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Archive for the ‘Vietnamese Cuisine’ Category

Happy Labor Day!

Posted in American Cuisine, Healthy Foods, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , on September 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

When I went outside this morning, I felt a breeze and realized that summer may very well have ended. But I took full advantage of the long weekend and grilled loads with my family. When it comes to visiting my parents, there are a couple staples we ‘kids’ always request. This weekend included my Dad’s gigantic steaks, grilled corn, my Mom’s Vietnamese egg rolls and my Dad’s grilled Vietnamese pork (Bún Thịt Nướng, previous post). My hubby and I are moving into a new place soon, and I canNOT wait to get us a grill for the new patio. You really can’t beat the flavor that comes from grilling. It just transforms the simplest ingredients.

Prime example is sweetcorn on the cob. Boil or grill? I’ll always choose the grill. It’s such a simple food, yet there are SO many variations on how to eat it. We went simple this time and just topped it with some salted butter. Some of my other favorite ways to eat it:

  • Vietnamese Style : on low/medium heat, sauté several bunches of thinly sliced green onions (scallions) with plain oil and fish sauce. Don’t brown the onions but get them nice and soft. Slather onto freshly grilled corn.
  • Mexican Style : there are a few variations on this one, but the basic ingredients are mayonnaise, Parmesan or Cotija cheese, lime juice and butter.
  • Cajun Style : this is pretty straightforward by simply adding some Cajun spice on top of the melted butter or you can make your own rub (try this one)

 

My Dad’s Perfectly Charred Rare Steak!

 

Taking my British husband on an All-American ‘vacation’!!

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The Trick to Great Fried Rice

Posted in Asian Cuisine, Chinese Cuisine, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , on January 28, 2012 | 1 Comment »

After watching Ken Hom on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, I had to chuckle a little.. He was showing James Martin his trick to making perfect rice and egg fried rice. Both tips were ones my mother taught me growing up!

The best way to make fluffy white rice is to put the rice in a pot or rice cooker and fill the water above the rice up to the first line on your index finger. Fill the water and sift it a bit to flatten it. Then put your finger into the middle and touch the rice. The water should come up to the first line. If using a pot, bring it to a boil and reduce the heat to a very low simmer (covered) for about 15 minutes. Take it off the heat, fluff the rice and leave it covered. If using a rice cooker, fluff it when the cook light changes to warm. Then put the lid back on and it’s done when it has stopped steaming.

So the trick that Ken Hom said was exactly what my mom has always taught me – use cold rice to make the best fried rice. (here’s a link to my fried rice post) His rice was a bit simpler than I normally make.. But what I prefer to do is soften chopped onion or shallot in butter and a bit of oil. Then add the rice in straight from the fridge or freezer. Add a knob of butter and heat the rice through. When it starts to warm up, add a few dashes of soy sauce and black pepper. If you want egg in it, I prefer to make a little well in the middle of the pan and add the lightly scrambled egg (seasoned s&p). Gently push the egg until it sets a little then mix it into the rice. OR you can serve it with a perfectly fried runny egg with some Maggi sauce!

Hope you find fried rice as easy as I do :-) I’m happy to answer any questions any time!

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Some Vegetarian Delights

Posted in Italian Cuisine, Vegetarian, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , on November 23, 2011 | 1 Comment »

As you know I am a major meat lover. However, every once in awhile I try to do a Meatless Monday for my husband and I. It’s usually planned with the intention of being healthy but somehow there’s always Lots of cheese involved! Here’s a mix of different vegetarian dishes I’ve made recently. Enjoy!

First up something I’ve raved about before – Farro. Farro is an “ancient wheat” that is very similar to spelt or bulgar wheat. It’s nutty, chewy in texture and very hearty. The great thing about it is that it soaks up liquid really well, so it goes well with a vinaigrette. Sadly it’s not the easiest item to find. Your best bet may be an Italian delicatessen or health food store. Crazily enough, I bought my small bag in an Italian shop in New Orleans where they’re famous for their Muffaletta sandwich. I brought it back to Arizona and then all the way to London with me! Using seasonal butternut squash, I made a Farro Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese in a Sherry Vinaigrette.

