Viet World Kitchen

Stir-Fried Beef with Lemongrass and Chiles -- Mark Bittman.com

Remember how I went on the press trip last month? I went to New York, Nanjing, China, and then Hanoi, Vietnam, in the span of about 10 days.  In total, I flew 9 flights in 13 days. I tasted new foods, experienced Asian history, met relatives I didn't know I had, and battled jet lag!

Among the things that I took away from the trip was the stir-fry above. It's not quite Vietnamese thit bo xao xa ot but a hybrid Chinese-Vietnamese preparation that I had on Dragon Air (part of Cathay Pacific Airlines, which co-sponsored the trip).

The simple stir-fry comforted at the end of the journey, and I liked it lots. So much so that I went home and replicated it. It's hard to believe but airline food can inspire!

For the recipe, see this 7/8/10 post on MarkBittman.com:

• Decent Food at 30,000 Feet, Seriously

Related posts:

• Advice for Fighting Jet Lag and Surviving Red-Eyes
• Hanoi Food and Travel Tips: Where to go, what to eat
  
• Hanoi Food and Travel 2010 (initial impressions)

Garlicky Pan-fried Pork Steaks Recipe (Thit Cot-let Chien)

My mom reads this blog and loves to come up with ideas for cool content. This weekend when I visited my parents, she showed me her new twist on one of my childhood favorites: pan-fried pork steaks full of garlicky goodness. It’s a dead simple recipe that reflects Vietnamese-French cooking. Just note the Vietnamese name: thit (meat) cot-let (cutlet/pork chop) chien (fried).

The difference between what I grew up eating and what my mom served the other night is that instead of using dry thin pork chops, my mom now prefers end-pieces of pork loin. She buys them in bulk from Smart & Final for a good deal. They are a pork processing byproduct. She loves it and stands by her pork choice. Would you mess with this woman?

That cut of pork has a moderate amount of fat and lots of flavor. It’s tastier than the pork chops of my youth. All my mom did was defrost the pork (remember, she loves to freeze things) and then used the spine of a cleaver to lightly pound and tenderize the meat, which she cut up into pieces about the size of the palm of her hand. Then she generously seasoned it with minced garlic, salt and pepper.

My parents had a packed social schedule that day and didn’t get home till 5:30pm. Given that, mom prepped the pork the night before and refrigerated it. (You can marinate the meat for an hour at room temperature, if you like.) She let the meat sit at room temperature for about 45 minutes to take some of the chill off.

Then she coated each one in plain breadcrumbs (nothing fancy like panko) and pan-fried the pork steaks in a skillet on her outdoor stove. She loves her patio set up and does most of her cooking there where there’s an ocean breeze and she can ‘communicate’ with the ingredients. It’s a bit like being in Vietnam.

Mom used medium-hot heat and made sure there was enough oil to cover the bottom of the large skillet at all times. Each piece took about 5 minutes to cook, and got flipped over midway. She had to add oil as she fried because she cooked about 5 pounds of meat. Occasionally she would scoop some of the overly fried bits out of the skillet to clean it out.

The result was heavenly. The outside was slightly crisp and the meat inside was succulent and savory. I would have eaten a lot more had there not been so much other food on the table.

When making this simple pork, you don’t have to shop at Smart & Final for the meat. Boneless pork shoulder steaks would be fine. Or, cut pieces from the more marbly end of a pork loin.

We eat these pork chops with fork and knife. It’s one of the few Vietnamese dishes where each guest gets his/her personal slab of meat. Nevertheless, I noticed that everyone at the table – my mom, dad, husband and me – sliced up their entire pieces of pork before any was eaten. Feel free to dip the pork in a bit of chile garlic sauce for some heat. 

Crisp Roasted Pork Belly Recipe (Thit Heo Quay)

Some of my friends have said that they  are “over” pork belly. How could one ever fall out of love with fat? That would could not happen to  me. I recently slow cooked pork belly and now, with that cut of bone-in pork belly that I got from the Chinese market, I was going to try roasting it. I reached out for advice and suggestions on Facebook and this site included

• N. Fong: Yum! Marinate and slow braised, then roasted!
• J. Washburn: I get a chunk of bone-in pig belly nearly every time I go to Austin. It runs about $2.09/lb. there. Several ways to cook 'em. One of my favorites is rub with 5-spice, slow roast, run skin side under broiler to blister when done.
• J. Adams: Char siu!

