Vietnamese

Every Vietnamese cook makes this dipping sauce, with the differences among them reflecting personal preferences and regional variations. In general, as you move south the sauce gets sweeter, hotter, and more garlicky. Yet no matter exactly how it is made, its role is always the same: to enhance and unify all the elements of a dish. As with much of Viet cooking, parameters apply more than rules. This recipe will help you develop your own version. Sensing subtle distinctions between sour, sweet, salty, and spicy requires practice. Plus, fish sauces differ, and even lime juice can be inconsistent. To deal with these variables, I don’t mix everything together at once, but rather break up the process to simplify matters for the taste buds. This allows for adjustments along the way. While you may omit the rice vinegar, it actually brightens the flavors and softens any harsh or bitter edges contributed by the lime juice. The garlic is optional; some recipes will suggest including or excluding it.

Every late July, I look up the solar calendar dates of Tet Trung Thu (Autumn Moon Festival), which is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month and usually falls mid-to late September. An ancient Chinese harvest festival akin to Thanksgiving, it is a time for family and togetherness. The culinary focus of the celebration is the moon cake, a small baked pastry shaped in a hand-carved wooden mold. Thin, pliable dough encases a dense, sweet filling, at the center of which sits a salted egg yolk, symbolizing the moon. In between nibbling thin wedges of cake and sipping fragrant tea, you gaze at the largest and brightest moon of the year and reflect on your good fortune. Making moon cakes requires lots of ingredients and time, so most people buy them from bakeries and markets. But the culinary process is remarkable, requiring both precision and artistry, and the results are splendidly beautiful and delicious, making store-bought cakes pale imitations of homemade. Moon cakes are often filled with a paste of red beans or lotus seeds, but my family prefers an aromatic mixture of nuts and sweetmeats. My mother used this recipe in Vietnam, where she and her friend Mrs. Ly mastered the techniques. Some minor changes were made over time. For example, Mom substituted canned cooked chicken to mimic the luxurious texture of shark fin, and I added corn syrup to prevent the filling from drying and hardening. For decades, I watched and assisted my mother with the annual ritual. A few years ago, she handed me the molds, asking me to carry on the tradition. You must plan well in advance to make these cakes. The eggs need to stand in brine for four weeks, which is why I check the dates in July and work backward. While the eggs are curing, you can roast and freeze the pork at any point, and you can prepare the sugar syrup up to a few days in advance. The night before making the cakes, chop all the filling ingredients. The next day, forming and baking the cakes will be a pleasure. Moon cakes keep well in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks and will keep in the freezer for months, which means that you may make them way ahead of the celebration date or even enjoy them on other special occasions. Before embarking on this recipe, read it carefully from beginning to end, including the Note, which provides information on where to find the molds and any unusual ingredients. Also, make sure you have all the special equipment you will need: one or two wooden molds, a scale, toothpicks (preferably flat ones), and a water spray bottle.

In this Cambodian treat (that is also a favorite in Vietnam), bananas are covered with coconut-infused sticky rice, wrapped in banana leaf, and grilled.

Vietnamese cooks, like many other Asian cooks, make jellied treats from agar-agar. When a particularly grand presentation is on the menu, they use intricate molds to create multicolored desserts that look like elaborately decorated Western cakes. This simple almond jelly and fruit combo is a summertime favorite in my home. Originally prepared in China, the mildly sweet chunks of firm white jelly may be eaten alone, but they are more festive when accompanied with fruits. I use lychees and jackfruit, both of which are surprisingly good canned, along with fresh strawberries for contrast, but you may use any macerated or poached fruit you like. Twenty-five-gram packets of agar-agar powder (bot rau câu, or seaweed powder) are sold at Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. If the powder is not shelved with the agar-agar sticks or strands, ask for it; it is sometimes kept at the cash registers. Telephone brand from Thailand is popular. If you cannot find agar-agar, use unflavored gelatin.

Nutty, rich, and just a touch sweet, these candied coconut ribbons are part of the regular assortment of sweets offered to guests during Tet. When I was growing up, the holiday was filled with visits to the homes of relatives and close friends. While the adults chatted and wished one another well for the year, I satiated myself with the sweetmeats and confections. These candied coconut ribbons were my favorites. Several years ago, I decided to make my own from a loosely written recipe found in an old Vietnamese cookbook. I mailed batches to my mother (a coconut lover) and invited her criticisms. After several rounds, I arrived at this recipe. Don’t be daunted by the need to crack open a coconut, as it is much easier than it sounds. In the end, you will be rewarded by the sweet coconut aroma that fills your kitchen and by a big batch of tasty candied coconut.

