SEAFOODS.

When the Vietnamese talk about seafoods, they do not mean "sea" foods, they actually mean "river" foods. Vietnam landscape is made up of a narrow strip of land in the middle and  capped by two deltas at both ends. In the North is the Red River delta and in the South is the Mekong delta. The two rivers, not only function as superhighway for the people in the regions, they also provide a bountiful source of fish, shrimps, crabs and other "sea" foods. Riverfoods were preferred over seafoods because the meats taste sweeter and more moist. It was told that some people living in the country side in the South do not necessary have to have a job, they can get by with picking up the rice grains falling on the ground and fish at the creeks and rivers.
There are many ways to cook the seafoods, but I like to mention here two popular grilled fish dishes, one from the North and one from the South. To  prepare the Northern grilled fish, you cut the fish fillet into 2" pieces, marinate them with turmeric, ginger, galangal, shrimp paste, a little lemon juice and sugar. If I remembered it right, in the streets of Saigon, people broiled the fish over charcoal fire. However, in a TV show I saw recently, the fish was stir fried in a skillet with lots of oil and served on the same skillet at the table. I have tried this method and  it did not bother me. It was certainly a lot easy and convenient to prepare the dish this way, besides, the fish was very moist. However, for the purists, you would miss the smell and the taste of charbroil. It is simpler to prepare Southern grilled fish. Catfish is the preferred for this dish. They just seasoned the whole fish, from head to tail, with salt and pepper, wrap it in banana leaves then buried it in hot charcoal.  Here in the US, I saw some people wrapped the fish in aluminum foil and cook it in the oven. I use frozen catfish fillets, brush both sides with a solution of soy sauce, sesame oil, cherry wine, ginger, black pepper and put them in a hot oven until fork tender.  Both Northern and Southern grilled fish are served with sort rice noodle, leaf lettuce, cucumber, basil, cilantro, green onions heated up in oil. Prepared fish sauce, "nước mắm pha", are used for dipping sauce in both cases. The North Vietnamese would prefer to use a mix of shrimp paste, lemon juice, sugar for dipping sauce.


 




CÁ NƯỚNG TRUI(Southern style grilled fish)                           CHẢ CÁ (Northern style "grilled" fish)                                                         

DUCK CONFIT.

Besides the usuals, Orange duck, Civet de Lapin, Coq au Vin etc..., Duck Confit is a very traditional frenchy dish. If you had a French guest and you fixed him this dish, he absolutely would be impressed. He would say to himself:"This guy is deep!". To some people who knew a little bit about French cuisine, this dish sounded pretty intimidating.

The word "confit" in french means "preserved". The pieces of duck meats( in this case, legs and thighs are used almost exclusively) are heavily seasoned with coarse salt( sometime herbs like thyme or rosemary are added, but not necessary) and let set in the refrigerator for 24 hours. The tricky part of this dish is to collect enough duck fat to cook them which make it special, "the duck cooked in its own fat"! When you prepare this dish for the first time, you will have to render as much fat as possible from the fat that you collected when you cut up the duck, then you have to add some olive oil, enough to cover the duck pieces. Cook them in low heat(about 160F), covered, for 2 hrs. They are fork tender when they are done and you will see the meat pulled up from the legs. Make sure to wash the marinated duck pieces thoroughly under water and pat them real dry before submerging them in the duck fat. After 24hrs of marinating in the salt, the meats would be very salty if you did not washed them. Now you can let them cool down and put the whole thing in the refrigerator until you are ready. Be sure to filter the duck fat to rid of the solids. That is the beauty of this dish, you can prepare and "preserved" them days ot before you need it.

Now, part Deux, on the day of, remove the duck pieces from the fat and fry them in a non-stick pan on medium heat, covered, skin side down, until the skin very crisp, about 15 to 20 min. Make sure to keep an eye on the skillet, not to let the duck burn. I don't think any side dish that goes with duck confit better than just plain boiled potatoes with a little salt and some butter.

At first look, this dish seemed to be rather complicated to prepare. Not really! If you think about it, it does not need any fancy seasoning and the first part is simply stewing the duck legs, in their own fat, and the second part is pan fry them. Think pan fried chicken, but with very little shortening. Finally, there is nothing that can be more simple than boiled potatoes. You can prepare the first part days before, then when the day you have guests, you just whip the duck pieces out and fry them in the skillet as you do burger!

