vietnam

Vietnamese Chicken and Cabbage Salad

Summer’s heat is finally, lazily, starting to wane here in NW Florida; but it’s nowhere near stew season yet. And judging from recent reports, the rest of the US is experiencing some pretty hot weather, so you’re likely not ready to crank on the oven right now, either. So I think it’s the perfect time to share my Gỏi Gà (Vietnamese Chicken and Cabbage Salad) recipe.

Gỏi is the common salad dish in Southern Vietnam (called Nộm in Northern Vietnam), with Gỏi Gà, its chicken variety, being the most popular. While many shredded chicken salad recipes call for boiled chicken, I just can’t stomach the idea of boiling chicken – it seems like such an impersonal way to prepare meat, and it runs the risk of creating a dry, mealy texture.

I respect the reason why boiled chicken is used for shredding, as the water-saturated chicken is easy to break apart. But today, we’ll employ a technique I first learned in a restaurant job, nearly 20 years ago, to get the best of both worlds: we’ll grill the chicken to give it a nice crust and flavor, then dunk it in an ice water bath to cool. This has a secondary effect of preventing the grilled chicken from shrinking, making it a breeze to shred.

One of my favorite aspects of this recipe is that nothing goes to waste. For example, we’ll fry up some shallots and garlic as a salad topping, then cool and use the oil to create the salad dressing – infused with toasted shallot and garlic flavor.

Read Full Article

Faster Pho

Pho is one of my favorite dishes of all time. It was one of my first meals when I moved to Hawaii nearly 15 years ago, and I’ve eaten it regularly ever since. To this day, if I’m feeling under the weather, I immediately reach for the nearest pho bowl that’s lying around (if only it was that easy).

I spent years working on a good recipe of my own, which I wrote in 2012 (confidently declaring it my “definitive recipe” – ha!). I then updated and improved upon the recipe for my cookbook. I love my cookbook recipe, and I would confidently put it toe-to-toe with your favorite bowl of soup. Unfortunately, it takes over 7 hours to make it from start to finish, since I make the broth from scratch. While spending a whole day making one soup is very satisfying (and slightly therapeutic), I wanted to put together a faster version with similar flavors, which I’m proud to debut today.

This dish first emerged as a Hanoi street food during the late 1800s, and was brought to the US in the 1970s by refugees after the fall of Saigon. The inclusion of beef in the dish is reflective of its French influence; prior to French colonialism, cows in Vietnam were mainly used for labor and not as a food source.

Be sure to scroll through to below the recipe text, because I also recorded a video of the recipe. Thanks to everyone for your feedback on my last video; I adjusted my side camera angle so that you can better see what’s in the pots, but since this recipe is basically just a lot of boiling, it’s not very exciting footage!

For this recipe I used the US Wellness Meats eye of round, oxtails, and marrow bones, all sourced from grass-fed cows. I pressure-cooked the oxtail and marrow bones to make broth; I then picked the meat off the oxtails and added it to the soup with some thinly-sliced eye of round. US Wellness Meats is currently offering 15% off all orders under 40lbs using the code “soda”, and the deal expires at midnight CST tonight (December 9th), so jump on it! Okay, on to the recipe.

Read Full Article

Homemade Phở

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbook, The Ancestral Table.

Pho, often considered the national dish of Vietnam, is a rice noodle dish that uses a beef bone broth. It’s hard to describe the basic, yet complex taste that comes from this unique mix of broth, beef, spices and herbs – I recommend just going to your local pho joint and trying it for yourself. You’ll be hooked. I had my first bowl right after moving to Hawaii in 2001, and ever since then I’ve been slightly obsessed with figuring it how to make it at home. After several dozen ho-hum attempts I finally settled on this, which I consider my definitive, recipe.

This dish emerged from Hanoi in the early 20th century, and was brought to the US in the 1970s by refugees after the fall of Saigon. The inclusion of beef in the dish is reflective of its French influence; prior to French colonialism, cows in Vietnam were mainly used for labor and not as a food source. I’ve read a few different histories of the word “phở” itself, and my favorite is that it came from the French word “feu” (fire), and that pho itself is Vietnam’s take on the popular French beef stew, pot au feu.

Read Full Article

Lemongrass Pork Chops

NOTE: An updated version of this recipe appears in my cookbook, The Ancestral Table.

If you’ve ever been to a Vietnamese restaurant and not headed straight to the pho section of the menu, you may have tried lemongrass pork, which is a sweet/savory grilled pork dish. I decided to incorporate these unique flavors into thick-cut pork chops (because face it, there’s only so many ways to cook pork chops) and I added a citrusy pan sauce on top for good measure.

Brining is an essential part of juicy pork chops (even the traditional Vietnamese recipe calls for marinating overnight), so be sure to start this recipe well in advance of dinnertime.

Read Full Article