Recipes: Crab and Pork Nêm + Sautéed Bok Choy and Shiitake Mushrooms

As anyone who follows this blog knows, I love Vietnamese food. One of my favorite dishes, and one that many non-Vietnamese are often familiar with, is nêm, or fried spring rolls (also called chả giò in southern Vietnam). However, because most nêm is fried and rather heavy with oil, I prefer nêm made with a special rice paper called bánh tráng rế, which looks something like a circle of dried, pressed string.

Following are recipes for nêm and rau cải xào nấm (sautéed bok choy and baby shiitake mushrooms) courtesy of M--, who I think really needs to open up her own restaurant because she makes the best Vietnamese food I’ve ever had.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
4 wood ear mushrooms (soaked and chopped)
8 baby shiitake mushrooms (soaked and chopped)
1/2 carrot (slivered and then chopped)
150 g minced pork
50 g fresh crab meat
50 g cabbage (chopped)
1 bunch green onions (chopped)
1 package miến noodles (soaked and finely chopped)
1 package bánh tráng rế
1 egg
1 tsp salt
2 tbs vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Soak the wood ear and shiitake mushrooms for 10 minutes, then slice into slivers.

2. Sliver carrot and chop finely.

3. Mince pork and break crabmeat into small pieces.

4. Chop cabbage and green onions into small pieces.

5. Soak miến noodles for 10 minutes and finely chop.

6. In a bowl, mix all of the above with 1 egg.

7. Scoop spoonful of mixture and place on one sheet of bánh tráng rế, then roll smoothly (pictured below).

8. In about 2 tbs of vegetable oil, fry the rolled nêm until golden brown and crisp.

9. Set cooked nêm on paper towels to absorb excess oil.

10. Serve plain or with soy sauce and/or nước mắm.

The nêm is more delicious if you have herbs and lettuce on hand to eat with it. Cilantro, mint, shiso, and basil go nicely with this kind of nem. Bean sprouts are another nice accompaniment.


Rau Cải Xào Nấm  (Sautéed Bok Choy and Baby Shiitake Mushrooms)

Ingredients
Sautéed bok choy and shiitake mushrooms

200 g bok choy

8 baby shiitake mushrooms

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp vegetable oil

pork seasoning powder, or bột hạt nêm (optional)

Instructions

1. Soak shiitake mushrooms in hot water for 2-3 minutes (or soak for 10 minutes in room-temperature water), then chop in half.

2. Separate bok choy pieces.

3. Heat oil at medium temperature. Add bok choy and mushrooms and sautée for 2-3 minutes.

4. When veggies have turned darker and a bit softer, add salt, and bột hạt nêm and turn off heat. Let veggies continue to cook with heat off for a few more minutes.

5. Enjoy with nêm and cold beer.

Who's your daddy?

Homemade Passionfruit Juice, Vietnamese-Style

During the first four times I lived in Vietnam, I rarely, if ever, saw passionfruit juice (nước chanh leo) offered on a drinks menu. Until my latest move to Vietnam, my experience with passionfruit came in horrible packaged teas and not very decent passionfruit cheesecakes. I remember buying passionfruit from a roadside fruitstand on the North Shore of Oahu once, too, and then wondering what I was supposed to do with it when I got it home. I tried to eat it straight, only to find it was so sour that I couldn’t get much of it down. I gave up on passionfruit before I should have. And I say this because in Vietnam, when it’s sweltering out, there is nothing, and I mean nothing in this world, that is more refreshing than a glass of passionfruit juice (but remember to mention “no seeds, please,” or "xin không hạt").

Here’s a quick and easy recipe for blow-you-away passionfruit juice. And here’s hoping you can get fresh passionfruit wherever you live…

Step 1: Cut two passionfruits in half (as in the photo above).

Step 2: Use a spoon to scoop the fruits' innards into a strainer, which should be held, obviously, over a cup or glass.


Step 3: After the straining is complete, pour about 4 tablespoons of hot water over the passionfruit that remains in the strainer, then stir this to make sure that all the juice is removed.


