When I lived in Ho Chi Minh City from 2008 to 2009, there was a restaurant named Nguyen Hong on Ly Chien Thang Street (right across the street from AIDS Committee of HCMC) that sold the best office lunch I’ve ever had. Our office back then was about 2 miles away, and in a hot …
Bun Cha is very popular in Hanoi and one of my all-time most-wanted dishes. It doesn’t sound fancy, just couple slices of grilled pork but when they’re placed in the combination with noodle, the green, herbs and especially fish sauce broth, everything just becomes fantastic. I guess that’s the way Hanoi people enjoy their food …
Unlike in the US, duck dishes are very common in Vietnam, partly I think it’s because duck is a lot cheaper than chicken or even pork. Duck soup with bamboo shoot (bun vit nau mang) is popular in Vietnam in many ways: it can be a quick lunch or dinner or a side dish …
One of my favorite o all time! This dish is very Vietnamese with a lot of fish sauce and the thick flavor which is the typical appetite of people in the Central Vietnam where I come from. Ingredients: 2 lb baby pork sparerib 2 tablespoon vegetable oil 3 tablespoon sugar 1/2 cup fish …
Another good recipe from Basic Asian cookbook. This recipe is quite simple and gives me more good choices in taking Northwest fish (mostly salmon) out of the flavor of baking and grilling. I especially love this one when the evenings are cold and wet as the flavor of this recipe is warm and quite …
Sweet and sour rib (suon xao chua ngot) is pretty popular in family meal of people in the North. Unlike its Southern version, Northern Sweet and Sour Rib is simpler with less ingredients, less spicy, using the combination between sugar and rice vinegar (sweet and sour) to highlight the dish. Originally, spare-rib is called for …
Banana leaf is used as a pretty popular wrap in Vietnamese cooking, mostly for cakes, dumplings or in sticky rice recipes. The simple recipe below actually doesn’t belong to any typical Vietnamese cuisine. It’s simply an experiment of using Vietnamese-friendly flavors and the outcome is, well, pretty marvelous. Ingredients: 1 whole trout (about 1.3 lb …
This is one of the noodle dish that I’m forever in love with. This is the forth time I’ve tried to make this recipe in Seattle and now I’m pretty much sure I find home in this recipe. Ingredients: 2 lb pork boneless pork shoulder 0.5 lb rice vermicelli (fresh is the best but dry …
In Vietnam you would find these pork skewers sold at street stands and if you’ve ever walked by, you’ll find it’s just impossible to resist this seductive smell. I think this is the most-consumed appetizers I’ve ever made since it’s the first item on the menu that’s gone as fast as the wind. Give it …
In the summer time I miss this dish so much that I decided to do everything to bring one of my all-time beloved soup to Seattle. When I was living in Hanoi, I ate this soup almost every day in the summer time coz it has all I need for a summer meal: Light and delightful. …
Sticky rice dumpling is a popular snack or appetizer in Vietnam, especially in the North and the Central. When I was a kid, a common habit of the moms in my hometown was buying snack for kids when they went to grocery, and this used to be one of my favorite. People in big cities …
Banana blossom (or banana flower) is popularly used as a type of vegetable in Vietnam, especially in the Central. You find this flower as a side vegetable that goes with a lot of dishes in Hue cuisine like Bun Bo Hue, Bun hen (clam noodle), com hen (clam rice), and spring rolls. It’s considered to …
Pea-vines are the kind of vegetables that appear a lot in my daily meals. Their flavor is grassy sweet and nearly identical to the flavor as the typically harvested part of the plant’s foliage, the pea pods. They are commonly overlooked and underused as a culinary commodity, but their sweet unique flavor and succulent texture … Continue reading »
On- Choy (rau muong) is very popular in Vietnamese daily meals especially in the North. Using shrimp paste is a little bit tricky coz not all white guys can handle it but you can substitute it by fish sauce. If you’re vegetarian, alternate the meat by fried tofu. Ingredients: 1.5 lb ong-Choy 2 sweet chili … Continue reading »
This one is one of my husband’s favorite. It’s not as strong as Indian curry and not as sweet as Thai curry. I don’t think Vietnamese traditional cooking has this dish, but a lot of good stuff in Vietnamese cooking originate from other cultures and then adapted by local cooks to create something of our … Continue reading »
You’ll easily find this dish in a daily Vietnamese meal. This recipe, though called caramelized, does not use caramelization technique, which is commonly used in Southern and Northern Vietnamese cooking. The recipe below is from the Central where every dish is a little bit saltier than in other areas. The original recipe calls for a … Continue reading »
Colorful and a lot of flavors. My father-in-law said he enjoyed this recipe more than American BBQ rib! Ingredients: 2 lb meaty pork spare rib 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 small purple shallots, peeled and minced. 2 ripe tomatoes 1 small green bell-pepper 1 small red bell-pepper 1 small yellow bell-pepper 1 egg white ¼ … Continue reading »
We had spareribs left over, and I was in the mood for something hot. Since we had “suon xao chua ngot” the night before, another Vietnamese rib dish would be just too boring for us and here came this recipe which everyone enjoys. Ingredients: 2 lb pork rib (spare rib or back rib is fine) … Continue reading »
Some Vietnamese may find this recipe is very different from the original recipe, which is simpler, uses bone-in chicken and no deep-frying. If American chicken is as crunchy, sweet and moist like Vietnamese chicken, I would have not had any hassle just to dumb everything in a pot and slow cook it like I did … Continue reading »