Warm Farro Salad with Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese

Next up was a simple started of Fried Halloumi with a Red Onion, Caper, Coriander Vinaigrette. Halloumi is this delicious, salty white cheese from Cyprus. It can be made from either cow’s, goat’s or sheep’s milk and has a semi-hard, chewy texture. I find it’s nice crumbled in a salad, hot off the grill as a kebab or coated in flour and pan fried. I did the latter and it was incredibly easy.

It comes in a block about 4 or 5 inches long, about 3 inches wide and 3 inches high. Slice into pieces as thin as you can get it (maybe half a cm). Since it comes with a bit of water in its package (much like mozzarella), just dip it in flour and it will coat easily. Then fry in a bit of oil in a pan. Serve with a simple white wine vinaigrette with finely chopped red onion or shallots, chopped capers and chopped coriander/cilantro. If you have some lime, add the juice from half. You don’t need to add salt to this dressing as the capers and cheese will be salty. Enjoy!

Fried Halloumi with Red Onion, Caper, Coriander Vinaigrette

Next up is a Vietnamese Carrot Salad. This dish isn’t entirely vegetarian as it uses fish sauce, but this can be substituted for salt. But this salad isn’t meant to be served as an appetizer/starter. It’s more of a side dish. While it’s not

Traditional Goi Tom Vietnamese Shrimp Salad

entirely ‘traditional’, even the BBC has a similar version with cabbage. This is really a quick easy version of the actual traditional salad Goi Tom which has shrimp, daikon and cucumber. My mom makes this salad all the time. It’s really refreshing and she does a great presentation. She’ll mound the salad on a plate, slice the shrimp in half length wise and place them all over the salad ‘dome’. It looks gorgeous. She’ll also use green papaya at times. Check out this recipe for Goi Tom or this recipe for green papaya salad.

This quick and easy use of carrots is great with some grilled or pan roasted prawns/shrimp and some rice noodles. Or with some grilled Vietnamese style pork (lemongrass) and steamed rice.

Peel and then julienne or grate your carrots. Finely chop some red onion or shallots. Cut some mint in chiffonade (thinly slice) or chop some coriander if you don’t have mint. Add some chopped chilli if you have it. Gently toast your peanuts in a pan if possible, otherwise just crush and toss in. Make enough dressing (nuoc mam cham) with this ratio (2 parts water, 1 part sugar, 1 part fish sauce, 1 part lemon or lime juice, 1 clove garlic, chilli pepper). Go easy when adding the sauce to the salad though. It’s very strong! But just toss it all together and serve!

Vietnamese Carrot Salad

Last but not least is a quick and easy Beet and Apple Salad with Blue Cheese. I’ve done a similar salad before (click here for recipe) with avocado as well. But this one was even easier. In the UK, you can buy cooked whole beets in water in the salad section but in the States canned beets are just fine. Some people find this salad a bit too sweet but you can offset that by adding the blue cheese, lemon juice or some rocket/arugula leaves.

Slice the beets into matchsticks. Similarly slice the apples (skin on). Toast some walnuts and crush. Make a simple lemon dressing (lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper) with finely chopped shallots if you’d like. I like to toss the beets and apples in the dressing separately so that you can maintain the color contrast. Serve with a few knobs of blue cheese (I like Gorgonzola for this) and sprinkle the walnuts on top!

Beet, Apple and Blue Cheese Salad with Walnuts

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Chicken, Beef and Pork – Oh My!