I'M ON A ROLL WITH BÚN(Vietnamese soft vermicelli)

Bún is Vietnamese style vermicelli ~ a rice noodle which has an opaque white color and a soft texture when cooked. This is not an al dante type of noodle. The Japanese have a very similar noodle that can be used as a substitution, if you cannot find the Vietnamese one. Bún is an extremely versatile product, it can be used in salads, soups, appetizers, or in main meals in place of rice. You can fry, boil, grill or however you prepare the meats and vegetable, bún will go along very comfortably. Below are the pictures of some typical uses of bún.

BÚN CHẢ THỊT NƯỚNG(Vermicelli with grilled pork tenderloin)

BÚN TÔM THỊT LUỘC(Vermicelli with boiled shrimps and pork belly)

BÚN NEM NUỚNG(Vermicelli with grilled pork paté)

BÚN VỚI CÁ NƯỚNG

ASIAN NOODLES

If you think the Italians have their ways with noodles, you have not seen everything yet. Between China, Vietnam, Thai, Cambodia, Malaysia, there are endless ways to fix noodles into a meal. There are egg noodles, no-egg noodles, wheat, rice, tapioca, combination of flours, thin, thick, clear, opaque noodles and the list just go on and on... Then there are many different ways to prepare them with many different varieties of ingredients. It would take a book to list all the possible ways to prepare Asian noodle dishes. Here I will try to describe some of the popular ones that pop in my head.

BÚN THANG.(North Vietnamese three way rice noodle soup, with ham, egg and chicken))

The rice noodle used in this dish is called "Bún" which is about the size of Italian's thin noodle. It is made with rice flour and has an opaque white color when cooked. The texture of the cooked noodle would be soft, not al dente. A small size Somen Japanese noodle can be substituted.

It would be meaningless to try to translate the name of the dish, as a reason, I gave it an English description for the name. I called it "three ways noodle" because it has three main ingredients: fried eggs, chicken and Ham.

The dish is served in a bowl as a soup noodle and it looks rather complicated when the bowl is set down in front of you. However it is rather easy to make. The broth is a simple chicken broth, cooked with chicken parts, onion, garlic, fish sauce and a little black pepper, shiitetake mushrooms are optional. The toppings are included with thin plain egg omelet sliced into thin strips, cooked ham sliced into thin strips, shredded boiled chicken meats. To assemble the dish, you put some noodle, first into a bowl. Arrange egg, chicken, ham into three corners of the bowl, on top of the noodle, put shiitake mushrooms in between the meats and egg, then pour the broth on top. Garnish with some cilantro. There are two special condiments needed to make it authentic: Shrimp paste and an ether essence*. If you do not have the last two elements, you would not find the dish less desirable.

Note:* Ether essence is an extract from the gland of a field cricket. Now a day, it is mass produced in labs. The smell of the essence is very similar to Ether. Only a drop or two are needed for each use.

BÚN RIÊU CUA/TÔM (Crab/Shrimp Noodle Soup with Tomatoes)

Another "must have" traditional North Vietnamese noodle soup called "Bún Riêu". In order to be authentic, this soup has to be made with live crabs. I remember, as a kid in Vietnam,I watched the cook pounded the whole crab with shell and all in a mortar, then she drained the juice through a piece of cloth and made the broth with it. What made this soup distinctive from other soups was the floating islands, made with crab eggs, which had the texture of a mousse, crab mousse. It would be almost impractical to buy live crabs, if you lived in the heart of the US continent, like in the Midwest. As a reason, we had to improvise and used shrimps instead. Every time I cooked shrimps, I always saved the shells which became very handy for any seafood soup or sauce. You can make the base for this soup with chicken bones or chicken bouillon cubes and the shrimp shells. I also added garlic, onions, pepper and seasoned it with fish sauce. I used can diced tomatoes which I found them more flavorful than the fresh ones. Be careful with the seasoning if you used can tomatoes because they were pretty salty. I would cook the soup with the shrimp shells for about an hour then I fished out the shells. To make the floating islands, I just run some shelled shrimps with an egg in a food processor or blender to a paste consistency. You can adjust the thickness to your liking, by using more or less shrimps. Wait until just before serving, pour the shrimp/egg paste by table spoonfuls into the boiling broth. It only took few seconds for them to get cooked. Make sure to flip them over to make sure they got cooked on both sides. Serve the soup with thin rice noodle, use cilantro and green onions as garnishes.

I go ahead and post these two dishes. It would take me moths if I tried to include all the noodle dishes in one post. Promise, I will get to most of them sooner or later.