Summer Rolls with Arugula Pear Salad

After the success of the Rawsagna (as Aretha and I have dubbed it) I was excited to attempt my next raw dish.  I chose Summer Rolls with Green Papaya from the same recipe book as the Rawsagna, Raw Food, Real Living since it didn't call for a dehydrator or food processor. It was a very simple recipe to follow similar to a standard Vietnamese salad roll.  The book has the rolls as an appetizer and to add another dish we decided on an Arugula with Pear salad.  The recipe called for a lot of prep but fortunately we got to use the new mandolin I bought for Aretha's birthday which cut down the total "cook" time significantly. And as an added bonus, neither Aretha or myself cut our fingers off during the slicing of any vegetables!
The recipe called for the Summer Rolls to be wrapped in Daikon radish sheets. A note to all raw foodists! Make sure you read the recipes thoroughly before you even begin shopping. Many recipes will call for something to soak overnight, dehydrate for 24 hours, or marinate for a long periods of time. In this case my mistake was looking for pre-packaged daikon sheets instead of an actual daikon radish. Unsure of the next course of action I came home with everything but the sheets. If I had more thoroughly read the recipe, I would have seen that the recipe instructs to slice a daikon radish with a mandolin (or Japanese sheeter...great another fun new toy I have to buy) and use the sheets to wrap up the rolls. As a last resort, we used rice paper we had in the cupboard from our last Vietnamese foray.
The rice paper worked very well, but the recipe lost the bite I'm sure the daikon radish would have supplied. In addition the paper survived a move from Calgary to Vancouver and was worse for wear which made rolling a little more interesting.
The filling was a combination of papaya, carrot, radish, ginger and coconut meat all sliced julienne and marinated in an Asian style sauce. This was the first time I had worked with coconut meat and I loved the rum cocktail we made with the left over coconut milk. I halved the amount of red chili pepper to make it a little less spicy.  After marinating for 30 minutes we drained the vegetables and combined them with rest of the ingredients. Ok, so we didn't drain them and the wrap was too runny, but hindsight and pre reading the recipe are 20/20. Now we know for next time.
The assembly was my favourite part of the whole thing. It was similar to what rolling a big Cuban cigar would feel like. We spooned the filling onto the rice paper layered two slices of avocado some basil leaves and topped with a generous amount of alfalfa sprouts.  The wraps were then rolled burrito style and set aside while I made a red chili dipping sauce. We also used the leftover liquid from the marinade as another dipping option.
The salad was a basic arugula salad with nuts and pear slices. We added a handful of pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries for sweetness.  I found a recipe online for a lemon dressing with honey, olive oil and pepper.  We found it tasty but too thick and would add more water next time.
Suffice it to say Summer Rolls were a success.  With a little more attention to detail the process would have been smoother and the result more refined but all in all a delicious meal.

On a side note: After the Rawsagna we noticed a sharp metallic taste at the back of our throats.  I tried my best to drown it with beer but its still here after three days. After consulting with google, family and friends we have concluded that it most likely a result of liver detoxification.  The beer no doubt helped.

 Summer Rolls with Arugula and Pear Salad