Viet World Kitchen

Matar Soy Paneer Recipe (Peas and Tofu in Spicy Sweet Sauce)

I love the classic northern Indian dish of peas and cheese but I seldom order it at a restaurant. I can’t eat a lot of fresh dairy and frankly, it is often lackluster, especially at inexpensive lunch buffets where there’s more sauce than sweet peas and rich fried cheese.

My solution is to make it at home with soy paneer (tofu). The little fried cubes of tofu soak up the spicy sweet sauce very well. This week, I discovered a frozen bag of San Marzano tomato puree from last summer and a partially used bag of frozen peas. Those finds made for the perfect excuse to prepare a batch of matar (mutter) soy paneer.

We had it for lunch with another frozen discovery – papery thin Middle Eastern flatbread. (Yes, I'm trying to clean out the freezer's 2012 inventory.) Wheat tortillas reheated over an open flame would have been my other choice; it’s a decent shortcut for chapati.

Step-by-Step Chinese Roast Duck Recipe & Tips

To kick off 2013 last week I roasted a duck. It was a festive way to celebrate New Year but also an excuse to practice my whole duck cooking and use the new stove’s oven. I’ve experimented with deep-fried Sichuan duck and roast Peking duck. Vietnamese people often roast duck with red fermented tofu  (vit nuong chao) so I decided to combine various methods and best-practices into one. It was a delicious duck that we ate over the course of two dinners. 

Instead of a normal recipe format, I’m going to do walk you through the process so you can apply them later on. Hey, Lunar New Year isn’t far away. A roast duck could be part of your menu for launching the Year of the Snake!

Winter & Spring 2013 Cooking Classes

Ah, the new year. Time for reflection, refreshing and restart. Take a half step back and a full step forward. If you subscribe to an Asian mindset toward the new year, you can celebrate twice – first for the solar calendar and then again for the lunar calendar. (February 10, 2013 will launch the Year of the Snake.) That means you can take your time to set goals and meet them!

I’ve been cleaning my office and making sure that I square away past commitments and have new ones in check on my schedule. Last year was crazy with the book launch, travel and events. I hope to mostly stay close to home this year, especially because I have the book manuscript to work on.

Additionally, I’ve  committed to teaching a number of local cooking classes. They are all hands-on classes and geared for lots of learning and fun.

It used to be that I had to travel faraway to teach engaging, intensive classes but this won’t be the case in 2013. Thus far, the class schedule includes:

Burmese Pork Belly, Pickled Mustard Greens and Tofu Recipe

Something magical happens when you combine thinly sliced pieces of pork belly with an assertive pickled vegetable and tofu. I didn’t realize that kind of synergy till I made Korean tofu stir-fried with kimchi and pork belly (dubu kimchi). It’s a drinking classic, I was told by my friend Linda Lim, a Korea- born  woman whose petite size belies her enormous ability to eat and drink.

I made dubu kimchi repeatedly to get the recipe down for the tofu book, and in the process learned to understand how the three ingredients worked. The pork belly lent its wonderful richness to soften the blow of the harsh kimchi, which had to be the stinky, mature kind for the dish to shine. The tofu played an intermediary role to soak up the meat’s richness and the umami funk of the pickled cabbage.

That said, I couldn’t resist making this stir-fry from Naomi Duguid’s sensational Burma: Rivers of Flavor, released just this fall. With her former husband, she wrote landmark works such as Beyond the Great Wall, and Hot, Sour, Salty Sweet. This is her solo performance and it’s compelling, well sized for cooking and reading. Unlike her previous large scale productions, Burma is a book meant for using in the kitchen or holding on the sofa, not displaying on the coffee table.

Naomi has been traveling to Burma for decades, observing, tasting, and noting a great deal of detail about the country, which stands at a true culinary crossroads of South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia. All this means that if you’re adept at cooking foods from Asia and venturing to Asian markets, you’ll find Burma to be a splendid book to cook from. If you’re not adept at those cuisines, then Naomi gives you a pass and says it’s okay to just be an armchair cook and eater. In any event, you’ll relish the heartfelt writing and immense research in Burma.

Rethinking Tofu and Miso with Bourdain and Chang’s “The Mind of a Chef”

“When someone doesn’t like tofu or they feel like that it’s gross, I immediately assume that they’re some hardcore neo-conservative,” says David Chang, the chef and owner of the Momofuku restaurant group. Chang makes that provocative statement partway through the soy episode of The Mind of a Chef, a new PBS food and travel series produced and narrated by Anthony Bourdain.

Unlike many of the modern cooking shows, this one is punctuated by jokes (Chang says fart twice in this episode), profanity, and traditional as well as innovative cooking techniques. There is no loud screaming or overly staged dramatic situations. It’s as if you’re hanging out with Chang. The shows are smart.

I was planning to post a Burmese tofu recipe when I read a tweet from Xena N (@bowlfulofcomfor) about the segment. I stopped what I was doing and watched. In 23 minutes, the soy episode of The Mind of a Chef touches on a whole host of issues related to food, culture, and society. 

At the core, Bourdain and Chang say to viewers: Don’t think of tofu and miso simply as what vegetarians order instead of a steak. They are more than that. Here’s the full episode, available until December 22, 2012 on PBS.org: