#45 Vietnam
- Jen
- Feb 16, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 4, 2022
Not many countries can boast stunning scenery, fascinating history, rich cultural heritage, incredible value tailor-made suits and world class cuisine.
Five element philosophy
Vietnamese cuisine doesn’t just happen by accident. It is governed by the Chinese five element philosophy which describes the balance and interaction between everything. As such, Vietnamese dishes are prepared to arouse all five senses: the heavy use of fresh herbs for smell; fried spring rolls - crispy on the outside, soft on the inside for touch; vibrant colours for sight; crunchy fried onions for hearing; and ingredients are combined that perfectly balance the five taste senses: spicy, sour, salty, bitter and sweet tastes.
Typical Vietnamese dishes
Papaya salad exists throughout SE Asia and is a prime example of a five element dish. Chillies make it hot, green papaya is both sweet and sour, and fish sauce brings the savoury element. It’s also a textural dream: julienned soft fruit, crunchy peanuts, and in Vietnam it’s often topped with Asian-style beef jerky and finely sliced pickled vegetables. Papaya salad is one of my favourite dishes from the region. It’s SO good in sweltering humidity with some barbequed meat and an ice-cold beer.
Vietnamese soups, like other SE Asian soups, have a light stock as their base and are always bursting with flavour and with a variety of textures. They serve as appetisers or as whole filling meals with wontons, noodles, meat or fish.
Also typical of the region, there are spring rolls: either fried, or little packages of deftly sliced vegetables and vermicelli wrapped in delicate rice paper sheets. There are numerous varieties of filled dumplings and steamed buns, and, of course, many stir-fried vegetable side dishes, fried rice and noodles.
Meat dishes include a lot of pork, chicken and duck, usually braised or grilled, and sauces will often be sticky sweet. Fish is usually cooked and served whole, either steamed or grilled, and flavoured with ginger, lemongrass, star anise or tamarind, and lots and lots of fresh herbs.
Fish sauce
Fish sauce (nước mắm) is both an ingredient and a condiment and no Vietnamese meal would be complete without it. Made from salt and oily fish like anchovy or mackerel, and fermented for up to two years, it’s what adds umami flavour to dishes.
Phở
Pronounced ‘fuh’, this noodle soup is Vietnam’s national dish. It is so famous that it lends its name to a chain of Vietnamese restaurants in the UK.
Pho is usually eaten for breakfast and is real street food, sold by vendors carrying bamboo poles with a basket of ingredients at one end and a pot of hot broth at the other. Every mouthful of pho represents what Vietnamese food is all about: a rich yet light broth with crunchy vegetables, silky rice noodles and aromatic fresh herbs. It’s called pho bac in the north with wide noodles and pho nam with thin noodles in the south. It’s traditionally served with thinly sliced raw beef which cooks in the serving bowl as the piping hot broth is poured over. Additional condiments such as fresh herbs, lime, chillies, hot sauces, etc. are usually laid out for the eater to add as they please to suit their personal taste.
It’s all about the broth. A decent beef broth/stock requires time, a few spices and a lot of quality beef bones.
“It’s not worth making pho with ready-made stock, so don’t even bother.” Charles Phan.
Bahn mi
This post would be incomplete without mentioning what Vietnam would enter into the sandwich Olympics…if that was a thing…that should be a thing.
The streets of Vietnam are full of carts selling these freshly made sandwiches, and almost always for under one US dollar. For locals they’re an on-the-go breakfast or snack but tourists go for these any time of day.
The French introduced la baguette to Vietnam in the 1860s and hence: la bánh mì. A bahn mi is a long, slim bread roll made using a combination of wheat flour and rice flour, which gives them a crispy crust and soft inside. Fast-forward a century and the bahn mi sandwich was born.
Bahn mi makers don’t skimp on fillings! The secret to maximising fillings is to tear out some of the soft interior to create more space for pork meatballs, grilled meats, Vietnamese sausage, or any other meat you fancy. Forget mayo, these butties are made next level by lubricating the bread with pâté, and finally topping the meaty filling(s) with pickled carrots, salad and definitely a load of fresh herbs.
Vietnamese dinner party
The lovely ladies from my gym pub quiz team, Barbells & Braincells, joined me for a weekday evening of sampling Vietnamese food.
All the recipes below are taken from Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan, chef/owner of the famous San Francisco restaurant, Slanted Door.
Hot & sour prawn soup
The base for this soup is a chilli, tamarind, fish sauce and lime juice infused chicken broth. Sadly for my guests and me, there was no roast chicken in my life from which to make stock in the lead-up to this dinner party, so I had to make do with what Waitrose had to offer.
Once the stock is infused, the rest of magic happens in minutes. Prawns and pineapple chunks are added to the hot broth until the prawns turn pink. It’s then ladled over beansprouts and iceberg lettuce and served with toasted garlic and fresh coriander on top.
I didn’t love this soup. The prawns and fresh pineapple combination was lovely, but the broth just didn’t blow me away. I should have listened to Charles. Although I didn’t make pho, I’m sure the same philosophy applies to other soup too.
Roasted aubergine and leek salad
I chose this vegetable dish in particular because: I had eight leeks in my weekly veg box to get through, because I love aubergine, and because anything chargrilled and smoky tasting is a winner.
The veg should be barbequed but I managed to blacken it quite well using a hot frying pan. The charred veg is chopped and mixed with fresh coriander and a wonderful dressing of soy sauce, roasted chilli paste, lime juice, sugar and vinegar.
This was so good I made it again three days later (and also because I still had two leeks left).
Bu Luc Lac (Shaking Beef)
Traditionally made in Vietnam using tough cuts of beef, Phan’s recipe calls for beef fillet and thus elevates this dish from everyday to dinner party.
And it is so simple! Begin by marinating chunky cubes of tender fillet in sugar, salt, pepper and some oil for a couple of hours. The beef then goes into a hot wok and is seared for a few minutes until a gorgeous crust forms on one side. Only then must you move the beef around to brown the other sides. Then, add red onion and spring onion to the pan to briefly stir-fry and add a pre-mixed sauce of rice vinegar, sugar, mirin, soy sauce and fish sauce. Finally, throw in a knob of butter and finely chopped garlic (the French were there once remember!) and shake the wok to coat evenly (hence the name of the dish). Serve with a simple dipping sauce of lime juice with salt and pepper.
Every ingredient in this dish perfectly compliments that beautiful caramelised exterior and tender beef interior of each cube of fillet. It’s sweet, it’s savoury, it’s crispy, it’s chewy; it’s heaven. The higher the quality of beef, the better this dish will be.
Thanks to my girls for a fab evening…now onto…SWEDEN?
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