Posted in French Flavors, Italian Cuisine, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

All my British friends and family are more than likely to be familiar with the “3 for £10″ meat offer at most supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury’s and recently Waitrose). For all my American friends and family, I’m sure I’ve complained to you how expensive meat is here! While this deal isn’t always the best I have found, it makes grocery shopping a little easier. In this case, I just picked three different types of meat/poultry and thought I’d figure out what I would do with them later. I still struggle with accessibility to quality meat in the UK.. I mean – let’s be honest. The steaks are just NOT the same as American steaks (unless you’re willing to spend a small fortune). Most of the time, steaks served in restaurants are thin and overcooked and have this distinct taste that I really can’t explain. However, I HAVE had a good steak here.. but it was one I cooked myself at Cordon Bleu with meat sourced from Allen’s of Mayfair (London’s oldest butcher shop with superb quality and the prices to match!).. Nonetheless, I still crave red meat from time to time. So that day at Waitrose, I decided to buy a tray of chicken thighs/drums (bone in, skin on), a couple frying steaks and some pork loin steaks.

The dishes I came up with were:

Because it was National Curry week in the UK not long ago, I decided to use up my chicken thighs and drumsticks by making Vietnamese Chicken Curry. Now I’ve promised my mother that I’d never divulge her ‘family’ recipe. But what I can do is refer you to another Vietnamese recipe by The Ravenous Couple (a young Vietnamese couple cooking traditional recipes). There are a few variations of this recipe depending on the family, but their recipe is great. Since I don’t always have these ingredients on hand, I make a few shortcuts and a few additions.

  • I haven’t been able to find curry paste in the UK, so I use Madras curry powder from Costco UK and it tastes just fine.
  • I don’t often have the patience to cut shallots, so I just use white/yellow onions.
  • Again, I don’t often have the patience to marinate the chicken but if you have time then it will only make your dish better!
  • My family doesn’t usually add carrots (even though it’s traditional). Instead we add sweet potato chunks. We also don’t add onion wedges.
  • My husband likes his curry thick, so I’ll add some corn starch/flour with water.

Vietnamese Chicken Curry by TheRavenousCouple.com

While I can’t reveal my mom’s measurements, my method is basically this.. Cook chopped onions and garlic until translucent. Add curry powder and secret ingredient. Cook a minute or so. Add chicken and brown on all sides. Add chicken broth, fish sauce or salt and smashed lemongrass. Let cook and then add chopped potatoes, sweet potatoes and coconut milk. Let cook and thicken as necessary. For some added spice, add cayenne.. Traditionally, Vietnamese curry is eaten with fresh baguettes but it’s often eaten with rice vermicelli or plain white rice. It’s also always better the next day or day after that! PS.. I’ve used up leftover mushrooms to make a vegetarian version of Vietnamese curry – check out this old blog post.

So after eating curry for dinner and lunch the next day, I was ready to cook my steaks (click above for recipe). This was a dish I thought of based on my basic pantry ingredients. It’s such a great classic and is super fast to make. Also, a creamy rich sauce is great to mask a lower quality meat! I used basic Oxo beef stock cubes and didn’t actually have any wine to add, but it was still great! To make the sauce super rich, I reduced the stock quite a bit and added a knob of butter at the end. The sweet potato and fennel combo came about purely because they were available at my local market. I was trying to come up with more creative and nutritious starches to bread and pasta. So I had leftover sweet potato from making curry and roasted it with the fennel. Fennel is a great vegetable which isn’t used too often. I didn’t grow up eating it but I see it so often lately that I’m doing my best to find new ways to cook with it. It did take quite awhile to roast though. So be prepared to wait for this one. But this dish is really minimal in prep and has very little cleanup!

