Basic chicken broth & Miến Gà | Glass noodle chicken soup

Sometimes we eat 12 organic chicken leg quarters a week.  To make this go the mile, I roast the legs (sesame chicken) and shred the chicken while its still warm and pliable.  I reserve the bones, cartilage, & parts of the skin for chicken broth in the freezer.  My sister Uyên recommends roasting the bones to deepen the flavor.  This is another 30 minutes of prep/cook time so I've yet to try it out. 

My daughter requested "Minnie-strone" so I got the chicken bones out of the freezer and I soak/boiled some kidney beans, but then looking at our vegetables--bok choy & organic bunashimeji from a recent run to Ranch 99 (this is the VietAm grammatical noun-adjective transposition), organic kale & broccoli greens from our garden, and the roast sesame chicken leg quarters in the fridge... and well I started feeling more Asian than Italian and I started craving Miến Gà.  Only, anytime I eat Mien I get very agitated and have an accelerated blood sugar/hunger pattern--maybe from processing or maybe it's the tapioca (thought: cornstarch is frequently a cheap substitute for tapioca so that might be the trigger)--still haven't figured it out.  So I used what we had in the pantry--dangmyeon (Miến khoai lang).

Anyways, I used what we had in the pantry, garden, and fridge.  Improv whatever mild green vegetables & ingredients you've got on hand.

Basic Chicken broth

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs of organic chicken bones
• 2.5 qts of filtered water
• 1 organic shallot
• 3 organic garlic cloves
• 1 tsp of organic ginger powder
• 2-3 handfuls of grey sea salt
• generous splash of Red Boat fish sauce
• 1 splash of raw, organic apple cider vinegar*
• optional carrot (sweetens broth)

Throw all the ingredients into your 5 QT dutch oven or stock pot.  Put the lid on and let it low boil for 30 minutes.  Alternately, throw it in the pressure cooker for 15 mins plus decompression time.  Remove the chicken bones.  (You can optionally freeze and reuse the bones but I generally only use them once.)  

*The ACV helps to acidulate the bones so they release their minerals.

Miến Gà recipe

• chicken broth (no carrot)
• veggies: bok choy, broccoli greens, kale, etc.
• 1/2 c organic dried shitake mushrooms
• 7 oz (2 packages) organic bunashimeji (beech mushrooms)
• optional nấm mèo | wood ear fungus
• 2 bunches of dangmyeon (Korean sweet potato noodles)
• roasted sesame oil
• Red Boat fish sauce
• shredded roast chicken
• cilantro
• chile paste for condiment (Youzi XO sauce, etc)

If you are making the broth from scratch, start making it first.  Then start a pot of water boiling to make the noodles.

If you are using dried mushrooms, reconstitute them in separate bowls with hot water.

Meanwhile, thoroughly wash & chop your greens.  The traditional way of washing greens uses less water than letting the faucet run.  Fill a tub, bucket or large bowl with water and submerge the mustard greens to wash them.  Plunge the greens up and down to get the water sloshing; the dirt and sediment sink to the bottom.  Rub your thumbs across the inner stalks to remove any dirt.  Remove the greens and compost the water lightly rinsing any residue off the tub.  Repeat at least once more until clean.

Once the water is boiling, cook noodles for 8-10 minutes until softened.  Drain in a colander (you can compost the water) and rinse with cool water to remove extra starch.  Pour 2-3 tbs of sesame oil over the noodles and toss thoroughly.  You can also use your hands to massage it in. This keeps them from clumping/sticking.

Drain the mushrooms and squeeze out excess water.  Slice shitake if necessary.

Remove any bones from the broth at this time.   Add veggies, mushrooms, 1/4 cup sesame oil, a handful of salt, and a generous splash of Red Boat Fish sauce.  Cover and cook for ~10 minutes until veggies are just cooked.  

In each soup bowl, add glass noodles, shredded chicken, and top off with veggies & broth.  Garnish with cilantro and serve with chile paste.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Sesame roast chicken

I got this recipe from my MIL who got it from her ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese friend.  I have tweaked it with a load of sea salt and to make it quick & easy.  I don't even bother marinading.  I use leg quarters instead of butterflied whole chicken (culturally we prefer dark meat; it's more flavorful, fatty and nutritious.  Only in the breast obsessed USA does one find bioengineered, factory farmed chickens who are so top heavy they can't walk or breed.  

I call this my "oven-fried chicken" recipe because when the fat renders it leaves the skin this perfect crispy texture while the meat remains moist and tender.  My daughter and her dad love to eat the skin, the cartilage, the marrow, and some bone.

