vegan spring rolls – The Spicy Spatula

I missed yesterday’s post because the Hub’s and I went to Targoviste, Romania for a day trip to do some sightseeing and see what kind of vegan food we could rustle up after a day in the sun.

Targoviste was beautiful! Absolutely gorgeous. We saw the Princely Court & Princely Palace, not to mention Chindia Tower which served for hundreds of years as the home for many members of Romanian royalty, including the infamous Vlad Tepes during his second reign. It was a wonderful day of sightseeing and history and learning new things, and the day was only made better by finding a place vegan food options that went beyond French fries, eggplant and tapenade.

We first arrived at Targoviste in the midst of what can only be described as a downpour. The weather alleged that it was meant to be intermittent showers until late afternoon but it was a total downpour for more than an hour so instead of sightseeing right away, we went to Ganbare, a Japanese restaurant, and took full advantage of all the vegan food options.

If you’re curious about homemade Japanese food, check out my vegan Okonomiyaki recipe!

And I do mean ALL of them!

So let’s stop wasting time and talk vegan food.

I have to say that Ganbare did an excellent job with the vegan options they had available and the only downside was that they didn’t label them as vegan so new vegans or unsuspecting/unlearned vegans will probably skip this place and that would be a huge mistake.

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Recently I was in the mood for cabbage rolls, but not really, more like spring rolls made with cabbage instead of rice paper. I don’t know why, not really, other than I was reminiscing about some really delicious Vietnamese spring rolls I had once in Wheaton, IL.

Then I was walking down the aisle of a very crowded Lidl and spotted a gorgeous head of Savoy cabbage. I had to have it, knowing it would be great for the wraps, not to mention a vegan soup or two. Maybe even a vegan ramen dish.

The possibilities were endless.

As was the prep time for these vegan cabbage spring rolls. 🙄

The good thing about this kind of vegan recipe is that it’s mostly raw so you’re getting plenty of natural fiber, but also that you can use any of the raw vegetables in your crisper that you just don’t know what to do with. I had a pretty specific idea of what I wanted in my vegan spring rolls, starting with smoked tofu and ending with this beautiful platter you see below.

The ingredient list for the Savoy wraps is pretty straightforward:

Carrots
Scallions
Bell peppers
Cucumber
Sprouts (these are radish sprouts)
Smoked tofu
Savoy cabbage

The most important step is to give the cabbage leaves a quick boil or steam, about 2 minutes. Do it early enough that the cabbage cool and are easy to manage while wrapping. I to roll the first one with the cabbage spine still on it and…it was a mess so I recommend trimming it down but not necessarily cutting it off completely, because that will just make wrapping it harder.

While you wait for the water to boil for the cabbage, preheat the oven or airfryer to 200C and add the seasoned smoked tofu until nice and crispy.

Set aside.

Use the biggest leaves on the Savoy cabbage and wrap them the wide way, across the spine rather than up or down. Trust me, it’ll make the process easier and less annoying.

Take a little of each ingredient and line it up across the leaf, then roll.

If you want to add anything to these vegan spring rolls to fill out the meal, I added soba noodles that I tossed in a mixture of peanut butter, hot water, lime juice, Sriracha and soy sauce. It was easy and delicious..

I also made a quick yogurt sauce for my partner, just in case the smoked tofu had a bit too much tandoor spice on it, which I’m happy to report it did not.

This was a quick (mostly) and easy vegan meal, at least if you make it through the prep work without losing your mind. I rewarded myself for all he prep work with an ice cold beer made without fish belly, thank you very much.

Do you like rolls? How do you prefer to enjoy them?