Vietnamese Archives - The FrangloSaxon Cooks

Vietnamese Cucumber Salad

March 2, 2019 by Carine Clary 7 Comments

A Vietnamese cucumber salad that looks elegant and tastes really good. For some reason I’ve found that the dressing tastes better after it’s had a chance to set a spell, so if you have the time you should make it a day ahead or at least a couple of hours ahead but don’t add it to the cucs till you are ready to serve.

S0me background:

One of the ingredients called for is “fish sauce.” There are dozens of fish sauce makers and its pedigree goes back to the Romans who called it “liquamen” and put it on everything.

Generally speaking, it’s the fermented essence of anchovy or other small fish like sardines and you can use it in a pinch for non-Asian recipes calling for anchovies. Everyone has their favorite – mine is Red Boat. When I started looking into different fish sauces I came across endorsements for other brands along the lines of, “smells like gym socks but once it’s in the finished sauce it tastes fine,” or “smells like Dad’s pits after he’s mowed the lawn but it’s ok in the final product.” Really? Gym socks and armpits? For your first course? Don’t think so… Look, we all know that these types of things may taste too intense if you’re sampling them out of the bottle but they should still taste good. I took a chance on Red Boat and when I got it home I poured some out into the palm of my hand and yessiree Bob, it tasted delicious straight up.

The company was started by an American, Cuong Pham, a former tech executive, and it has only two ingredients, black anchovies and salt. This is fermented for a year and then strained, bottled, and delivered for your dining pleasure. I even cheated and used it in my Ragu Bolognese when I ran out of anchovies, and it worked well. And how corporate of Mr. Pham to have given us a multitasking version of fish sauce. You can feel that vibe (but in a good way)!

And for the prep:

Couldn’t be easier. Just slice the cucumber lengthwise, scoop the seeds and toss with the dressing.

Finally, if you’re addicted to take out spring rolls this doubles as a first rate dipping sauce. You can can make some up and keep a bottle in the fridge in case they forget to pack it when you pick up your food.

Vietnamese Cucumber Salad

Author: Carine Clary

Recipe type: Salad Dressing

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Ingredients

2 cucumbers
small red onion or shallot, sliced very thin
1 tsp. chili garlic sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons lime juice
2½ teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
Optional cilantro or mint to taste
Optional grated ginger to taste.

Instructions

Peel and slice the cucumbers lengthwise. Run a spoon down the center to remove seeds.
Slice cucumbers about ⅓ of an inch thick.
Slice onion very thin and add to cucumbers.
Whisk remaining ingredients in a bowl and dress just before serving.

Vietnamese Shrimp Toast

March 31, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

How does Chinese Shrimp Toast become Vietnamese Shrimp Toast? Well, you have Chinese immigrants to Vietnam who adapt it with the addition of some lemongrass and you’re good to go.

At least that’s one version of the story. My version is that shrimp toast tastes so good that anyone with access to shrimp will want to eat it.

I was inspired to develop a recipe for these after eating some frozen, overpriced & mediocre Trader Joe ones. I kept munching and wondering, looking at the ratio of white bread to shrimp, what the profit margin on the item was and whether or not I should fry the box to get my money’s worth.

After making them I can honestly say you’re getting poor not making your own. Plus, laminated boxes don’t fry well.

The beauty of this recipe is threefold. One – the shrimp topping doesn’t require a lot of steps. Just drop the raw ingredients into a food processor & whiz until it becomes a paste. Two – it tastes great. Three – it freezes great, making it superior to stale Doritos for late nite noshing.

As you start loading your food processor you’ll notice that one ingredient is soy sauce. For true Vietnameseish authenticity you will want to use Maggi soy sauce or Nuóc Tuöng. It’s the iconic Vietnamese soy sauce. Maggi was brought in by the French who imported it from Switzerland where it was first bottled by Julius Maggi, making its addition to colonial cooking an early form of fusion cuisine. However, the FrangloSaxon’s refrigerator door stash yielded only Kikkoman and it tasted fine, so I say go with what you got.

Another variation frequently employed by Vietnamese cooks is the use of thinly sliced baguettes as the carrier for the shrimp paste. These can be either fried or laid out on a cookie sheet and run under the broiler until brown. If you cook them in the oven get them about 4 inches under the broiler and broil at 425 until brown. Stay in the kitchen for this and keep a close watch so they don’t burn.