I make this almost weekly.  And one of these days I will take some photos.

Variations include using real olive oil, lard, or avocado oil and using various seasonings/herbs.

Ingredients:

• 6 organic chicken leg quarters (can use a butterflied whole chicken)
• 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
• lots of sea salt (can use white/bleached sea salt, or mineral-rich grey salt)
• optional organic garlic powder/minced

Equipment:

• roasting pan with a rack
• wide aluminum foil or parchment paper
• baking dish
• silicon marinade brush

Preheat the oven to 470 degrees F. 

Line a roasting pan with foil or parchment paper to catch the grease and insert the roasting rack.  Pour in a 1-2 cups of water so there is a thin layer.  This prevents any burning/smoking.

Fill a square baking dish with the sesame oil.  Dip the leg quarter in the oil and coat any  missing areas using a silicon marinade brush.

Lay the leg on the rack and generously coat both sides with sea salt.  The sea salt keeps the meat moist, helps render the fat/moisture for extra crispiness, and through baking osmosis it is pulled into the meat itself making the meat as  flavorful as if it were brined.  So use more sea salt than you think you will need.  do not fear the sea salt.  If it ends up being too much, you can just crack the salt crust off or take off the skin.

Add water to the roasting pan below the level of the rack to prevent burning/smoking. Roast for 40-50 minutes until the skin is crispy and rendered.  If I am dealing with bigger legs, I will use the last 10-15 minutes to broil it.  You can use the drippings for gravy/au jus if you like.

Allow to cool and shred the chicken while it's still warm and pliable.  Reserve the bones, cartilage, and fatty skin bits for broth/soup (basic recipe here).  Shredded chicken can be used for stir-frys, soup, salads, wraps, spring rolls, etc.  Done this way a chicken can be stretched for 3-4 meals making it actually efficient to buy organic chicken.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Cà-Ri Gà | Curry Chicken

If you're not focused on the most important stuff, and all that you've got left to show, is Curry Curry on the go

This dish is a melange of cultural & agricultural influence centuries of globalization from fish sauce indigenous to Viet cooking, coconut milk from Pacific currents at least 55 million years ago, lemongrass and curry spices from India (at least 1st century AD), potatoes from the New World (via 16th century Ming Dynasty China), and baguettes via colonial France (18th Century).  

This was one of my favorite meals growing up (and the first meal I learned to cook as an independent young adult).  The pot of curry would be set in the middle of the table and we'd ladle a bowl full and sop it up with baguettes.  The turmeric would stain our hands and once, memorably, my cousine Jacqui's toothbrush.  

The first time I saw this eaten with rice was when I had lunch at the UCSD Dining Commons with my sister Uyên's freshman year of college.  I was horrified, if you can imagine.  It was very outside of my insular world view at the time.  

Now that I no longer eat wheat, rice & curry has become unremarkable.

As always I like to boost the nutritional value.  I favor yams, sweet potatoes, taro, or cassava over potatoes and leafy greens like kale, collards, or chard.  (Just be sure to wear gloves while peeling taro as it can irritate the skin.)  Mostly I use sweet potatoes because they are easier to source organic and leave off the carrots so it won't be too sweet.  You can also use any squash like acorn, butternut, zucchini, kabocha, etc.

I'll give you a foxtrot--two ways to make this quick-quick & slow.

Cà-Ri Gà | Curry Chicken

• 6 organic chicken leg quarters (or whole chicken chopped into small chunks), unwashed (or meat of choice)
• 3-5 organic sweet potatoes scrubbed, peeled and cut into chunks
• coconut milk* (not the dairy alternative kind)
• optional carrots
• kale, chopped
• sweet onion
• Madras Curry powder (mild yellow curry)
• lemongrass, bruised
• Red Boat fish sauce
• Celtic or grey salt
• Coconut milk (look for an additive-free brand like Butterfly or frozen)
• 6 qt stock pot (I have a lovely La Cocotte Dutch Oven that I just  got on clearance at Home goods in February)
• baguettes or brown rice

Quick-Quick 

~30 min

Put chicken legs into the stock pot, 3 tbs of Madras curry or more according to taste, fish sauce, handful of grey salt, cover with water and lid.  Bring to a low boil for 15 minutes.  

While it's heating up, chop onions into quarters & prep the root vegetables.  Add the lemongrass, onion & root vegetables to the pot as you go.  

Using the dull side of a clean cleaver or knife, bruise the lemongrass all along the stalk to release the juices.  Chop into half and add to pot.  

