Leftovers FTW!

Rice paper is a new food-crush of mine. Typically made from little more than rice flour, tapioca, and water, they're naturally gluten-free. I found mine at Whole Foods, but Asian markets will stock them, too. You can find rice paper handling instructions on YouTube - it's really not difficult.

They can be eaten cold, but today I decided to go for maximum caloric impact and try them crispy. They do tend to break and let oil in, though, so I ended up wrapping my rolls, seam-side down, in a second layer of paper.

Today's experiment began with a poorly-stocked fridge, other than a few leftover salads and last night's tilapia fillet. Of course, the filling options are legion - any tasty combination would work, as long as the textures are varied and it's got some crunch. A couple weeks ago, it was deli ham, snow peas, home-grown sprouts, tomato, eaten unfried as an afternoon snack.

Today's process:

1. Survey leftovers.
2. Heat the kettle & get the rice paper from the pantry.
3. Heat 1/2" oil in a cast iron skillet.
4. Dip 1 rice paper in plate of warm water till it just starts to soften.
5. Wrap tilapia bits, salad, and a drop of (optional) Sriracha hot sauce into a spring roll shape
6. Shallow-fry till crisp. Drain, cool.
7. Devour.



Here are more ideas for using rice paper from a gluten-free forum (tuna salad sandwiches??):

Spring rolls - bake em, freeze em

Lasagna, tuna sandwich, baklava??