Step 4: Stir 3 tablespoons of sugar into the cup of pure passionfruit juice.



Step 5: Fill the cup or mug with cold water (enough to serve two people).


Step 6: Divide the juice into glasses and add ice.

Homemade Tofu, Soy Milk, and a Vietnamese Ginger-Tofu Dessert

In Honolulu, I regularly pay more than I can stand for 12 oz. blocks of tofu and half-gallon containers of soy milk. After tax, the former usually costs around $3 and the latter around $6. I easily go through this much tofu and soy milk in a week, which means that in a month I pay around $40 for these two products alone. I decided to look around Honolulu for tofu molds but came up empty handed. After my fruitless two-week search I headed online, and in a matter of seconds I found a Connecticut-based company that carries what I was looking for. Although the mold cost $40, and shipping an extra $20, I figured that if the product wasn't a scam I could recoup that total in a couple of months.

Well, my tofu mold arrived yesterday afternoon. I was taken aback by how small it was, but was pleased that it came with several packs of nigari -- a coagulant derived from sea water and also known by the unappetizing scientific name of magnesium chloride -- and two cheesecloths for straining. (The mold, incidentally, is made from hinoki, or cedar wood, and its fragrance is like an early spring walk in the woods.) In the evening I went shopping for organic soybeans. (For those living in Honolulu, I found these at Kokua Market, 2643 S. King St.) A pound of these hard little yellow beans went for a mere $2.19. I splurged for a pound and a half and then raced home to soak my fresh new beans in water overnight.

I awoke at 6:30, and bam, it was tofu time! I unfolded the directions that came with my tofu mold and in 90 minutes I'd made two slabs of fresh tofu. What's more, it was delicious! Admittedly, it was too soft to cook with, but its softness made it perfect for a dessert I learned to love in Vietnam that uses hot ginger syrup (see below). There are many Japanese desserts that use soft tofu as well, so you can guess what I'll be eating after my meals for the next week or so. And not just that, but one byproduct from tofu-making is okara, which can be used in various dishes, too. (But more on that in a different post.)

With my second batch of beans I made soy milk. And one reason I'm sharing this is because I want people to know that they, too, can make soy milk without a tofu mold, and it's very easy to do.

Homemade Soy Milk Directions

1) Soak about a pound (400 g) of soybeans in water for at least 8 hours. (In the winter, soaking times are almost twice as long.)

2) Put soaked soybeans in a blender along with 3-4 cups of the soaking water.
3) Blend until the soybeans and liquid have reached a smooth, milkshake-like consistency.

4) Boil 7 1/2 cups of water. (I might recommend more water than this, as the soy milk that results tends to taste fairly strong.) Pour blended soybean mix into water and stir constantly until boiling again. Turn off heat and let mixture cool for about 3 minutes. Then simmer mixture for 7-8 minutes on medium heat.

5) Pull cheesecloth over colander and set colander in a large bowl or on a deep pan.

Pour mixture into cheesecloth and strain soy milk from solids. Keep the solids (okara) for use later in cooking.

A colander isn't necessary when you strain out the soy milk. I used

one in case I inadvertently spilled anything.

This is the okara, or the solids that remained after I squeezed the soy milk from the cheesecloth. Okara is incredibly nutritious and should be used within about two days.

If you only want to make soy milk, pour the liquid into a container and keep refrigerated until ready to use. Since the taste will be a tad bitter, you may want to dilute the milk with water, or add sugar, or both.

A cup of fresh hot soy milk

If you want to make tofu, however, continue on to step 6.

Directions for Making Tofu (continued from steps 1-5)

6. Add nigari coagulant (or substitute with 1.5 tablespoons of lemon juice) to soy milk and let sit for around 30 minutes. You will immediately see the soy milk curds separate from the whey. The more you stir it at this stage the firmer your tofu will end up. (I need to remember this for next time...)