When the 15 minutes are up, add chopped kale and cover with lid again until cooked.  Turn off heat, add coconut milk, stir well and serve. Add fish sauce or salt to taste.

Slow

If you are feeling industrious, you can chop the chicken into chunks.  Exposing the marrow greatly increases the flavor.   Marinade the chicken or meat with 2 tbs curry powder and sea salt for 2 hours or overnight.  

Put the sweet onion, skin and all, into the oven or toaster oven.  Broil whole for 15 minutes or until cooked through.

Add chicken to the stock pot, 1-2 tbs of Madras curry or more according to taste, fish sauce, handful of grey salt, cover with water and lid.  Bring to a low boil for 15-20 minutes.  

While it's heating up, prep lemongrass & root vegetables.  

Bouquet garnis of lemongrass: Tear off one leaf and set aside.  Using the dull side of a clean cleaver or knife, bruise the lemongrass all along the stalk to release the juices.  Fold it up into thirds, tie with the spare leaf, and add to pot.  

When onion is nicely caramelized, add it to the pot char and all.

Chop the root vegetables and add to the pot.

When the chicken is cooked, add chopped kale and cover with lid again until tender.  Turn off heat, add coconut milk, stir well and serve.  Add fish sauce or salt to taste.

* * * * * *

Serve curry over rice or with warm baguettes.  The rare occasions that I eat GF bread, I use Pamela's pizza crust mix.  The processed carbs or perhaps the binder/thickener cause me a little digestive upset (irritability, spike in blood sugar and then acceleration of hunger) so I try not to eat this very often.

Best served while watching this clip from the original Japanese movie Shall We Dance?

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

*Tropical Traditions recipe for making your own coconut milk here.  If you are using frozen,give the package a quick rinse before opening to remove any residue, dirt, etc.

Khao Soi ເຂົ້າຊອຍ | Laotian fermented soybean noodle soup

Well, I find that I have too narrowly defined the scope of this blog to Việt cuisine given how I cook--improvisational and fusion.  My recent millet-stuffed deboned whole chicken, duck a l'orange, gluten-free shin splints (aka thin mints), dairy-free chia avocado chocolate pudding being recent culinary successes that have not made it to the blog because the content didn't quite fit.

So today, I present one of my favorite Laotian-style dishes after nam khao | fried sticky rice salad and sai ua | lemongrass sausage--Khao Soi.  This dish consists of fermented soybeans and ground pork served over rice noodles and pork broth that I first sampled at Vietiane Cafe.  I just learned that it is actually Burmese in origin (thanks internet!).  I reverse engineered it based on taste and then because my pantry is what it is, I improv'd some of the ingredients using dang myun | Korean glass noodles instead of rice noodles since I forgot to soak the rice noodles ahead of time.  And I always add more veggies where I can.  Here, I used blanched cabbage.  The making of this dish reminds me a lot of making Hủ Tiếu Bà Năm Sa Đéc | Mrs. Five's Noodle Dish from Sa Dec (which I've also learned is Hokkien-Khmer in origin).

I stopped eating soybeans some years ago because of the phyto-estrogens and the GMO issue.  Every now and then I will make an exception for organic, fermented soybeans.  So this is my exceptional recipe for fermented soybeans.  Tương cự đà| is a fermented soybean & roasted rice powder sauce from north Việt Nam; it can be substituted with miso and natto.  Natto has a very strong challenging flavor so you may want to omit if you don't like stinky ferments.  If you wanted to be fancy, you could also add thịnh | toasted rice powder (pan-toasted, finely ground rice grains) but it's not necessary.  Read the labels for miso & natto carefully to make sure it's organic, GMO-free, MSG-free and is naturally fermented with koji cultures (rice or barley malt).

One cooking shortcut tip when I am too pressed for time to mince garlic and onions/shallots by hand, I use an immersion blender to blend quartered onion and whole garlic cloves adding enough water to make it easier to process.  Then I saute until the water steams off.  The traditional way of making seasonings in Southeast Asia is to grind spices and liquid into a paste with mortar and pestle.  I rarely if ever have the luxury of time to do this though I'm sure it tastes amazing.

Khao Soi ເຂົ້າຊອຍ | Laotian fermented soybean noodle soup

Fermented soy (From L to R: miso,
 tương cự đà, and natto.)

