Viet World Kitchen

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.

Chinese Chicken Salad Recipe and Video Tip

Over the weekend, I found a rarity at my local farmer’s market: a head of iceberg lettuce. I love its delicate jade color and flavor, despite many others thinking that it’s a declasse vegetable. Iceberg is crunchy and cooling. For Vietnamese food, I like to tuck it into banh mi and cellophane noodle and fried tofu rice paper rolls (bi cuon chay, see page 161 of Asian Tofu for the recipe). But to savor a lot of that gorgeous iceberg lettuce that I picked up, I looked to making Chinese chicken salad.

The chicken ‘salads’ in most Chinese cookbooks don’t resemble what is served in American restaurants. They lack fried crunchies and have little, if any, lettuce. What many people in the States know as Chinese chicken salad is a New World thing.

Where did Chinese chicken salad come from? According to Celia Chiang of the renowned Mandarin restaurants in San Francisco and Beverly Hills, she came up with the salad. She laid claim to it in The Seventh Daughter, her award-winning cookbook and memoir. Cecilia is a feisty woman and you don’t want to mess with her. The Chinese chicken salad that she presents in the book calls for flash frying chicken, shredding it, then tossing it with iceberg lettuce, cilantro, fried rice noodles, lots of roasted peanuts and a dressing of warm oil, mustard powder and five spice powder.

Cecilia’s approach was interesting with its earthy dressing, but I was looking for the Chinese chicken salad with lots of fried wonton skins, rice noodles and a sweet-savory hoisin-based dressing. No canned mandarin segments for me; they seem to dilute the flavors, despite their charming look. I went hunting for my ideal Chinese chicken salad.

Udon with Clams and Shiitake Recipe (Vongole Udon)

I loved the rusticity and brilliance of the Fukushima straw-wrapped tofu but after I made it the other day, I thought of this modern Japanese twist on an Italian pasta dish. Vongole udon is something I order at Musha, an izakaya in Santa Monica, California. It’s a boisterous Tokyo-style (read non-traditional) drinking establishment where you can get great bar nibbles and pitchers of beer for about $12.

Musha’s menu is full of crazy concoctions, such as the “Tofu World” menu page, where I discovered the tofu fries that are included in Asian Tofu. There’s a risotto made with medium-grain brown rice and stirred tableside in a giant wheel of Parmesan before it’s served to diners. Their pickled mackerel is torched tableside for a little show.

Along with the fries and fried chicken, we always order the “Vongole udon.” It’s a slightly brothy bowl filled with chewy soft udon, garlic, a hint of butter, fresh mushroom and lots of clams. Instead of parsley, Musha garnishes with cilantro.

Chrysanthemum Hot Pot Recipe (Ta Pin Lu)

Vietnamese food is strongly influenced by Cantonese cooking, seeing how people have commingled across borders over the millennia. Delicious culinary exchanges have resulted and one of the dishes that has become very popular in Vietnam is the chrysanthemum hot pot, a classic preparation called ta pien lu in Cantonese and  ta pin lu Vietnamese. It’s simple and easy, a festive preparation that I like to make for cool weather meals.

Most of the prep is done ahead and you get to mix and match ingredients. In fact, it’s better when there’s a marriage of land and sea. If you’re unfamiliar with Chinese hot pots, it’s like a fondue but you’re dipping a raw morsel in stock to cook it, then dunk it in a sauce to eat.

According to Florence Lin’s Cooking with Fire Pots, the chrysanthemum hot pot was traditionally seasoned with the petals of white chrysanthemums, which are considered unsafe in America since they are commonly sprayed. She decorates her platters with a large chrysanthemum to make up for the difference.

Asian Souper Bowls (my Wall Street Journal article)

Last week was kind of a neat media week. Along with the Asian tofu story coming out in Martha Stewart Living magazine, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece I wrote on Asian soups. Why is the Wall Street Journal doing food? It’s been doing it for years. In fact, the Journal regularly published great food stories. Some are reportorial and business-y while others are practical with recipes.  

I was assigned to write about wintry Asian soups so I came up with a concept built on a master chicken stock recipe and four (4) soup recipes based on that stock. The pan-Asian collection of soups included Chinese hot-and-sour soup; Thai tofu, pork, and seaweed soup; Vietnamese chicken and cellophane noodle soup; and Japanese gyoza dumplings in smoky chicken soup.  The Chinese and Thai recipes are from the upcoming Asian Tofu cookbook so if you're inclined, give them a try!