See the comments section of the post on this unusual cut of pork to get Jarrett’s Thai take on Momofuku’s roast pork belly. Sunflower in the UK provided excellent information on a Chinese version of crisp pork belly.

Gazing at my bookshelves, I remembered seeing a recipe in Vietnamese-Australian Luke Nguyen’s The Songs of Sapa, a Vietnamese cookbook that’s up for an IACP cookbook award this year. I looked it up and his recipe intrigued me for the following reasons:

(1) It came from a Vietnamese vendor in Vietnam and Luke attached a great family story to the recipe.  I'm a sucker for a good story, you know that!
(2) Required scalding the skin, which I just did for homemade Peking duck so I felt like I was on a roll.
(3) Involved these unusual ingredients: annatto oil, cornstarch, and baking soda. What do these ingredients do to the pork belly during roasting?
(4) Was very easy.

I wanted to keep things simple to allow the meat to shine. So I tried Luke's recipe out, and the results were good for my first time out with roasting bone-in pork belly. Pork in Vietnam often times requires scalding and scraping as it can be tough and needs to be cleaned – somewhat like scraping your tongue, which Asians have been doing since ancient times. Seriously.

Homemade Peking Duck: How to Blow up a Duck

After getting through deep-fried Sichuan duck, I wanted to see if I can make decent Peking duck at home. The elaborate process takes days so I hope you’ll join in the process and see what happens along the way. You’ll either laugh, cry, and/or get hungry.

Where and how to buy a duck? I don't have a live poultry shop near me so I bought my duck at a Chinese market in San Jose, California. Such a grocery store has a high turnover of duck and they are freshly butchered with the head and feet still attached. Don’t be turned off as that is how they traditionally come. Do your best to find an unblemished duck and check the packed date. They are gutted and cleaned already. The price for a 4 1/4 pound duck was just under $11 so it was a deal. Specialty grocers will charge you about $30 for a duck that's been defrosted! It pays to shop ethnic for ingredients such as this one.

I blew up a duck before for the very crispy Sichuan duck but this time I wanted to make sure I did things right. Once home I studied up again on Peking duck cookery. The key to getting crisp skin on Peking duck is apparently to blow air in between the skin and flesh so as to separate them, allowing the fat to melt away during roasting. I have a feeling there are a few other things involved but blowing up the duck was my first step and a major obstacle. How to do it? I wasn’t quite sure. I did a fair amount of research in my cookbook library, and a few of you contributed tips. Tools for blowing up the duck  included:

Bamboo tube: Chinese cooks originally used a large bamboo tube and human wind power to blow up the duck but seemed like you'd need very strong lungs.  That wasn’t for me.

Air compressor: There’s an informative YouTube video of Ming Tsai’s Peking duck on Iron Chef battle duck. I watched it again and was about to go over to my neighbor’s house to borrow his. However, my problem is that I’m not good with home improvement machinery. Give me a paint brush and I’m okay but no power tools. What if I set the compressor on high and blow the duck into smithereens? I’d have to drive 45 minutes to get another duck!

Bicycle pump: I don’t have one and didn’t think that my friends would lend me theirs.  Ducks and tires are not the same to them.

If blowing through a bamboo tube can inflate a duck, how about using the plastic foot pump that came with my exercise balance ball? I pumped up the ball, why not a duck?

Honey Baked Ham with Red Wine and Orange Rind Recipe

I’ve been nibbling away on my mom’s leftover holiday ham for over a week now. We had slices of the savory sweet ham on Christmas Eve, then she packed  it up for each of us kids to take home with us. There was so much leftover – Mom baked 20 pounds of ham – that she carefully used her scale to portion the ham out and then froze lots too. I’m sure we’ll be eating her ham futures during 2010. (The photo above is of her finished products, before slicing.)

But that’s okay because I love ham -- pork is the go-to meat in the Vietnamese kitchen. If it’s not grilled like the Vietnamese restaurant-style lemongrass pork steaks I mentioned last week, then it’s simmered in caramel sauce, or made into cold cuts for stuffing into banh mi. But then there’s the ham – which is nothing but a fore or hind leg of a pig. My family has had a love affair with with American-style baked ham ever since we were first gifted our first Honey Baked ham for Christmas.