• 1 shallot or 1/2 sweet onion
• olive oil
• 4-6 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 lb ground pork or beef
• fish sauce
• black pepper
• sea salt
• tương cự đà and/or dollop of fermented miso and 3 oz of fermented natto
• pork broth
• rice noodles
• cabbage, shredded & blanched
• baby power greens (kale, spinach, chard)
• cilantro

Soak rice noodles in water for at least 10 minutes then cook in boiling water for 7-10 minutes until soft.

Saute shallot/onion & garlic until fragrant with olive oil.  Add ground meat and break it up into small pieces.  Add fish sauce, black pepper, sea salt.  Saute until just cooked.  Turn off the heat and add tương cự đà and/or miso & natto.  Stir until blended and remove from heat.  I add the ferments at the very end to avoid cooking off the beneficial enzymes and probiotics.

To serve, add noodles, veggies, fermented soybean mix, and hot broth to the bowl.  Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Ăn ... Ngon Lành|Eat ... Delectably!

Hủ Tiếu Bà Năm Sa Đéc | Mrs. Five's Noodle Dish from Sa Dec Recipe

Pork Hủ Tiếu Bà Năm Sà Đẹc no broth

This noodle dish is one of my favorite dishes which harkens from vùng Cửu Long the land of the 9 dragons (aka Mekong Delta) of Hokkien-Khmer origin.  It is a specialty attributed to Bà Năm Sa Đéc|Mrs. Five of Sa Dec.  Who this mythical Bà Năm|Mrs. Five  is, I don't know; it's very common in the South to call people by their birth order rather than their personal/intimate name and when they're married by their spouse's birth order depending on which one you are related to or know (VN is a relational language so the pronouns are not fixed but based on one's relationship).

When I was in my first trimester with my daughter and nothing appealed to me, my parents made Hủ Tiếu Bà Năm Sà Đẹc and my appetite restored.  My stepdad is from the Mekong and was raised in a Buddhist monastery where he learned to cook as a trade.  This is the recipe my parents taught me.  The glass noodles are served with ground pork in a tomato paste base with shrimp and served with a side of pork broth, though chicken or beef broth could be substituted. This is my quickie version without the battered shrimp cakes.  I made two versions in the last few months, one with chicken legs since I was out of my organic hog share and one when I picked up my organic, pasture raised hog share for the year.  I added zucchini to one because we just harvested it from the garden and I'm always looking to boost the veggie content.  Also, my lifelong allergy to onions was recently cured (!!!) by my chiropractor (not just for bad backs, yo!), so onions are back in my pantry for the first time since I moved away from home and started cooking for myself (almost two decades).

Hủ Tiếu Bà Năm Sa Đéc

Ingredients

• 1 lb of sustainably-raised ground pork or 3 chicken leg quarters, deboned & ground
• 1/2 cup of dried shrimp soaked in hot water for 20 minutes and minced in food processor
• 3 tbs of tomato paste
• 1 shallot, minced (or substitute with 1/2 sweet onion)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Black pepper
• Red Boat fish sauce
• Organic greens of choice
• Zucchini, julienned (optionally added to stir fry or to broth)
• Tiger shrimp, squid or other seafood (frozen without preservatives)
• Korean sweet potato noodles (dang myun)
• pork broth (can substitute chicken or beef broth) served as a side
• chopped green onions for garnish

Directions

Boil water and make noodles according to directions.  Usually about 10 minutes.  Warm up your broth of choice.

Blend ground meat and shrimp in a food processor until just mixed.

Stir fry ground meat & shrimp mixture, add shallots & garlic, several dashes of fish sauce and pepper.  Cook for until the meat starts to brown but is still pink.  Add tomato paste and saute for a few minutes until cooked.  Remove from heat.

If you wanted additional seafood, poach them in the broth at this time.

Serve the glass noodles with the pork-tomato paste, any seafood, and greens and a side of broth garnished with chopped green onions.  The broth can be used to moisten the noodles to taste/consistency you prefer and/or sipped during the meal.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

The Source

There's a new sheriff in town (yes, the Whole Foods* mecca is now open in Fremont) so I thought I'd update this list...
 
That old folk wisdom adage "you are what you eat" holds true.  Nowadays we've grown up with industrially produced meat & produce and have no idea what real food tastes like.  Organic foods not only taste better, though not prettier, and are less likely to pollute your body & the earth with carcinogenic toxins or feed into the impending zombie apocalypse.

I get a little more into why eating organic, sustainably-raised food is important to our family here.