7. Pour mixture slowly into your thin cheesecloth-lined tofu mold.

Fold the cheesecloth over the tofu and fit the top of the mold over this. Distribute between 2-5 pounds of weight over the top and let it sit for 15-30 minutes until the water is pressed out of the tofu.

Remove the weight and top of tofu mold, then unfold and peel your cheesecloth from the tofu.

Agh! It's hideous, I know...but it tasted good. I'm hoping that future

attempts will teach me how to make it turn out looking better.

Place tofu into bowl or Tupperware container and cover with cold water.

For whatever reasons, homemade tofu doesn't last nearly as long as the store-bought variety.

Ideally, you should use fresh tofu within just a few days of making it.

Mine turned out quite soft, which meant that I really couldn't use it for cooking. With the soft tofu that I had, I decided to make a simple dessert that I used to enjoy straight from the pots of sidewalk vendors in Vietnam. It's called đậu hủ gừng, which is basically soft tofu with a sweet and spicy ginger sauce served warm. You can make this with any soft tofu available at your local store or market.

Đậu Hủ Gừng

2 cups water

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 2-inch piece of ginger, cut into 1/4-inch wedges and crushed

12 oz. soft tofu

1. Add water, sugar, and ginger to a small pan, stir to dissolve sugar, and boil for 12 minutes. You can add more ginger and boil longer to give the sauce more of a kick. You may also want to include more water to dilute its sweetness.

2. Pour sauce hot over tofu and enjoy.

A bowl of soft tofu in a sweet, hot ginger sauce

Many of you have probably heard of recent studies indicating that tofu eaten in middle age may increase the likelihood of dementia or even brain shrinkage in later life. This may or may not be true. And until scientific research definitively bears one or the other truth out, I'll continue to eat tofu and drink soy milk, the more so now that I'm able to make it at home.

For anyone interested in the tofu mold I bought, the product can be found at http://www.simply-natural.biz/Tofu-Kit.php

And for a video on how to make tofu (or soymilk), this may prove useful:

As a final word, I just want to mention something about the cost savings I'm expecting to enjoy with my new tofu and soy milk making capabilities. Without looking into this all that carefully, I'm guessing that I spend close to $450 a year on these foods (roughly $9/wk), but I should be able to get by spending less than $150 (less than $3/wk) for the soy beans necessary to make them myself. Saving $300 isn't going to change my life, but it is a nice way to save a little money. And what's more, in a year I'll end up with close to 100 pounds of uber-nutritious okara to cook with, all as a byproduct. I'm not sure if so much okara is a good thing or not, but I guess I'll find out soon...

Inspired by Avocado

This evening I decided to make my first Burmese dish. I found it on Foodbuzz, but the contributor has his own website where the recipe can be viewed. Here's the URL in case you're interested:

http://whatyouhavingforyourtea.wordpress.com/2007/06/21/burmese-chicken-curry/

I followed the recipe word for word, sans the gamal masala, which I couldn't locate anywhere. It turned out well, but probably not as well as it turns out for most people who try making it. It seemed to lack something -- probably the gamal masala -- and I had an urge to add some kind of Vietnamese herb to it. If only I'd had some rau ram or cilantro on hand...

In any case, I threw together a simple bowl of green beans (as the recipe recommends), and with the Burmese chicken curry we had a good dinner.

This is kind of a boring photo -- except for the fact that the curried chicken looks like the head of a goat, doesn't it? (It even has an eye and a pair of lips.) Or some headless turkey? Maybe I'm on drugs and don't know it...

As I was heading back to the kitchen I noticed an avocado sitting by the window. It looked so lonely there, getting all brown (and dusty) in its corner, and I had a sudden inspiration to make sinh to bo (an avocado smoothie). I immediately grabbed my wallet, threw my shoes on, and went to the Korean mini-mart near my apartment and bought some Haggen Daas French vanilla ice cream.

Here's what I did to make the sinh to:

1) Dumped 4 heaping spoonfuls of French vanilla ice cream into a blender
2) Added 1/2 a cup of 2% milk (maybe a little more than that)
3) Added one ripe, medium size avocado
4) Added 2 spoonfuls of brown sugar (brown sugar only because it happened to be on hand just then)
5) And then blended everything together for about 45 seconds or so

My wife had no idea what I was doing, so when I brought out our desserts and she spooned into hers (it was too thick to drink with a straw, which is how one deals with sinh to in Vietnam) she was, I must say, pretty impressed.

I dressed mine up with an oversized, Salinas-grown strawberry sliced in half. (Hey, there's a face in that bowl, too!)

This is not a true Vietnamese avocado shake. Usually they make it with crushed ice instead of ice cream, and use sweetened condensed milk rather than 2% (I don't think I've ever even seen 2% milk in Vietnam). It's better in Vietnam, somehow, but this is pretty darn good, too.

When I lived in Hanoi, there was a period when I used to go to a small cafe near Ba Dinh Square and place this double breakfast order: sinh to bo and ca phe sua da (iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk). Then I'd ask the woman running the cafe to blend the two together, and I'd end up with a deliciously sweet, thick, and highly caffeinated white-milk-avocado-coffee-shake. Or whatever you want to call it.

I stopped drinking this when I could no longer fit my body through the door of her cafe...

Jackfruit Salad (Goi Mit Tron)

This evening I went back to an old recipe I haven’t made in over five years. I found some fresh jackfruit while wandering around Chinatown yesterday and immediately the following thought popped into my head: Oy! Tomorrow I’ll make goi!

This recipe comes from The Food of Vietnam and is called goi mit tron (jackfruit salad). Although this dish is said to do best with unripe jackfruit – the book explains that young jackfruit is like a vegetable, with a firm texture and mild flavor – I hardly had the luxury of being choosy. I just bought whatever jackfruit was being sold, and all of it was ripe and ready to be eaten.

Two pieces of advice if you decide to make this: 1) don’t boil the jackfruit too long or it will become gluey and hard to chew, and 2) the salad is better when served warm.

Ingredients
2 cloves garlic, diced or crushed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 large shrimp, peeled
2 ounces lean pork
Pepper to taste
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
8 ounces jackfruit, boiled (for 2-3 minutes) and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon chopped rau ram (in English it’s called polygonum, not that this helps)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
Sesame seed rice crackers (banh trang me)

Directions
1. Sauté garlic in oil until fragrant.
2. Add shrimp, pork, pepper, salt, and sugar.
3. Stir until shrimp and pork are cooked, then add the boiled jackfruit and mix well.
4. Add chopped rau ram leaves and sesame seeds.
5. Mix well again and then arrange on a plate. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the salad.
6. Serve with sesame seed rice crackers.

The flavors are rich and surprising: deeply fruity, lightly salty, garlicky, and the freshness of the rau ram is absolutely wow-inducing.

Fried Fish Fillet (with spicy fish sauce and lettuce wraps)

This, too, comes from Deh-Ta Hsiung’s The Book of Vietnamese Cooking. Again, this simple dish isn’t something I remember coming across in Vietnam, but the ingredients and flavors are all Vietnamese to me. This really is about as simple as it gets, and the spicy sauce used here is shatteringly good.

Ingredients
1 lb. halibut fillet (or other firm white fish) cut into 1/4-inch pieces
Salt and fresh ground pepper
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour mixed with 2 tablespoons water
Vegetable oil for deep-frying
Cilantro leaves, chopped
Lettuce leaves
*Spicy Fish Sauce

*Ingredients for Spicy Fish Sauce
2 cloves garlic
2 small red chilies, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce

Preparation of Spicy Fish Sauce: Finely mince garlic and chilies. Add sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, and 3 tablespoons of water. Blend well.

Cooking Directions
1. In a dish, season the fish with salt and pepper and let stand for about half an hour.

2. In a small bowl, blend the egg with the flour and water paste; this will be your batter.

3. Heat oil in a wok or deep-fat fryer to 350F. Coat the fish pieces with batter and deep-fry them, in batches, 4-5 minutes until golden. (Make sure fish is cooked through.) Remove and drain.

