Fridge Cleaning Spring Rolls

his recipe is designed to clean out the leftovers from your fridge. I hesitate to call them "Thai" or anything like that, because you can pretty much put whatever you want in them. Because of that, the list of ingredients is flexible. There are really only a few things you should have, like the rice paper, but the filling can be pretty much anything you've got hanging around the kitchen. For this recipe, I'll list what I used to make them when I took the photos.

Here's the list of ingredients:

• 4 or 5 pieces of rice paper for rolling
• Big handful of mung bean sprouts
• quarter of a red cabbage, finely shredded
• 1 grated carrot
• 1 finely sliced orange bell pepper
• 1 finely chopped spring onion (green and white bits)
• half a cup of textured vegetable protein or something like that (it helps soak up the extra liquid so your rolls aren't runny when you bite into them)
• 1 teaspoon of miso paste, thinned in a tiny amount of water so it dissolves
• Juice from half of a freshly cut and squeezed lime
• Some type of chili oil or hot sauce, to taste
• Freshly ground pepper
• As much grated ginger as you can stand
• 1 tablespoon of agave nectar
• A big handful of freshly chopped cilantro

Once you've got everything shredded and mixed up, get your prep area ready. Boil some water and put it in a small bowl or pot or something, so you can soak the rice papers. Put a clean towel down on a cutting board or something, to keep the papers from sticking to the work surface when you roll them, and to soak up the excess water.

Once you've got your bowl of hot/boiling water, take a piece of rice paper and wet it. If the bowl is small, you might have to do it a corner or a section at a time. Just wet it - even if it's still stiff, it's easier to handle and it will continue to soften. If you wet it too much, it will get really soggy and very hard to work with.

When the paper is wet, lie it on the clean towel so excess water is absorbed. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of filling into the bottom third of the paper, leaving room to grab the bottom and side edges so you can fold them over. Fold each side in, fold the bottom up, and then roll it from bottom to top, nice and tight. Practice makes perfect.

Keep going until you run out of filling. You can eat them as is, or make a dipping sauce. They are probably quite good with sweet and sour sauce, or plum sauce. Try different fillings, like black bean paste, or maybe a peanut satay sauce.

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