Overall, though in our family we eat chicken & fish far more frequently, I prefer pork which I only eat if I can source sustainably-raised/organic at the very least, pasture-raised and corn-free at the best.  Here's my go to's:

PRODUCE

• Our garden!
• Ramirez Pesticide-Free Farm (Cherry-Guardino--Fremont) Pesticide free produce, small selection of staples like kale, cilantro, squashes.
• Perry's Organic Farm (Ardenwood--Fremont) Organic, great selection
  
• Newark Farmer's Market (New Park Mall) Stress-free parking and pesticide-free Asian vegetables
• Whole Foods Market (Fremont) I was pleased to see they carry Perry Farm's produce and it is so beautiful inside.
• Sprouts Market
• Trader Joes
• Costco

CHICKEN

• Indian Market (Central Fremont) organic, halal chicken (whole, breast, quarters, livers)
• Maiwand Market (Centerville--Fremont) organic, halal chicken (whole, breast, quarters, livers) 
• Holistic Moms Network Tri-City Chapter buying coop for organic, grain-free, pasture-raised chickens & eggs from Early Bird Ranch (Pescadero, CA)
• Whole Foods Market (Fremont)
• Sprouts Market
• Trader Joes
• Costco 

EGGS

• Azure Standard has organic, pasture-raised eggs for a great price
• Local Farmers market
• GoodEggs.com
• RealFoodBayArea.com

DUCK

• Fremont BARF Coop (Northgate--Fremont) Sustainably raised duck leg quarters, hearts & livers & fat from Sonoma County Poultry Liberty Ducks
• Whole Foods Market (Fremont) 

FISH

• Fremont BARF Coop (Northgate--Fremont)Sustainably caught whole fish (seasonal) from EcoPawz
• Holistic Moms Network Tri-City Chapter Sustainably caught seafood from Lummis Island
• Whole Foods Market (Fremont) 
• Marina Poultry & Seafood (San Leandro/Newark) Sustainable seafood!  Locally caught!  Technically the physical storefront is not in the Tri-City area, however rumor is they have a booth at the Newark New Park Mall Farmers Market on Sundays.  HMN TC recently did a Chinook salmon buy through them and it was excellent!
  
  
• Costco 
• Trader Joes

PORK

• Heritage Foods USA Food hub.  organic heritage hogs--red wattle is the most succulent
• Clark Summit Farm organic heritage hogs, offal & fat
• Holistic Moms Network Tri-City Chapter buying coop for organic, mostly grain-free, forest-raised/forage-fed hogs from Early Bird Ranch (Pescadero, CA)

BEEF

• Pampero Ranch raises free range, grass fed longhorn steer (might not be organic).  Their headquarters are based in Sunol.  The steer are raised in Modesto. 

• Backyard CSA sources organic, pasture-raised beef soup bones, liver & shanks from Mendocino County with delivery in the Tri-City area.
• Whole Foods Market (Fremont)
• Sprouts Market
• Maiwand Market has a full service butcher stall with halal, grain-fed lamb & beef.

ORGANIC COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE (CSA) & GREEN BUYING COOPS

• Holistic Moms Network Tri-City Chapter Buying coops for organic/green products from Azure Standard, Frontier Wholesale, Red Boat Fish Sauce (me), among other things...
• Dig Deep Farms CSA this is a locally grown, affordable social enterprise of the Alameda County Deputy Sheriff's Activities League
• Azure Standard this Oregon based farm & buying coop is a fantastic source for organic grains, and many many other consumer goods at wholesale prices.  They have drop points all over the West Coast with drops in Newark and one in Warm Springs/Fremont.
• Frontier Coop a great organic wholesale buying coop.  I have access through HMN but you could set up your own local coop.

RANDOM ORGANIC PRODUCTS

• Grocery Outlet Bargain Market (Newark, Fremont & Milpitas) In our household, we call it GrocOut.  They have organic eggs, and random assortment of grocery items ranging from organic olive oil, salad mix, soy milk, etc.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

*Full disclosure: I am a Whole Foods Fremont Foodie Ambassador.  What does that mean? I have no idea.  This is a new unpaid pilot program that was launched to tie into the Fremont opening.  WF gathered a select group of foodies who represent the diversity in Fremont as well as diverse dietary needs.  We got to have a nice little wine & gnosh get together & swag before the grand opening in exchange for social media promotion.  But nothing has happened since.  Don't expect this to go to my head.

Leilani’s Gỏi Cuốn|Vietnamese Spring Rolls recipe

This is the third of four recipes that feature my favorite fish sauce Red Boat.

Leilani’s Gỏi Cuốn|Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Makes 16-18 rolls.