The Vietnamese adore bananas, arguably the country’s national fruit. Many kinds—small, large, stubby, sweet, starchy—are available, and people know the seasonal and regional differences. A giant herb related to lilies and orchids, the entire banana plant (leaves, fruits, blossoms, trunk, and roots) is used in cooking. In Vietnam, my mother regularly bought a full bunch (about a hundred fruits) from a vendor. After we arrived in America, bananas continued to be one of our favorite fruits, but we ate fewer of them since they are costlier here. Whenever we had overripe bananas, we made this easy and delicious cake, which is among the most popular sweet banh preparations. Thin banana slices decorate the slightly caramelized top, and the cake itself has a puddinglike texture because of the large number of bananas in the batter. For the best flavor, use fragrant, extremely ripe fruit with deep yellow skin marked with lots of brown spots.

If you are unfamiliar with Asian sweets, this delicious cake may surprise you. There is no flour in the batter, and the cassava (the source of tapioca starch) makes the texture slightly gelatinous but firm. The mung beans function like ground nuts do in Western cakes, lending richness and body to the batter. While the cake bakes, the kitchen is filled with the aroma of coconut, and when it is served, the result is pleasingly soft , chewy, and sweet. I’m grateful to Mrs. Oanh, a friend of my mother’s, for sharing this recipe. A similar preparation in the Filipino repertoire is called cassava bibingka. Look for grated cassava (usually imported from the Philippines) in the frozen-food section of Southeast Asian and Chinese markets. Because coconut is the primary flavor in this recipe, it is especially important to use thick, rich, flavorful milk, whether it comes from a can or is freshly made. For a special treat, serve a wedge of this cake with a scoop of Coconut Sorbet (page 282).

These butter cookies are one of my favorite French sweets in the Vietnamese repertoire. With just a few good ingredients, you can quickly bake a batch to serve alone or with ice cream, sorbet, or fresh fruit. When Vietnamese bakers make these cookies, they don’t normally include currants in the batter because the dried fruit is not readily available in Vietnam. They top each cookie with a raisin instead. Although currants are widely sold in the United States, Vietnamese American bakers still use raisins. I prefer to stir currants into the batter to distribute their chewy sweetness, and the results are closer to the original French version.

In this classic cold sweet soup, maroon adzuki beans and chewy clear tapioca noodles, jokingly called worms in Vietnamese because they are slippery and sticky, swim in rich coconut milk. I usually prepare all the ingredients in advance and then bring everything together at the last minute. The beans and coconut milk base may be prepared a few days ahead and refrigerated until serving time, and the sugar syrup keeps in a jar in the refrigerator indefinitely. The noodles, however, are best if readied only a few hours ahead. Adzuki beans are sold at Asian markets and health-food stores. Once you have made this version, you may substitute other beans, such as black beans, hulled mung beans, or black-eyed peas. You may also blend the beans for a mixture of colors and flavors.

Warm Vietnamese sweet soups may be rich and thick, like the preceding recipe, or light and clear, like this one. Here, buttery lotus seeds are paired with longans, a Southeast Asian fruit similar to lychees. During cooking, the dried longans give off a slightly smoky vanilla scent, which is underscored by the vanilla extract. My father swears that this soothing soup helps him sleep soundly. For me, the draw is the interplay among texture, taste, and fragrance. Lotus seeds normally require long simmering, but they quickly reconstitute when boiled with baking soda, as is done here. (The alkalinity and salt content of baking soda speeds the cooking.) When shopping for the lotus seeds, choose slightly opened ones that have had their bitter green centers removed. If you can’t tell from the packages whether they have been removed, choose one of the higher-priced brands. Dried longans resemble giant raisins and are often shelved near the lotus seeds in Chinese and Vietnamese markets. Look for both of them in the same aisle where you find dried mushrooms and beans.

If you have never tried a Vietnamese che (sweet soup), this one is a good place to start. The perfume of the banana comes through wonderfully, and the tapioca pearls, enrobed in coconut milk, cook up to resemble large orbs of clear caviar. Once the tapioca pearls have fully expanded and set, the texture of this mildly sweet treat is like that of a thick Western-style tapioca pudding. Small, creamy bananas, such as the Nino variety, also known as Finger or Baby, are traditionally simmered for this sweet soup. They are sold at Asian and Latin markets. If they are unavailable, substitute regular bananas. Regardless of the variety, use ripe but firm, blemish-free fruits.

Made with milk, rather than cream and eggs, this ice cream is thickened with cornstarch, which Vietnamese cooks use to yield a smooth texture. The result is a lighter-than-usual ice cream that allows the lemongrass to shine. When preparing the lemongrass, you need to remove only the dry outer leaves and trim any dry edges at the very top. You can then use as much of the stalk as you like, as it is discarded after the milk is infused. In fact, sometimes when I trim lemongrass for other recipes, I freeze the tough top sections for making this ice cream.

At a glance, this recipe may look like the one for Sizzling Crepes (page 274), and in fact these crepes from the central region begot sizzling crepes. But the popularity of the child has eclipsed that of the parent, and nowadays it is hard to get banh khoai unless you make them yourself or go to the source, Hue, where delightful crepes live up to their name. They are crunchy, rich from being cooked in a fair amount of oil, and full of toasty rice flavor. Banh khoai are traditionally fried in special small cast-iron skillets (five to six inches in diameter) with long handles (so you can avoid the splattering hot oil). They are difficult to find, however, so I use an eight-inch cast-iron or heavy nonstick skillet.