Finally, you’ll see that the little shrimpy toast points in the photo are accompanied by my carrot vinaigrette salad. This is a perfect side since besides tasting good the acidity counteracts the richness of the fried toast.

So there you have it. Shrimp Toast you can enjoy now or later.

Vietnamese Shrimp Toast

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Ingredients

For the shrimp paste:
½ lb. raw shrimp, peeled & deveined
¼ cup water chesnuts
2 tablespoons finely chopped lemongrass
¼ cup chopped cilantro (or flat leaf parsley)
½ cup sliced green onions
2 cloves garlic
1 small Thai chili*
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
1 tsp. Red Boat fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 egg white
¼ tsp. salt
sesame seeds
For the toast:
6 slices white sandwich bread, toasted on one side
For the garnish:
sliced green onion tops
sliced chilis

Instructions

Put shrimp, water chestnuts, cilantro, green onions, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce,egg white, sugar, chilis in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse several times and scrape down bowl. Continue to process until the mixture is a paste. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for an hour.
Very lightly toast the bread and cut off the crusts. Spread the paste onto the toasted side and cut the bread into triangles. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Fill a heavy skillet about 1 inch with oil. When oil is hot place the toast shrimp side down & fry till crispy, about 1 to 2 minutes. The oil should be 350 degrees or if you don't have a thermometer you can just take some of those crusts you cut off the bread & hold them in the oil. If the oil bubbles around the edges it's hot enough to fry.
Drain on a rack or plate lined with a paper towel.
Garnish with thinly sliced chilis or green onion tops.

Notes

* If you forgot to buy a chili don't despair! Substitute a quarter teaspoon of cayenne & all will be well.

Caramelized Lemongrass Shrimp

October 2, 2015 by Carine Clary 5 Comments

Caramelized Lemongrass Shrimp is a simple stir fry but the full rich flavor comes from the interplay of the flavorings and the fats. Specifically, the fat in the shrimp heads and the coconut oil in which they are sauteed. So I don’t want to sound like a cranky old diner waitress here – but to fully appreciate this recipe there should be no substitutions.

Vietnam meets New Orleans!

Like New Orleans style BBQ’d shrimp it’s a messy kitchen table kind of dish. Serve it to people who don’t mind watching you suck heads and if your friends don’t suck, get new friends.

Lightning fast and packed with the traditional salty/sweet/hot Vietnamese flavors this stir fry delivers maximum flavor with minimum time and ingredients. Two things are key. Heads & tails. The heads provide the fat, flavor & color and the tails must not be overcooked.

Coconut Oil and Shrimp Heads

If you don’t have coconut oil you can use olive oil but only if you have a few drops of Coco Lopez or coconut extract to spice it up. If you don’t have shrimp heads don’t bother with making this. I’ve sampled recipes without them and they’re just not as tasty.

Start by beheading the shrimp and depositing them in a bowl. Peel and devein the tails and set them aside.

How to prepare the Lemongrass

You do this by chopping off the hard end (where the line is as shown below) and then start peeling the outer layers off. Anything hard or woody goes. What’s left will be fairly narrow. Think lead in a pencil. The outer peel really means several peels. If you are a lemongrass virgin (which, come to think of it, sounds like a rental you will not find at Redbox) fear not. What you should end up with will be on the softer side. After you cut it up, feel it. Toss anything woody. The usable part is very thin and should be easy to cut, about the size of a cocktail straw.

After you’ve readied all the other ingredients, make the caramel (you can see it bubbling around the edges below) and start adding in those ingredients according to the order listed in the recipe. If, for some reason, you don’t think there’s enough broth or just want to stretch it a little, add a few tablespoons of water.

The other critical procedure is to add the shrimp tails last. By last I mean that after everything is done to your liking, put in the shrimp, stir well, cut the heat off, and cover. The residual heat will cook the shrimp fully while leaving them tender.

Although this cooks fast it can sit at the back of the stove for a while if you need to make it early, and leftovers heat well. You may serve with the traditional rice or the non-traditional toast as shown below.

And don’t be afraid of the whiskers. There’s a lot of good slurping in those heads!