Chicken spring rolls with Rustic Almond Sauce

Poached shrimp and pork are the traditional proteins used in goi cuon, but can be substituted with grilled meats or tofu. Different herbs can be added, such as basil and Vietnamese coriander (rau ram), choose your favorite ones. The rolls are best when served immediately after rolling. Traditionally the ingredients are served family style onto the table and everyone assembles their own according to their preference.  In our family, we like to eat Gỏi Cuốn with whatever meat is handy including bulgogi, kalbi, grilled fish, rotisserie chicken, sai ooa|Laotian sausages, etc--which makes this a nice leftovers meal.  I have found brown rice vermicelli at a local Asian market, but I can't remember which one!

When I'm in a hurry to make a meal in under 30 minutes, I like to use Bánh Hỏi Tươi | Rice vermicelli which only needs to be soaked in hot water for a few minutes in a bowl, is conveniently portioned, and there is no pot to wash afterwards!  I also prefer the lighter noodle texture on the palate.

Ingredients:

• grilled protein (tofu, fish, seafood, chicken, beef) marinaded with lemongrass, garlic, palm or coconut palm sugar and fish sauce (can be prepared in advance)

• 8 ounces thin rice vermicelli noodles (bún or Bánh Hỏi Tươi)

• 1 head butter or red lettuce, washed and ribs removed or a box of organic spring salad mix

• 1 bunch fresh mint leaves

• 1 bunch fresh cilantro leaves

• 1 English cucumber, persian/armenian or pickle cucumber, julienned into 3-4 inch sticks

• 16-20 garlic chives or Chinese chives

• optional sauteed kale (power greens amped)

• optional pickled leeks or pickled garlic sliced thinly or kimchi/sauerkraut (get salt fermented for a tangy probiotic boost!)

• optional green mango, starfruit, or other sour fruit julienned (not recommended if you are using sauerkraut/kimchi)

• 1 package rice paper (bánh tráng)

• Nước Mấm Pha|Dipping sauce, Original almond sauce or my new Rustic Almond Sauce

Directions:

Marinade meat with minced lemongrass, garlic, sugar and fish sauce. Grill/roast/etc. Once it is cooked, allow to cool then shred into bite size pieces and arrange onto a platter.

ASSEMBLE INGREDIENTS 
Thoroughly wash herbs in a basin of water until the dirt settles on the bottom. Remove the stems and arrange onto a platter.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Using your hands separate rice vermicelli noodles as you drop them in. Boil for 2-3 minutes until tender using chopsticks to separate the noodles. Drain out the water in a colander and rinse the vermicelli in cold water until cool. Arrange in a serving bowl.

Arrange all the ingredients at each end of the table. Everyone should have a plate for the rice paper and a dipping bowl for the Nước Mấm Pha|fish sauce dip or the almond sauce.  

ROLL YOUR OWN

Fill a medium bowl with cold or room temperature water and quickly dip a piece of rice paper into water; make sure to wet the entire piece. Do not soak it! Hot water will soften it quickly, but you may have tearing.  Cold water takes longer to reconstitute the rice paper, but will tear less.

Place on a plate and allow to soften. Place a lettuce leaf at the lower end of the rice paper. Add rice noodles, protein, mint, cucumber, cilantro and chive evenly across the rice paper. You can add any of the sour pickled options as well. Roll the rice paper over the filling and tuck it underneath. Continue rolling while keeping tension on the rice paper for a tight roll. The roll will seal itself.  I personally like the burrito method of folding in the ends which keeps the ingredients inside the roll.

Serve with Nước Mấm Pha or almond dipping sauce.  If we are eating to go, I add the sauce in the roll as I make it and eliminate an extra thing to tote.

Bonus Variation: Bún|Noodle Salad

Bún is the deconstructed version of Gỏi Cuốn.  The noodles are served warm in bowls, heaped with shredded lettuce, herbs, julienned cucumbers, bean sprouts, and topped with warm protein.  The dressing is Nước Mấm Pha with a generous heaping of finely shredded carrots.  We've also used my almond sauce with bún for my daughter.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!

Confessions of a Phở-natic

Blasted blogger somehow overwrote my newer version with a draft so now I have to reconstruct.  Other recent blogs on the topic of Phở
Genealogy of Phở
Real Phở Bo Recipe

Real Phở Ga Recipe

So my foodie friend over at Streatery called my out on my claim to be "not zealous" and the lengths I am willing to go to acquire quality meat--organic, pasture-raised if possible, humanely butchered.