Steak in creamy peppercorn sauce with roasted sweet potato and fennel

So as I worked my way through my very full fridge, I was torn on what to do with my pork (click above for recipe). They were pretty thin already (just about 1cm thick), so making any hope of cutting ‘chunks’ for a Vietnamese dish were out the window. I also wasn’t in the mood for cooking with fish sauce.. It CAN smell the house up a bit :-) So I figured I’d utilize the capers I had yet to open. I originally wanted to make an escalope (breaded) but realized we were low on breadcrumbs. It’s also a bit messy to set up an assembly line of flour, egg wash and breadcrumbs. But dipping in just flour isn’t so bad! Due to the recent unexpected heat wave, asparagus had a second season and was available in abundance at my local market. This is one of my favorite vegetables and I think I’ll be eating more of it.. It’s so easy and quick to roast and can be eaten on its own, in an omelet or tossed with garlic and pasta! Whenever I think of scallopini or escalopes, I always think of warm pasta. Since I’m on a garlic kick right now, I took the easy route and infused extra virgin olive oil with a LOT of garlic. I found that if you let it infuse until the garlic slices become really soft and golden, the taste isn’t too strong and doesn’t stay with you for ages. This is also my ‘fast’ way of getting nice garlic flavor instead of roasting a whole garlic. But yum, remembering this dish is making me very hungry.. pasta, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, meat, butter, lemon.. Mmmmm.. Hope you enjoy!

Pork Scallopini in Lemon Butter Caper Sauce

P.S. I recently discovered my new favorite ‘affordable’ wine! Sainsbury’s House Cotes du Rhone. 75cl is £3.99. It also comes in mini 250ml bottles that are 2 for £3.

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My Ongoing Love Affair With Meat

Posted in British Cuisine, Sandwiches, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2010 | 2 Comments »

As you all know I am quite carnivorous. I do love my veggies and am improving on my fruits, but nothing can really beat a juicy steak or Sunday roast (except for maybe anything fried).  So I thought I’d share a little slide show of the meat I’ve been eating. Hope you enjoy! 

Sunday Roast - Rosemary Garlic Lamb

Perfectly crispy, fluffed, roast potatoes

So many people give the Brits a hard time about their “plain” food, but as I’ve come to learn plain is just another word for simple. And if you have good quality ingredients, you don’t always need a whole lot of them. The above is courtesy of Mr. Chris Hutton (the boyfriend). Lamb was the very first thing Chris ever cooked for me, and three years later I’m still around! He stuffs garlic cloves and rosemary into the meat and rubs English mustard powder and a bit of flour on the outside. Since rosemary is such a fragrant herb, it can really stand on its own. (Tarragon and sage are other unique, distinct herbs) Be sure to keep it covered ~75% of the cooking time so moisture isn’t lost. It’s SO simple, but when done right it’s such a comforting meal.. Especially when it’s accompanied by perfectly crisp, fluffed potatoes! It’s not fair the Brits get such good potatoes. I have neeever been a potato person, but I’m definitely a convert! A classic trick is to use some goose fat to brown your potatoes in. It’s a natural product and will give you super crispy results! For crispy fries/chips, ensure you have dried, cooked potatoes before frying. Stick them in the oven for just a minute or two to finish off the drying process and voila! 

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MUSHROOM THREE WAYS

Posted in Italian Cuisine, Reducing Waste, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2010 | 1 Comment »

At my Chesham high street market, white button mushrooms are sold in abundance. However, when you buy a kilo you have to find creative ways to make meals for two. I absolutely love mushrooms. They’re so hearty and (I think) a great option for a vegetarian weeknight dinner. So when I have a lot of them, I usually prefer to make them the star. Plus it’s an affordable replacement for meat! All three ways are easy to make with minimal ingredients.

There are various tips when working with mushrooms. As you know they’re mostly water which is why it’s usually advised not to wash them with water. Rather, it’s better to brush them with a damp paper (kitchen) towel. If you’re making a simple side dish of sautéed mushrooms, then don’t add salt until after they’ve colored otherwise the salt will draw out the water and they’ll be soggy. But if you’re making duxelle (often made for beef wellington), then it’s okay to wash the mushrooms with water as you’ll be cooking them until the water is evaporated anyway.

