Dear Andrea,
I am from Australia, so I don't know if the types of Vietnamese food
differs from country to country, but here's my two questions;
At a local Vietnamese resaurant I enjoy a dish called 'stir fry beef'
but it is actually a hot beef and onion mix, and is served amongst a
cold salad (vermicelli, lettuce, cucumber, nuts, bean sprouts, pickled
grated carrot) and it is served with a really nice dressing. The dressing
is what I want to try and make but can't. It is a clear looking sauce
with chillie flakes in it. It is quite sweet. Any idea on a recipe for
this one?
Also at this restaurant they servce a really good pork dish, it is a
fried pork chop (typically served on the side of a soup dish) with some
kind of coating which could be an egg white type of batter, and it has
the best taste sort of sweet and sort of salty. I'm sure there is five
spice in it, but not sure. It has a red-brown colour.
Any advice on these two items would be much appreciated. I would like
to try making these at home.
I've never
been to Australia but Vietnamese immigrants spread the basic food traditions
all over. Plus, there's so much communication nowadays that I imagine
that the food is pretty similar all over. The dishes you've described
below are fairly common in Vietnamese cafes and small restaurants. Here
are my suggestions:
"Beef
stir fry" is really "bun bo xao" — a typical
dry rice noodle dish. It's commonly served in bowls sort of like a salad.
"Bun" refers to the thin rice noodles (like vermicelli) and
"bo" is beef'; "xao" is saute or stir fry. The beef
(try using thinly sliced flank) is marinated in fish sauce, sugar, salt,
and pepper along with some corn starch mixed with water. Saute up some
sliced onion and add the beef. The finished product tops off a bowl
full of the goodies that you've described. As for that sauce, it's a
multi-purpose dipping sauce. I've got a recipe
for it here. Your restaurant version is going to be made with white
vinegar and a ton of sugar! I like the lime version with is more complex,
and I favor a bit less sugar. If you choose to use vinegar, try a rice
vinegar, which is more delicate in flavor. The recipe I'm sending you
will give you guidance in preparing the sauce. Also, instead of using
fresh chilis, the restaurant may put some prepared chili garlic sauce,
which is probably available in Australia.
"Pork
chop" is "suon heo nuong" — grilled pork chop.
Many restaurants offer it as one of their rice plates. It's traditionally
marinated and grilled over charcoal but many overseas Viet restaurants
broil or fry the pork chop. I suggest that you marinate your pork chops
(with bone-in for more flavor) in fish sauce, grated onion or shallot,
sugar, pepper, five-spice powder, oil and if you'd like, a touch of
minced garlic. Let the chops marinate for a good eight hours or overnight.
Grill them using a gas or charcoal-fire flame. You'll have a chop that's
superior to the one at the restaurant! That red-brown color comes from
food coloring. As for the egg coating you mentioned, I'm a little mystified.
Sometimes the pork chop rice place comes with a wedge of salty-sweet
egg and pork, the top of which is an impossibly orange-yellow color.
The coloring is suppose to mimic the use of duck egg yolks; as a fake,
once again food color is used to doctor up chicken egg yolks. My guess
is that this steamed egg and pork dish is what you're getting on the
plate; there are probably some glass noodles in there too!
My advice
to you is to avoid the food coloring in both of these applications.
It does not enhance the flavor of the dishes in any way.
Let me
know if this forwards your adventure in the kitchen!
Andrea