Yes, I have sourced sustainably-raised Sonoma Liberty duck legs to make bún măng vịt|duck bamboo soup (post forthcoming) after 3 months/attempts (and I'm not too proud to say I did it through a raw pet feed coop;  I've volunteer schlepped thousands of pounds of raw meat for two months to make good on this).

Yes, I have been an itinerant meat dealer slinging cryovac'ed cuts from a organic heritage hog (red wattle!), hustlin' all up in east Oakland.  Holla! (or if you're in Fruitvale ¡Hola!)

Meat Man
Head of State — MOVIECLIPS.com

Mangalista yummy!

And I have braved the mega-hipster crowd and hours long line at Pork Prom just to eat crumbs of the curly haired Hungarian Mangalitsa.

And I have divvied up 120 lbs of delicious organic hog and offal as it defrosted blood all over my floor.

But, I am not zealous.  I am enthusiastic.  I just like good food and good health at a reasonable cost.

So here are some confessions of a Phở-natic:

• My recipe is my own.  Of course I didn't invent it.  Over the years of trying to phở-ness (oh yes, I will portmanteau phở into every conceivable iteration) with advice from my mom, my oldest aunty, I cross-referred to existing recipes from cookbooks and internet for quantity because you know "add as much as you like to taste, I don't know how you like it" is not a valid measurement and rice bowls and soup spoons are not reliable measurements.  And although I did acquire a digital scale to ride this new foodie trend of weighing food, I still don't think in metric.  Sorry, American born.
• I don't eat beef.  I stopped eating it in on a regular basis in 2003 after noticing I was not digesting it very well and what's more, would develop boils after eating conventionally produced beef.  Eww! TMI I know.  I make beef phở on infrequent occasions and try to use only the highest quality beef, so boils are no longer a problem and I take enzymes to help me digest.  I make chicken phở far more frequently.  I gave up on restaurant phở last year not just because the broth was mediocre and masked by liberal use of nước mắm to cover up the lack of hours long bone extracting simmering, but also because the excessive amounts of MSG gave me severe intestinal cramps and prompted a bad metabolic crash.  And that's without slurping the broth.  I may make exceptions for Turtle Tower (SF) and Pho Nguyen Hue (OC) but probably only if I am carrying my supplements that buffer me from chemicals that my body finds toxic.  Otherwise I will violate the cardinal rule of eating at a phở specialty restaurant by ordering from the non-phở menu.  Can't go wrong with a grilled meat rice plate.  Cross my fingers.  Now that we are sourcing grass-fed/-finished, pasture-raised, sustainable beef, I've increased my beef intake with minimal repurcussions.  I like tripe in my phở but I've yet to source organic, non-chemically processed tripe and we're not ready to buy half a cow.
  