Right, first up is mushroom stroganoff. It’s more economical than beef stroganoff and can still have loads of flavor if made with good beef stock. The dish was originally created by a French cook employed by a member of the Russian Stroganov family who was raised by Peter the Great. Although there are many recipes out there, according to the Larousse Gastronomique (2009 Edition), beef stroganoff is

“thin strips of beef, seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika…sautéed over a brisk heat, then coated with a sauce made by deglazing the pan juices with white wine, cream and thickened veal stock, to which onions sautéed in butter have been added. The dish is served with pilaf rice and sautéed mushrooms”

Here’s a good recipe for mushroom stroganoff on the British Good Food Channel. In this recipe, both onions and leeks are used. To make it completely vegetarian you can go with vegetable stock but if it’s not necessary I recommend beef stock instead. Some recipes call for crème fraiche but I personally prefer sour cream. Also, this recipe uses vodka instead of wine. Unfortunately I didn’t have either available in the kitchen, but it was still tasty! In the end it’s a super fast dish and great for leftovers as well.

Mushroom Stroganoff with Rice

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Couple Things I Miss About The States

Posted in Latin American Cuisine, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , on May 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I am now back in the UK waiting for school to start, and I must confess I am missing a few things about home. However, for the past six months I’ve also been missing certain British foods but I’ll save that for another day. 

First and foremost, the food I have a really difficult time accessing here in the UK is Vietnamese food. According to Wikipedia, the largest Vietnamese community is in Lewisham which is more south-east of London and I’m more north-west. Fortunately there is one Vietnamese restaurant (2 locations) in London that I can access pretty easily that’s pretty decent – Pho Cafe. Nonetheless, nothing beats homemade Vietnamese food. I just look at the photo below and I can smell the cha gio (egg rolls) fresh from the fryer… traditionally made with rice paper and filled with ground pork, glass noodles, shrimp, carrots and more. They take longer to cook, but when my Mom takes the time you are in for a treat. The proper way to eat them is with lots of fresh herbs. Take a piece of lettuce (Romaine is fine), add some cilantro/coriander and maybe some mint, place the egg roll in the middle, wrap it all up and dip in some nuoc cham (a salty-sweet dipping sauce made with fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, lemon/lime juice and chilli). In that bite, you’ll get an explosion of flavors and textures. First the refreshing lettuce and herbs, then the crisp of the fried rice paper, the warm meat filling and the salty/sweet/spiciness of the sauce. For some additional crunch or freshness, you might have a slice of cucumber on the side. These are seriously addicting. I went a little overboard last Vietnamese New Year and ate at least a dozen or more :-)  

Cha Gio (Vietnamese egg rolls)

 

Another cuisine that isn’t that popular over here (but a bit more accessible) is Mexican food. Being a California girl, I really loooove Mexican food. Also having studied in Venezuela and having Colombian friends, I just really love all Latin food period! Excluding central London, everyday Latin food isn’t the easiest thing to get in the UK. There is the odd Mexican restaurant, but it just doesn’t seem to be as main stream as it is in the US. What IS popular though is making Mexican food at home. And by that I mean buying a fajita or taco kit (usually the Old El Paso brand) which comes with taco shells or tortillas, seasoning for the meat and packaged salsa. Basically the view of Mexican food is pretty commercial here, at least that’s been my experience. But that’s not to say that other dishes like tamales, mole or chilaquiles wouldn’t be popular here. Even less well known are empanadas, arepas or even the idea of a breakfast burrito (which I find a little funny since even McDonald’s sells a breakfast burrito in the US). 

