now experiencing the fragrant aroma of saigon
The weather in Hong Kong has felt rather Mediterranean recently, so I made a nicoise salad for lunch today. The lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, beets and thyme all came from the garden. Unfortunately, our green bean seeds didn’t come up this year, so we used snow peas from the market.
The bread-making has been going well – this is the third loaf. The first was hard as a rock, not entirely successful. Having learned better rising techniques, and having bought old-fashioned yeast and fancy French brioche flour, the last two loaves turned out almost perfect. Next time, I’ll try a dark, coarse, heavy bread. There are some interesting flours available locally that I look forward to trying.
The dark chocolate chunk cookies were successful. After much googling, I settled on the basic Toll House recipe, with a few modifications. Most importantly, instead of chocolate chips I used much of a chopped-up Trader Joe’s Pound Plus dark chocolate bar. The uneven chunks made for a much more interesting texture. I also used all light brown sugar instead if a mix of white and brown to maximize flavor. And tripled the amount of vanilla – can’t have too much vanilla. I discovered thai it’s important to refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 24 hours before baking. And I omitted the nuts because I didn’t have any nuts. I baked the first batch after only a couple hours, and the outer edges flatted out in the oven leaving unevenly-baked UFO-shaped cookies. I can cook batches of six cookies in my little oven. I’m still working out the right temperature and time. The edges of the last batch turned out a bit too brown.
Lots of cooking for Mother’s Day. Lunch was a home-made cottage pie and green salad all from the garden.
Dinner was more salad (tons of lettuce in the garden!) and fettucini with asparagus, fennel, mint and ricotta & parmesan cheese.
Trinh made a big batch of Bún bò Huế this morning for five people. Then I made barbecue for six people this evening. Plus three kids. Now we’ve got to clean up the house.
Trinh and I went back to the wonton stand for breakfast with Kirk yesterday. After searching around the world, I still have not found better wontons. Most of the wonton shops in Hong Kong use a smelly shrimp broth, but these guys use all pork-based broth. And no shrimp in the wontons, just pork. No meat grinders here, they use the two-handed lightning-quick meat-cleaver style. This is not someone you would want angry at you.
The Gumbo Pages says that phở is the “Vietnamese gumbo”, but as far as I’m concerned that honor could only go to bún mắm. Originating from the bayous of Sóc Trăng Province in the Mekong Delta, eating bún mắm is like eating the swamp itself. In a very good way. The broth is made from pork and fermented fish, with thick rice noodles and big chunks of cá lóc, shrimp, squid, and roast pork. But what really sets bún mắm apart from other noodles is the rau. In addition the the regular giá and rau quế, there’s bắp chuối, hẹ, rau đắng, rau thơm, bông súng, and thèo nèo. I can’t figure out what thèo nèo is, but Trinh says it’s a floating plant that the Vietcong hid under when the Americans came down the river.
An important step in cooking phở is to char the ginger and onions before adding them to the broth. Here, Trinh’s brother in law Cường takes on the task over a charcoal grill outside their phở stand.
Yeah, I know. You’re looking at the photo and thinking, “Where’s the rau“? Right after I put my camera away, Trinh’s sister Trang brought me a big plate full of rau quế, ngò, ngò gai, and ngò ôm. Given the option of taking another photo or wolfing down the phở while the broth was still steaming and the beef still rare, I chose the latter.
Trinh’s been craving Peking Duck, so we took her nephew Bảo and first cousin once removed Nu (along with a dozen or so other family members) out to Tân Hải Vân last night. Besides having the best Peking Duck around, this restaurant also happened to be one of Năm Cam‘s favorite hangouts as well, Vietnam’s most infamous mafioso.
