If you’ve ever been subject to a kaleidoscope of food porn on your Instagram feed, Taline Gabrielian is to blame. Better known by her blogging pseudonym, Hippie Lane, Taline is responsible for the magical unicorn toast, overflowing smoothie bowls and insane raw treats you drool over every morning.
If you’re one of her 489,000 followers, you’d know that her food looks too good to eat and too intricate to recreate (trust us, we’ve tried). So lucky for us, she’s launched her own cookbook (Hippie Lane: The Cookbook) with idiot-proof instructions of all our favourite recipes and we get to share some with you, including her famous summer rainbow rolls and secret dipping sauce.
“I don’t know what I was eating before I discovered rice paper rolls. Now I’m obsessed! There are many variations out there, but with its array of crispy colourful vegetables, tofu and a magic dipping sauce, I think this one’s pretty special—a vegetarian’s dream, and a party favourite.
Make these for your next event and you’ll have a hard time trying not to gobble them up yourself before the party even gets started,” writes Taline Gabrielian in Hippie Lane: The Cookbook.
Summer Rainbow Rolls
Makes 10
R | VGN | DF | GF | RSF
Ingredients
Rainbow Rolls
250 g (9 oz) medium-firm tofu
1 beetroot (beet), peeled
2 carrots, peeled
1 Lebanese (short) cucumber
1 red capsicum (pepper)
1 yellow capsicum (pepper)
1 green capsicum (pepper)
75 g (2½ oz/1 cup) shredded purple cabbage
20 basil leaves
a handful of micro herbs
1 avocado
10 round rice paper sheets
Magic Dipping Sauce
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cm (½ inch) knob of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
45 ml (1½ fl oz) gluten-free tamari
2 tablespoons peanut or almond butter
1–2 tablespoons maple syrup
juice of 1½ limes
1 long red chilli, roughly chopped
Method
- Cut the tofu, beetroot, carrots, cucumber and capsicums into long thin strips, keeping them separate. Have the cabbage, basil and micro herbs nearby. Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and peel, then cut each half into five slices.
- Fill a bowl with lukewarm water. Submerge one rice paper sheet into the water for about 15 seconds, or until the sheet is just soft; don’t leave it in too long or it will become soggy and tear very easily. Place on a clean tea towel or paper towel.
- Arrange a small portion of the assorted vegetables, tofu, a slice of avocado, two basil leaves and some micro herbs along the centre of the rice paper round, leaving about 5 cm (2 inches) of wrapper uncovered on each side. I like to arrange the different ingredients in colour order, to get a rainbow effect, but this is not essential. Also, to begin with, be conservative as to how much filling you use, as your rice paper sheet may break if you try to overfill it; at the same time, you want to use enough filling ingredients to make a generously sized roll. Initially, it’s a trial and error exercise to get the right quantity, but you’ll quickly get the hang of it.
- Now, fold in the ends of the rice paper sheet, then roll the sheet up firmly to enclose the filling. Place your rice paper roll on a serving board or platter.
- Repeat with the remaining ingredients, to make 10 rolls.
- Place all the dipping sauce ingredients in a high-speed blender. Add 80 ml (2½ fl oz/¹⁄₃ cup) water and whiz until smooth. Transfer to a small serving bowl.
- Serve the rice paper rolls immediately, with the dipping sauce.
Images and recipes from Hippie Lane: The Cookbook by Taline Gabrielian (Murdoch Books, RRP $39.99).
