Viet World Kitchen

Pan-Fried Cucumber with Red Perilla (Tia To) Recipe

Asian food expert Bruce Cost told me years back that two-toned Vietnamese tia to (red perilla) was also used by the Chinese. I didn't see it mentioned until I read Fuchsia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. In her collection of Hunan recipes was this gem. It's unusual to cook cucumber but it's understandable.  There are few vegetables that are eaten raw in the Chinese repertoire so it's no wonder that cucumber gets cooked. Pan-frying turns cucumber into a juicy morsel with a slight pickle-like crunch.

The aromatics and seasonings enliven the flavors. At the end, chopped red perilla (aka purple perilla, zi su in Mandarin) is added for an herby finish. Our mild winter left me with a decent amount of tia to leaves in my garden. Thai basil could be substituted if you can't find the perilla, which is sold at Vietnamese and Chinese markets catering to Vietnamese shoppers. In Chinese, this Hunan dish is called zi su jian huang gua.

Spiced Siamese Peanuts Recipe

I love the sweet-salty-and-slightly briny peanuts served at Hawker Fare in Oakland, California. Whenever I go to James Syhabout’s casual rice bowl-and-snacks cafe, I start off with an order of the peanuts (called “Siamese Peanuts” on the menu) to nibble on. A squirt of lime juice brightens up the funk of the shrimp paste that lends the roasted peanuts their umami depth. It also brings out the chile and fennel undertones.

The other dishes usually arrive before I finish the peanuts so I end up mixing some into my rice. These peanuts are at home as a nosh with beer or as a side dish. You could certainly make a light meal out of the peanuts, rice, and a green vegetable. 

Yesterday, I was jonesing a cocktail hour snack and thought of Hawker Fare’s Siamese peanuts. Not living near the restaurant, I took matters into my own hands and made my own, coming up with this recipe after a couple of tries.

Refrigerator Gold: Leftover Corn Cakes and Chile Sauce

I once knew a couple who, after every meal, dumped all of their leftover food down the drain. They’d pile up the dishes by the sink and use whatever handy utensil nearby to cast off the food. It didn’t matter what it was, how much it cost, how much time it took to make. Then, without blinking an eye, one of them turned on the garbage disposal. Away their meals went down the drain.

It always made me uncomfortable, if not somewhat angry, that they wasted so much food – especially when I’d made it. I was raised in a family where we saved every scrap to enjoy at the next meal. My mother’s approach to cooking was to prepare more than we could all eat because to her, leftovers were a bankable asset. They saved her time as there would be one less dish or meal to prepare in the future. After all, she is the woman who loves to cook industrial quantities of food and keeps two freezers in her home. (See "My Mother's Kitchen Quirks" for details!)

The other day, I realized that the food-wasting couple probably just didn’t know the potential of leftovers. They were not good cooks so they didn’t see the value of saving something for the next meal. They didn’t know what to do with the stuff and may not have even known how to reheat it well. 

When I am cooking, I often think of how I’ll use it for another meal. That is, I’m already planning how I can repurpose leftovers.

A case in point is these corn cakes that I made for lunch the other day. Daniel Tran, whom I wrote about recently, gifted me a box of organic produce that included 4 large ears of corn. My husband and I boiled off the corn to grill and cut off kernels for a salad. We still had a good cup of corn.

Tasting Texas 1.5: Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe

One of the best things that I learned in Texas was that pickles are among the perfect accompaniments to barbecue. At Smitty’s in Lockhart, I tried both the sweet bread and butter pickles and the sour dill pickle. The winner was the former as it cut the richness of the meat. The flavor and textural combination was so good that my husband asked me, “Didn’t you used to make bread and butter pickles? Would you make again soon?”

Indeed, I once did make those pickles every summer for about 10 years, canning them in pint jars. I fell in love with the old fashioned American pickle in high school, when my best friend Danielle Glover introduced them to me. Sweet, tart, and a touch savory, the thick slices of cucumber had me from the get-go.

Danielle enjoyed Mrs. Fannings Bread’n Butter pickles that came in a tall glass jar. Those were the ones I bought for a while, though I ate them too often and too quickly that they became an expensive snack. When I got my hands on a copy of James Beard’s American Cookery, I began making my own, tweaking the recipe every time. Over the years, my renditions seem to edge toward being an East-West kind of hybrid pickle. Call it an Asian American bread and butter pickle!

Kimchi Sour Cream with Grilled Artichokes Recipe

Roy Choi, the mastermind behind the Kogi BBQ taco trucks in Los Angeles is fabulous with mixing up culture and cuisine. His new Culver City restaurant, A-Frame, is in a former IHOP, hence the name. The food is polyglot Los Angeles. It commingles ingredients and culinary concepts that were born in different places on the planet but somehow met and married in the City of Angels. Choi tells the story of modern multiculturalism in his food.

One of the memorable things I tasted was Choi’s kimchi sour cream, which he served as a dip for sweet potato fries. The kimchi sour cream is a riff on ranch dressing, but with just a hint of tang and garlic. You barely detect the Korean edge but it does subtly let itself be known. 

Now that we’re firmly in grilling season, I decided to make my own rendition of Choi’s kimchi sour cream and serve it with grilled vegetables. I’ve tried it with artichokes and asparagus. Both were fabulous. I imagine you could grill summer squash such as zucchini, patty pans, or crook neck.  I suppose you could call it an Asian ranch dressing and put it on a salad!