• When I am on a budget or cannot find time to source local organic, grass-fed beef or organic pasture-raised chicken--which is most of the time--I buy halal, that is, beef/chicken that is grown in accordance with spiritual strictures tastes better than meat grown for greed & environmental destruction.  And that is not just the Bay Area smug talking.  I'll post again about my local meat sources, but currently, I go to Indian Market and get their organic, halal Petaluma Poultry chicken for $2.29/lb.  It's really a marked taste improvement over supermarket chicken.  I had pasture raised chicken for the first time a few months ago and was really astounded by the flavor which blew my now-ordinary seeming organic halal chicken out of the farmyard.
• I put leafy greens in my phở.  No, I'm not talking about ngò gai, basil, and cilantro.  I'm talking raw baby power greens--chard, baby kale and baby spinach are my current faves.  What da phở?  Weo, I never claimed to be a purist about phở (ok, maybe I did).  I love my people's food, but here in the US, it consists of too much refined whites and too much meat.  I need greens with every meal to feel nourished.  I make sure they are cooked to reduce the oxalic acid in raw greens to which I am very sensitive.
• I don't like onions.  Although I faithfully follow my grandmother's method of carmelizing a whole onion, I've been allergic to onions ever since I can remember (yes, this is a real thing.  I would get rashes and have respiratory issues.) and rarely used it in the last two decades of my cooking experience.  However, my chiropractor recently cured me of this allergy (not just for backs, yo!) and now onions are back in my pantry.  Perhaps, this is the missing ingredient to make my phở taste like my grandmother's.  And indeed, it does make a difference to the color of the broth.
• Making my own brown rice phở noodles or substituting another kind of brown rice noodle is on my list of to-do's to try to make phở even more nutritious.  I am lucky enough to have a mother-in-law who grew up in a rural hamlet in the delta making everything from scratch so I pick her brain a lot and there's also my bro and Streatery's genius.  I had an epic first attempt fail with brown rice bánh xèo (a future blog post one day) but I'm not giving up just yet.  So until I master brown rice flour, I have been known to eat phở with brown rice; that's the actual rice grains.  It's... interesting.
• On the noodle tip, I prefer even-wider-than-fettucine-XL-sized bánh phở|noodles which seems to be a northern thing.  I've only ever seen wide noodles at the northern style restaurant Turtle Tower in the Tenderloin because they make their own noodles by hand.  So this means I choose the dried, made overseas noodles over the "fresh" regional-/California-made noodles which typically comes in narrower widths.  I also choose the dried kind because they don't use wheat/gluten or preservatives unlike the fresh ones.  But if I am willing to pay the discomfort with chemical preservatives and do choose fresh, I go for the wider hủ tiếu|rice noodles.
• Besides leafy greens, I garnish my phở with basil, cilantro, ngò gai (when I have it), occasionally blanched mung bean sprouts, Red Boat nước mắm
  ắm nhi
  ắm nhi
  , and lime/lemon juice.  Other than RB which is a recent artisanal product, that's how I've eaten it since I was a child and how I came to appreciate the nuances of broth unpolluted by condiments.  I still lift my bowl to slurp the last of the broth which btw is entirely polite in Việt etiquette.
• I have been known to substitute dried Italian basil when I don't have have Thai basil on hand.  What can I say, our herb garden didn't over-winter last year and I can't get to the Asian store that often.  Our garden this year had African basil and chocolate basil, not Thai basil, so that is what went in the phở.
• As I indicated as much in my flagship blog post, I am not attached to any "real food" celebrity or branded dietary program.  I finally watched Food, Inc for the first time a few months ago.  And I've yet to finish reading The Omnivore's Dilemma.  When I volunteered to table for my HMN chapter at the Wise Traditions WAPF conference last year, I had no clue who Sally Fallon is or why our chapter leader mom was so excited she punched me when she saw her; I was there to see if I could get discounted organic stuff in the vendor section (not so much).  I've only been to one foodie convening and really it was just something to do with my bro & his girlfriend when they were in town.  So I'm not really a convert to anything, just appreciate real food.
• I cheat time--though not nutritional value--with a pressure cooker.  I have a vintage Fissler Vitavit Royal that I inherited from my grandmother before she passed.  It must be rather fancy because replacing the aged gasket & valve set me back $30.  I can only cook family sized amounts in this one because the bones take up so much volume.  The provenance of this special pressure cooker was probably my gourmand fashion designer uncle turned gourmand friar-priest uncle when he entered the monastery.  He is probably also why my grandmother who couldn't read english was also in possession of Craig Clairborne's NY Times Cookbook which I inherited as well, though I donated/recycled it last year.  (Gasp!  What can I say, America's Test Kitchen is my go-to cookbook.)  This takes me from 5 hours with my cauldron to 1-1.5 hours with my pressure cooker.  An indication for me as to the quality is if the broth is gelatinous overnight in the fridge from the rendered collagen.
• I re-use the bones and that gets me maximum nutrient extraction and value for my dollar (or use-per-eat to paraphrase my girlfriend Tuyen's theory of economic consumer rationalization).  I make batches and freeze the broth because I am too lazy to can though I admire the efficiency and smarts of making shelf-stable canned broth.  I defrost weekly or thereabouts and everyone in the family sips a cup of broth on the daily for the mineral content immune boost.  Note that bones can be made for 2-3 re-uses but after that, it diminishes in beefy flavor so you'll have to add meat cuts.  The bones can then continue to be used for bone broth/hunter's tea.
• I met a Hawai'i-kine custom surfboard maker in Santa Barbara back in January.  He told me how he's been blackballed at the local phở joint for trying to mod his phở too many times trying to make it more like the saimin he missed (itself a fusion of local ethnic groups).  Maybe 5 years ago this might have prompted an one-sided traditionalist argument on my part (though I don't know that I'd even argue, if it wasn't for people mod'ing, bánh mỳ ổ|Vietnamese sandwich may have never come into existence and the world would be a sadder place for it), but I just shrugged and told him how to make his own phở and mod it however he wanted.  Some folks add carrots or daikon to the pho to sweeten it.  Others add pork bones.  I like my phở with kale and brown rice.  Who am I to judge?

 So there you have it.  Keepin' it phở real.

Ăn Ngon Lành|Eat Delectably!