Anywho, the good news is that you can find pretty much all the spices you need to make Latin food. So I do my best to make what I know which isn’t really rocket science. I just do the basics – various salsas (pico de gallo, corn, bean or mango), guac, fajitas/tacos, etc. I do have to share a funny story about my first experience at a British supermarket a couple years ago. I was in the chip aisle (known as “crisps” here) and a lady who works there was showing a man where the tor-TILL-lah crisps were (meaning she did not pronounce it tor-tee-ya). Haha oh I nearly died… 

Yas, Ana and I in '08 @ El Compadre

 

Right so the point is, I can make some basic stuff to feed my Mexican/Latin food cravings, but nothings beats properly made rice and beans (or chicharron, or empanadas, or cachapas, or arepas, or pan de yuca, or sancocho….sigh). A couple weeks ago, I flew out of LA for London and before I left I made sure to make a visit to one of THE best Mexican places in Hollywood – El Compadre. Well, correction, my Colombian friend Ana made me go :-) She came to visit me when I was living in LA two years ago, and it’s right around the corner from my old place. Needless to say we ate there three times in a few days. So a return trip was a must. And, as always, El Compadre did not disappoint. The place is one of those hole-in-the-wall restaurants that’s really dark inside. It has these great, old-Hollywood style brown leather booths. And occasionally there’s an actual mariachi band playing. They come around with their famous flaming margaritas too. It’s definitely a strange setting, but you know it’s good Mexican when the tortilla chips are warm and fresh. Even though it was dinner time, I had to get my favorite dish since it’d be our only chance to go there – huevos rancheros with carne asada. This may not look like the sexiest plate of food in the world, but I tell you – if only you could smell it! It’s the combination of earthy, creamy beans, moist rice, ranchero sauce, corn tortillas, fresh salsa, cool sour cream.. Mmmm.. I’m getting very hungry remembering this dish… Sigh, it’s too sad to reminisce any longer. Must try to re-create some day, but feel like it’s impossible without a Mexican grandmother or aunt to teach me secret family recipes. 

Huevos Rancheros with Carne Asada

 

Now that I’ve made myself properly hungry, it’s time to go and cook dinner! But more to come soon about my British favorites and my a Michelin-starred lunch!

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My Mom – Hostess With The Most-ess

Posted in Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2010 | 1 Comment »

As previously mentioned, this past Sunday was not only Valentine’s Day but also the first day of the Lunar Year. On Saturday evening, my parents, aunt, uncle, grandmother and boyfriend sat down to a traditional Vietnamese New Year dinner. This was my first time being home for Tet since leaving for college some 7+ years ago. So it was a real treat to be with my family and to also teach Chris about our Tet traditions.  

It was rather funny and challenging to actually explain these things to someone. I had to look up a few things, but how do you explain why the Vietnamese (and most Asians really) are so superstitious? They just are? How do you explain that money is an important part of Tet without making Vietnamese people sound superficial?  

My summary of Tet for Chris was mainly that (1) red is important and symbolizes luck, (2) giving money to family [li xi] in red envelopes also symbolizes luck, (3) you have to be happy and nice to others or else you’ll have bad luck all year, (4) oh and you should eat lots because it’ll make you happy and will bring you good luck!  

Not having celebrated Tet for seven years is quite a long time – especially when those years include college, living in seven different cities and five different countries. More than anything, it’s made me think about culture and tradition and what it all means to me. Being a Vietnamese-American or just being a first-generation born in the US (like those of any ethnic background) often makes me feel conflicted. I feel more American than Vietnamese. I lived in Vietnam during the summer of 2006, and I was treated like a foreigner. Yet I have a lot of respect for my family and our traditions, even if I don’t really celebrate them when I’m not home. In the end, I concluded this weekend that having traditions are good for any family. Whether it’s as basic as having Sunday dinner or holding the family’s annual sports challenge (complete with trophy) – it’s a reason for family to be together, eat well and share family stories.  

Now for the name of this post – my mother the hostess. For as long as I can remember, my mom has wowed her guests with her flowers, her table settings and of course her food. She always has each course  timed perfectly and with the help of my aunts – you’ll finish your meal and see that all the dishes have already been washed and the kitchen is spotless. This is something I am constantly working on despite the many small kitchens and apartments I’ve lived in. Nevertheless, I persevere and hope to be able to create dinner parties as beautiful as Mom’s – because, after all, taste is one thing but presentation brings it all together! 

