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There are many theories about who invented Caesar salad, but many of them point to a resourceful and deft restaurateur named Caesar Cardini. He was born in Italy, moved to San Diego, and then opened Caesar’s Restaurant in Tijuana to get around Prohibition. According to his daughter, the salad was created on a busy July…
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Red Boat Pork Belly in Caramel Sauce (Thit Kho) Recipe
What does a family cook when they have access to all the artisanal fish sauce products that they could possibly ever need? The Pham family that owns Red Boat Fish Sauce often cooks up a fast, homey Viet favorite – pork belly in caramel sauce. Ann Pham has a recipe that her husband Cuong Pham…
Red Boat Super Umami Steak Dinner Recipe
Several years ago, when my friend Cuong Pham and his wife Anne, owners of Red Boat Fish Sauce, came for dinner, he asked if they could bring his uncle and aunt. Sure, I said, the more merrier. His uncle, a former intelligence officer in Vietnam, charmed me right away and then he leaned in and…
Turmeric Ginger Chicken Broth — An Indian Bone Broth with Punch
The first time I tasted commercially made bone broth, I was totally turned off. It was tart and not satisfying or soulful. Adding lemon juice to the cooking process draws out minerals and nutrients but lord, how can you keep drinking that stuff? I’d rather slurp a bowl of pho or sip on homemade stock….
7 Vietnamese Cooking Lessons — Food and Wine
Lord, this just hit the newsstands and that’s my Shaking Beef recipe from Vietnamese Food Any Day on the cover! It’s absolutely gorgeous and I’m so happy. This is the first time that one of my recipes made the cover of a magazine. If you’re a subscriber, the issue will arrive shortly. What’s inside? A…
Instant Pot Sweet and Sour Pork Recipe
Over Christmas, my niece, Nikita, told me that while she was an undergraduate and living in a dorm room, she got by with doing a lot of cooking in the Instant Pot (aka, IP). She made a lot of rice porridge/soups, beans, and stews with the IP; she used a rice cooker for rice because…
Sneak Peek Recipe from Vietnamese Food Any Day
How easy is it to make Vietnamese food? Incredibly easy. Most of what people try at Viet restaurants is multilayered specialty cooking — mon qua (literally “gift food”), that have many components. The Vietnamese repertoire is full of simple and delicious recipes, too. Take this chicken recipe, which was inspired by a trip I took…
Candied Grapefruit and Pomelo Peel — A Lovable Bitter Sweetmeat
Soon after I wrote about candying orange peel, people asked about candying other citrus. Clementines? Not enough pith. Grapefruit and pomelo? Very pithy. As I suggested in the original recipe for candied orange peel, if you’re going to tackle candied grapefruit peel, try the Ruby Red variety (aka Texas red or Rio Red grapefruit), which…
Candied Orange Peel — Mother Nature’s Fabulous Sweetmeat
Last weekend at our farmers’ market, I spied oranges with stunningly deep orange skin and knew they were destined to be made into candied orange peels. The peels are an old-fashioned treat that taste like magnificent jellied candy because the essence of orange is naturally there in the candied orange peels. Coated with sugar for…
Lemongrass Chile Mushroom Stir-Fry Recipe (Nam Xao Xa Ot)
My family is Catholic so I grew up knowing little about Vietnamese Buddhist vegetarian cooking. We had plenty of meatless dishes but they always had a some fish sauce for umami depth (dam da, in Vietnamese). There was nothing that was expressly designed to be purely vegetarian, like this lemongrass chile mushroom stir-fry, a recipe…