Named for the ssssseh-ao sound that the batter makes when it hits the hot skillet, these turmeric yellow rice crepes are irresistible. Fragrant with a touch of coconut milk, they are filled with pork, shrimp, and vegetables and eaten with lettuce, herbs, and a mildly garlicky dipping sauce. Most Viet cooks make sizzling crepes with a rice flour batter, but the results fall short of the nearly translucent ones made by pros in Vietnam. To reproduce the traditional version, which captures the alluring toastiness of rice, I soak and grind raw rice for the batter. It is not as daunting as it sounds. You just need a powerful blender to emulsify the batter to a wonderful silkiness. Adding left over cooked rice and mung bean, a technique I found buried in a book on Viet foodways, gives the crepes a wonderful chewy crispiness. Make your crepes as large as you like. These instructions are for moderately sized eight-inch ones. In Saigon, the same crepes are typically as big as twelve inches, but in the central region, they are as small as tacos. At my house, we serve and eat these crepes as fast as we can make them.

Salting eggs is a simple preservation method used throughout Asia. Egg shells are porous, and after weeks of curing eggs in brine, the yolks turn bright yellow and richly flavored, while the whites become creamy and salty. The salted eggs are usually boiled and eaten as a snack or light meal with plain rice or Basic Rice Soup (page 67). The yolks are also used alone in special preparations, such as Moon Cakes (page 300). Traditionally, duck eggs are salted, but chicken eggs are easier to find and more affordable in the United States. Any kind of salt works, but fine sea salt doesn’t crystallize after boiling like both regular table salt and pickling salt sometimes do.

The featured ingredient in this homey egg dish is mam nem, a thick, taupe sauce made of salted and fermented fish that is pungent and earthy like a delicious stinky cheese but mellows when combined with other ingredients. This southern Vietnamese seasoning is usually labeled fish sauce, but is different than light, clear regular fish sauce, or nuoc mam. Before using it, shake the small, long-necked bottle vigorously to blend the solids and liquid. In this recipe, the cellophane noodles absorb the savory depth of the sauce and plump up during steaming to give the egg mixture its firm texture. At Vietnamese restaurants in the United States, a small piece of this steamed egg is often included as a side item on rice plates. At my house, I prefer to serve it as a main dish, accompanied by rice, a quick soup (canh), and stir-fried water spinach (page 178).

Long before I knew about Chinese American egg foo yong, I was dipping these tasty pancakes in fish sauce and soy sauce and enjoying them with hot rice. When my mother was short of time, she would prepare a couple of plates full of these yellow, pink, and green pancakes for dinner. They are incredibly easy to whip up and yet taste fancy. The edges get fluffy and crispy from frying in a liberal amount of oil, and each rich bite contains a bit of tasty shrimp. I don’t devein the shrimp for these pancakes because I have found that it leaves unattractive lumps. But if you prefer to devein them, do so.

Although they are nothing more than egg and the classic Vietnamese combination of pork, onion, and mushrooms, these omelets are rich, savory, chewy, and a bit crispy at the edge, and they taste remarkably good. Enjoy them hot from the pan, at room temperature, or even cold. The wedges are usually served with rice, though I have also stuffed them into baguette sandwiches (page 34).

Few dishes can be at the magnificence of a whole roast duck, a treat that most Vietnamese purchase at Chinese barbecue shops. For an easier at-home version that is just as rich and succulent, I use whole duck legs (thigh and drumstick). They are relatively inexpensive at Asian markets, and they freeze well, which means you can stock up for when you don’t have time to shop. The legs are steamed first, during which most of the fat melts away, and then they are roasted to crisp the skin. Finally, the honey glaze is applied, which puts a lacquer like finish on the skin while the meat stays moist. A simple hoisin dipping sauce adds a little extra sweetness to each bite. Present the duck with Everyday Daikon and Carrot Pickle (page 192) or Tangy Mixed Vegetable Pickle (pages 194) and accompany with a green vegetable stir-fried with just salt and a touch of sesame oil, a light soup such as Creamy Corn and Shiitake Mushroom Soup (page 74), and rice.

This is my riff on the classic Vietnamese pairing of chicken and fresh straw mushrooms. Because only canned straw mushrooms are available here, I have used fresh oyster mushrooms, a good stand-in with a subtlety that complements the snow peas. If oyster mushrooms aren’t available, use fresh shiitakes, removing their stems and slicing the caps into 1/4-inch-thick pieces. For a light meal, serve this quick stir-fry with Napa Cabbage and Shrimp Soup (page 58), a simple stir-fried vegetable like thinly sliced summer squash, and, of course, rice.