Effortnesslessly: Vietnamese Mung Bean Crepes with Shrimp

It's not your typical European crepes, tender affair for a breakfast or dessert. Vietnamese crepes are rather a meal, packed with proteins, flavors and .. fun!

Blog's Category: Appetizer, Healthy, International, Perfect Breakfast, Seafood, Vegetarian

- Batter for Vietnamese crepes is based on a dry yellow split mung beans, soaked and blended with coconut milk, rice flour and pinch of turmeric, which gives crepes its beautiful signature golden yellow tint.

- This dish consist of four parts. 1) First is actual crepe batter. 2) Second - filling, in our case it's onion, shrimp and bean sprouts, but it can be virtually any kind of meat, mushrooms, beans, vegetables. Traditional filling ingredients are onion, shrimp, pork, beef, bean sprouts. 3) Third is a sauce. Usually it's a staple Vietnamese sauce, simple but complex in flavors ;) 4) For serving, you will need greens - lettuce, mint, cilantro. These greens are a perfect side to our fried crepes.

- Don't be intimidated by this recipe. Actually, in my humble opinion, regular crepes are much trickier to fry than Vietnamese. Just collect all required ingredients, mix it up and enjoy very healthy and delicious meal.

- To make sauce, I used mortar and paste. If it sounds like too much work for you, just throw all ingredients for sauce into a blender.

Vietnamese Mung Bean Crepes with Shrimp

For 8-12 crepes (depending on a size of your skillet:

Batter

1/2 cup dry yellow split mung beans
1/2 can coconut milk
1 cup rice flour
1 cup corn starch (or potato starch)
3 cups cold water
1 tsp turmeric
3 green onions, sliced
1/2 tsp salt
3-5 tbs olive oil for frying (or oil of your choice)

Sauce

1 lime, juice only
2 tbs sugar
2 tbs fish sauce
1/2 cup water
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
1 small fresh red chili pepper, thinly sliced

Filling

1-2 onions, sliced
40 small shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cups bean sprouts

Side

1 bunch fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
10 mint leaves (optional), thinly sliced
lettuce (optional), to serve with

- Soak mung beans for at least 30 minutes, or overnight. Meanwhile make sauce. In a mortar, grind sugar, garlic, half of sliced chilies and a half-teaspoon of lime juice into a paste. Transfer to a bowl, add remaining sauce ingredients. Set sauce aside. If using blender, simply blend all ingredients together, besides chili pepper. Add your sliced chili pepper after blending.

- To make crepe batter, drain and rinse soaked mung beans, then place them in a blender, add coconut milk, blend together. In a large bowl mix remaining batter ingredients with blended mung beans. You will get pretty thin batter. Let it rest for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile prepare your filling and side ingredients.

- To cook crepes, heat skillet with about 2 tsp oil. Place shrimp and onion and stir fry for a few seconds. Pour about 1/2 cup of crepe batter over, sprinkle some bean sprouts over and let it cook, covered, for about 2 minutes on a medium heat, then fold crepe in half and transfer to a serving plate.

- Serve right away, with a sauce and greens. You can wrap crepe into lettuce, or vice versa :) Enjoy!

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In Pictures

If you don't like spicy food, remove seeds from chili pepper. Working with hot pepper, don't forget to wear gloves, especially if you will be taking out your contact lenses today going to bed ;)