Below are photos from Christmas 2006 and this past weekend for Vietnamese New Year. Enjoy!

Christmas at Home 2006

 

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The Year Of The Tiger And My Dad The Cook

Posted in Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , on February 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!  Gung Hei Fat Choy!  Happy New Year! 

On February 14th this year, many people will be celebrating Valentine’s Day. But if you are of Chinese, Vietnamese, Mongolian or Korean decent, you will be celebrating the first day of the lunar new year. For the Vietnamese, this will be the Year of the Tiger or otherwise known as Tet. According to OnlineChineseAstrology.com, it is the Year of the Metal Tiger for the Chinese. 

“The Norwegian story goes that, once a group of [white tigers] starts moving across the fields, they will charge ahead and unthinkingly run straight off a cliff to their doom… The point is now is the time to attack the most difficult issues you face. -OnlineChineseAstrology.com”
 

I think that that most difficult issue for the women in my family at the moment is that my Dad is kicking their butt in cooking. No offense Mom, Bac Oanh, Tata and Ba – but you know it’s true. I’ve heard you all moan over Dad’s Banh Chung! (pronounced bye-ing choong) For those of you who have not had the good fortune of eating this, it is a Vietnamese rice cake filled with sticky rice, mung beans and fatty pork seasoned with black pepper and (of course) fish sauce. This rice cake is normally bought at Vietnamese grocery stores but almost never served at a restaurant. It is one of the traditional dishes eaten for the Vietnamese New Year. The legend states that King Hung Vuong held a competition to determine his successor and his young prince Lang Lieu created the dish Banh Chung and won the throne. From then on, it was decided that Banh Chung would become one of the traditional foods of Tet. Now enough of the history lesson and back to the food.
 

Banh Chung - Vietnamese Rice Cake

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Proof That I Can Eat Healthy Too

Posted in Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 3, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Little Saigon, Orange County, California

This past weekend, I took a quick weekend trip to the LA area with my parents to visit my sister. Of course, if we’re going to drive all the way from Phoenix, it’s expected that we’ll go out of the way to stop over in Little Saigon (also known as Westminster or Garden Grove in Orange County, CA). My siblings and I usually moan about this since it adds another two hours to the drive, but we’re never disappointed once we’re up to our elbows in Pho.

The first thing we had when we arrived in Little Saigon was Banh Cuon (Banh Cuon Tay Ho, 9242 Bolsa Ave, Westminster, CA). This is one of my all time favorite Vietnamese dishes to eat both at home and out at a restaurant. If you’ve ever had Chinese Dim Sum, it’s very similar. Basically, banh cuon is a rice crepe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1nh_cu%E1%BB%91n). It’s pronounced by-ing coon? (there are accents that cause inflection similar to a question). Please remember I don’t speak Vietnamese, so this is my best attempt at trying to spell this out phonetically!

Banh Cuon

It can be served plain or rolled with a filling which may include ground pork, minced wood-ear mushrooms, onions and garlic. It’s normally served with a combination of bean sprouts, cucumber, cilantro, fried onions, and a Vietnamese pork sausage (which might be fried or steamed). The dipping sauce is a Vietnamese favorite, nuoc cham, which is sweet, sour, salty and spicy. The version shown here is also served with sweet potato tempura. Now some might be afraid of the sausage or maybe the description of the dipping sauce (which I have to confess is made with the well-known Vietnamese fish sauce, not much different from Thai fish sauce). However, if you’ve never had this, trust me you will love it. And you can ease your way into it by maybe taking out the sausage and only using a little bit of the sauce. Unfortunately, this dish isn’t something you’ll find at the main stream Vietnamese restaurants or any of those fusion places (at least in my experience). 

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