Caramelized Lemongrass Shrimp

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 lb. head on medium shrimp
3 tablespoons white sugar
4 tablespoons coconut oil
4 stalks fresh lemongrass, peeled & minced
2 shallots, sliced thinly
2 tsps. garlic minced
1 tsp. roasted red chili paste
2 Thai chilis, sliced open & seeds removed
3 tablespoons ginger, peeled & julienned
3 tablespoons fish sauce
pinch of black pepper

Instructions

Peel & devein shrimp, reserve heads.
Remove outer layer from lemongrass stalks, cut off bottom stem end and mince finely the bottom 4 or 5 inches.
Caramelize sugar by putting it into the pan over medium heat and swirling it a bit till it's caramel colored, then add the oil.
Add shallot, garlic, & shrimp heads and cook until fragrant, about a minute.
Stir in lemongrass, chilis, chili paste & ginger and cook for about 30 seconds.
Add fish sauce & black pepper & cook for 3 to 5 minutes, covered.
Add the shrimp, stir well, cover and cut the heat off. The shrimp should be fully done about 5 minutes later.

Shrimp Pho

May 4, 2015 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Most people know Shrimp Pho as the less famous sibling of the ubiquitous Beef Pho. But given the large amounts of shrimp stock lurking in local deep freezes and the ready availability of fresh shrimp it seems like it’s now time to let the star anise shine over a great soup!

For a city with traditionally scant offerings of Asian food the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s was a culinary godsend. After the fall of Saigon in 1975 Catholic Charities and the New Orleans diocese spearheaded a resettlement effort that concentrated this new immigrant group in the suburb called New Orleans East, originally in the Versailles Arms apartment complex. From there it grew to include a community that branched out into all the professions and small businesses but with a concentration in food and fishing. After all, those doctors, lawyers and sys admins had to eat somewhere and places like the Dong Phuong Restaurant and Bakery were there to cater to their needs. That, along with the Vietnamese Farmer’s Market where all the ingredients can be found, and you have no excuse for denying yourself the pleasures to be found in this complexly flavored cuisine.

Pho Hai San, or Shrimp Pho, is one of the many fish soup varieties that were developed in Vietnam.

Like our Louisiana shrimp stock, Canh Chua Ca, or Sour Fish Soup, is made with fat and collagen rich fish heads. Both taste great but the shrimp stock has that unmistakable brilliant orange color (as you can see below) and a flavor to match.

Making a pho has its parallels to making a gumbo. You start with a core prep method and then riff on the veg and spices. You might use local bird’s eye peppers, dried pepper flakes, Thai peppers or habaneros. If you can’t source bean sprouts try sunflower seed sprouts.

Bok Choy or Savoy cabbage? It’s your choice but do get a feel for how you like your pho to be seasoned. Go easy on the cinnamon and cloves if you haven’t made it before and taste along the way to make sure it’s not too bland or too intense. Although it’s not listed as part of this recipe I’ve often used lemongrass and if you like that flavor it complements the shrimp.

Last but not least I have to say that the two most important elements in this soup are homemade stock and roasted spices. The spices only take a few minutes to heat and as I’ve said elsewhere the stock is easy if it’s made ahead and defrosted.

As you can see from the close up below it’s a soup and salad bowl all in one so bon appetit and dig in!

Shrimp Pho

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Ingredients

For the Pho:
6 cups shrimp stock
½ cup sliced carrot
5 star anise
1 stick cinnamon (or ½ tsp ground)
2 to 3 inch piece of ginger, sliced thinly
5 cloves
¼ tsp. cardamom seeds
½ of a medium onion
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 small sliced birdseye pepper (or red pepper flakes to taste)
1 lb shrimp
Rice noodles
For the add ins:
bean sprouts
sliced green onions
shredded bok choy
basil or cilantro
quartered limes

Instructions

For the Pho:
Roast the anise, cinnamon sticks, ginger, cloves and cardamon seeds in a warm (almost hot) cast iron skillet until they start to release their flavor about 5 minutes at most and you should shake the pan periodically so none of the spices burn.
Cut the onion crosswise, spear it with a fork and hold it over a burner until very brown.
Put all into the shrimp broth along with the red pepper (sliced or flakes) and simmer for about an hour.
Add the soy sauce and fish sauce and taste. Add shrimp and let simmer for about 5 minutes.
Remove shrimps, strain broth and serve.
For the noodles:
Boil in salted water until just done.
Strain and set aside
For the add ins:
Slice finely the green part of the green onions
Shred the bok choy and basil
Slice very thinly the hot pepper
cut up the limes
To Serve:
Place noodles in the center of the soup bowl.
Surround by the various vegetables
Carefully ladle the broth over the noodles and serve.

Notes

Cooked rice noodles can get sticky pretty quickly after they're drained. If you're having a hard time getting them into the bowl just run some warm water over them and they will loosen up.