4. Place fish pieces on a dish with chopped cilantro and lettuce leaves. Wrap fish pieces and cilantro in lettuce leaves and dip in spicy fish sauce.

Vietnamese Fish in Curry Sauce

This recipe comes from The Book of Vietnamese Cooking, by Deh’ta Hsiung. While there are better Vietnamese cookbooks out there, this one does contain a few excellent recipes. Here’s my favorite; it includes some minor, time-saving changes to the original. Expect your preparations and cooking to take approximately 45 minutes.

I should add that I’ve never had a dish exactly like this in Vietnam. Even so, the lemongrass, fish sauce, chilies, lime juice, and cilantro are quintessential flavors found throughout the south. This tastes like southern Vietnam to me, and I highly recommend it.

Main Ingredients
1 lb fish fillet or steak (I recommend halibut for its firmness, but you can also use other whitefish such as cod or monkfish) cut into bite-size pieces
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Vietnamese fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2-3 shallots, finely chopped
1 cup Vietnamese hot sauce (see below)
1 1/2 cups water
12 oz. firm tofu, cut into small cubes

Ingredients for Vietnamese Hot Sauce
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 red chilies, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon ginger root, finely chopped
1 tablespoon chili sauce
4 tablespoons pre-chopped lemon grass (or 2 sticks of lemon grass, peeled and chopped)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
5 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2-3 tablespoons mild curry powder (reduce this is you can’t handle spiciness)

Directions

1. In a dish, marinate the halibut with a mixture of pepper, sugar, and fish sauce.

2. Prepare the hot sauce.

A. Heat oil in a medium saucepan and gently stir-fry the garlic, chilies, ginger, chili sauce, and lemon grass for one minute.
B. Add mixture of soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, and water. Bring to a boil.
C. Blend in chopped cilantro.
D. Add 2 tablespoons of water. Remove from heat.
E. Add 2-3 tablespoons of mild curry powder. (No need to mix.)

3. Heat the vegetable oil in a saucepan and stir-fry the garlic and shallots for one minute.

4. Add the hot sauce and cook for one minute, stirring constantly.

5. Add 1 1/2 cups water, blend well, and bring to a boil.

6. Add the fish and tofu. Stir gently, then reduce heat. Cover and let simmer for ten minutes.

7. Serve hot. (The dish is also good when served cold.)

For garnishing, I recommend adding more chopped fresh cilantro to taste. You can also add 2-3 green onions, cut into short lengths, and/or 1-2 red chilies, seeded and chopped.

Bo Luc Lac (Seared Garlic Beef Dipped in Lime Juice)

This recipe comes from Ghillie Basan’s The Complete Vietnamese Cookbook, which is a decent source of both Vietnamese and Cambodian cuisine, with a long and interesting introduction on Indochinese food cultures.

Bo luc lac is easy to make. Aside from needing to marinate the beef for 1-2 hours, the preparation time is only about 15-20 minutes.

Main Ingredients
12 oz. beef fillet or sirloin, cut into bite-size chunks
1 tablespoon sugar
Juice from 3 limes
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or crushed
2 tablespoons fresh ground pepper
2 or 3 tablespoons unsalted roasted peanuts, finely chopped
12 lettuce leaves

Marinade Ingredients
1 tablespoon peanut oil
5 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or crushed
2 teaspoons fresh ground pepper

Directions

1. Start by making the marinade by: in a bowl, beat together the peanut oil, soy sauce, and sugar. When the sugar has dissolved, mix in the garlic and black pepper. Add the beef and slather it with the marinade. Leave it for 1 to 2 hours.

2. In a bowl, stir together the sugar and lime juice. When the sugar has dissolved, add the garlic and black pepper and beat well. Stir in the chopped peanuts and set aside.

3. Heat a wok or heavy pan and sear the meat on all sides. (You can also chargrill the beef.) Serve immediately with lettuce leaves for wrapping and the lime sauce for dipping. Another good dipping sauce, if you prefer the saltiness of fish sauce to the tang of this much lime juice, is nuoc mam.