the Nuoc Mam Cham (Fish Dipping Sauce) and Do Chua (Pickled) a head of time in jars and store them in the fridge. I use sap vinegar instead of white vinegar for both of these condiments. I'm not a big fan of white vinegar. Whenever there is a recipe call for white vinegar, I always substitute for nypa (Indonesia: cuka aren/nipa) or canesugar vinegar (Indonesian: cuka lahang).


Bun Tom Nuong Cha Ram
- Vietnamese Rice Vermicelli with Grilled Shrimp and Shrimp Egg Rolls -
recipe by Wandering Chopsticks
 
Ingredients:
rice vermicelli

Tom Nuong
400 g shrimps
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallot, minced
2 tsp fish sauce, add more to taste
1 tsp ground black pepper

Cha Ram
as many shrimps as you like
as many green onions as you like
spring roll wrappers
a pinch of salt

Nuoc Mam Cham 
1 cup water
1/2 cup Nuoc Mam (Vietnamese Fish Sauce)
1/2 cup nypa or canesugar vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
bird eyes chilies, crushed

Do Chua
1 medium-sized carrot, julienned
1 small daikon, julienned
1 tblsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup nypa/canesugar vinegar


Directions:
Bun
Do as the package direction says so.

Tom Nuong
1. Combine all ingredients for Tom Nuong. Let them sit for 30 minutes.
2. Grill shrimps until done.

Cha Ram
1. Peel and devein shrimps; sprinkle a pinch of salt over them and mix thoroughly. Roughly chop shrimps.
2. Slice the green onions into 2-inch pieces or on the diagonal.
3. Combine shrimps and green onions.
4. Place on wraps and roll (see how to wrap egg roll)
5. Deep fry until golden brown.

Nuoc Mam Cham
1. Boil 1/2 cup water. Actually, you don't have to boil the water, just get it hot so that it can dissolve the sugar more easily.
2. Stir in 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup fish sauce, and 1/2 cup sugar.
3. Taste and adjust if necessary. Add crushed chili peppers if you wish spicy taste. Store in a jar and keep it in the fridge.

The taste should be slightly sweet and rather mild, the pungency of the fish sauce quite muted.

Do Chua
1. After julienning the vegetables, spread them out in a shallow bowl.
2. Sprinkle just enough sugar for a light coating. Add a smidgen of salt. Pour enough vinegar to submerge about half the vegetables.
3. After 15 minutes or so, stir the vegetables so the vinegar is mixed. The carrots and daikon should be lightly pickled after about half an hour.
4. Store extra pickles in a glass jar and pour the extra vinegar in the jar. Add enough vinegar to fill the jar halfway and fill up the rest with water. Screw the lid on tightly. Store in fridge.

Time to assembly:
In a bowl, put rice vermicelli. Top with tom noung, any vegetables that you like (in this case, I added bean sprouts), do chua, cha ram and any herbs as you wish. The herbs can be cilantro, rau ram (Vietnamese coriander leaves) or Thai basil.

In another small bowl, place nuoc nam cham.