Secret to injecting flavor into honey baked ham

That went on for a few Christmases and then one day, my mom decided to make her own. She wanted to figure out how to imbue the ham with flavor. My father, ever the tinkerer, suggested that we inject the ham with honey as that’s what Honey Baked Ham must do.

Vietnamese Beef Jerky Recipe (Thit Kho Bo)

I received a request for a Vietnamese beef jerky recipe earlier this summer. Funny that the writer mentioned thit kho bo (“teet koh bo-AH”) because I was thinking about how hard it is for find good Asian beef jerky. I love jerky because the flavors develop and release in your mouth as you chew. It's dried but has an organic quality in your mouth.

At Chinese markets, I’m bewildered by the choices and spend too much time figuring out the difference between beef, pork and fruit flavored jerky. In Vietnamese strongholds such as Orange County’s Little Saigon, there are shops such as Vua Kho Bo (“King of Beef Jerky”) that specialize in beef jerky. At Vietnamese markets, there's usually wispy slices of jerky in plastic bags up at the cash register but you don't know how fresh it is or who made it.

Then I remembered meeting Chef Son Giang of Vien Dong restaurant in Little Saigon and chatting about how he made his own in the oven. My late uncle, Bac Thao (my father’s older brother), made jerky in the oven too. Pondering those two men and their jerky, I thought I’d make some myself. My fantasy Vietnamese beef jerky has a slight chile heat, lilting sweetness, savory umami depth, and a lemongrass back note. 

Banh Hoi with Grilled Beef Recipe (Banh Hoi Thit Bo Nuong)

Delicate in flavor with a slight tang, banh hoi rice noodles are a special event Vietnamese food that’s often enjoyed at parties and celebrations. They’re instantly recognizable as the white noodles are shaped like rectangular mats of thick white cheesecloth. They're very thin, finer than Italian angel hair pasta. It’s best to purchase banh hoi (pronounced “baan hoy”) fresh from a Vietnamese market or Chinese barbecue shop in a Vietnamese community where they’re typically sold on Styrofoam trays and wrapped in plastic wrap. For a general low-down , take a read of Vietnamese Noodles 101: Banh Hoi Fine Rice Noodles.

Banh hoi are not eaten on their own, but rather as an accompaniment to rich, flavorful morsels, such as slices of this easy-to-prepare grilled beef. Vietnamese people love to bundle up food in lettuce and fresh herbs, which is exactly how this dish is enjoyed. Just grab a piece of lettuce, layer in some herbs, a piece of banh hoi rice noodle and slice of beef. Dip your creation in some nuoc cham dipping sauce and enjoy the intermingling of flavors and texture. It’s a lovely one-dish meal for summer’s grilling season!

Vietnamese Restaurant-Style Grilled Lemongrass Pork (Thit Heo Nuong Xa)

We flew Jetblue back from New York City on Sunday and when we stepped out onto the tarmack at San Jose airport (you have to do that at San Jose’s terminal C), it was 10pm, humid and hot. The pilot had announced that it was about 75F. I’m always thinking about my next meal and said to Rory, “It feels like a nice evening in Southeast Asia. Let’s grill something tomorrow with lots of garlic and fish sauce.”

Though I went to New York to teach cooking class and for business meetings, we had plenty of time to eat out with friends. The Shanghai soup dumplings were delightful, and so was the Greek food at Snack Taverna, Tuscan fare at Bar Pitti, old-fashioned Italian at Felidia, high-end homey Japanese at Aburiya Kinosuke, Belgian fries at Resto, ramen at Momofuku Noodle Bar, and modern American at Craft Bar and Gramercy Tavern. We even left Manhattan for exceptional food at Cucharamama in Hoboken and a spritely lunch at Marlow and Sons in Brooklyn. (If you’re wondering, we walked a lot and the fifth-floor walk up that we rented enabled us to fend off any weight gain.) But at the end of the week, I hankered for home cooked food. In fact, whenever I return from a trip, I look forward to cooking my own food.