New Eats: Vietnamese Meatless Meatballs (Xiu Mai Chay)

Okay, since I'm playing some catch-up here, I'm going to go in for a two-fer-- offering both a restaurant recommendation and a fantastic drool-inducing recipe. First off, Zips and I are newly back from the Oakland area. We had an academic conference in early November, and the culinary highlights included not only managing to find our way back to Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco, but also finding some amazing new digs in Old Oakland. We actually stayed at the exact same (closet-sized) hotel we stayed at two years ago, but went the other direction in our explorations of the local environs. In contrast to the Vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant (with the cool neon sign blazing in the window, you know... the one we didn't care for...), Zips found and took me to Le Cheval, a wonderfully elegant Vietnamese restaurant that has a robust vegetarian section on its menu. 

  

It has an airy, spacious dining area. 

The veggie goi cuon were delicious. I had lemongrass tofu, and Zips enjoyed her vegetable curry. The Vietnamese coffee was to die for (as my mom would say).

Now that I've spent some time in the bay area surrounded with, no steeped in multiple Asian American food traditions, I'm a little wistful. So to satisfy my own longings, I'm offering up an excellent recipe I cobbled together back in July.

The Vietnamese meatball can be used as a filling in a lettuce wrap (which we did) or alternately in a baguette sandwich banh mi xiu mai chay (which I will definitely be doing soon-- when I have success, I'll post it here!). They're typically made with chicken or pork, and nước mắm, but we use Quorn chik'n tenders and a soy sauce-based nước mắm recipe. This one's nearly vegan, but I used an egg to bind the ingredients together. If you're a clever vegan, I'm sure you already know a work-around.

Xiu Mai Chay (Vietnamese Meatless Meatballs)

12 oz. bag Quorn chik'n tenders defrosted in a microwave until room temperature. Chop in a food processor and squeeze out excess liquid
3 cloves fresh garlic minced
1 Tb. minced lemongrass or fresh ginger
1 Tb. chopped fresh mint
3 Tb. chopped cilantro
1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch
salt and pepper
2-3 Tb. Nước mắm chay*  

Mix everything together and add 1 beaten egg. Shape them into meatballs about 2" in diameter.

Here's the super-ultra secret ingredient trick: **Roll the meatballs in sugar. I put some sugar out onto a plate and rolled them around. Place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.


Voila! The sugar caramelizes in the oven. They're savory, fresh, moist, a little sweet, and perfect to wrap in lettuce and dip in nuoc mam chay. Enjoy!

*: Oh yeah, while I'm at it. I have adapted the quintessential Vietnamese sauce, Nước mắm to a delicious, fishless variation. Having traveled in Vietnam as both a carnivore and as an herbivore, I assure you, this one passes muster with my Vietnamese relatives! Zips refers to it as our

"Righteous Indignation" Nước Mắm Chay

1 garlic clove minced
juice and pulp of 1 lime
2 Tb. rice vinegar
2 Tb soy sauce (we use low-sodium kikkoman most often)
1 tsp. garlic chili paste (Sambal Oelek)
1 tsp sugar

These are the ingredients I always use. Once you get a feel for how spicy/sweet/salty you like it, you can certainly fudge the measurements. You can also add scant shreds of carrot to garnish it. This is a perfect dipping sauce for the meatball lettuce wraps, or for cha gio chay.

Long Time, No See!

I cannot believe I've only posted once in the entire year.  Granted 2012 has been a rough year in our household.  I try to keep Zipper's blog our happy place, so I've tried to wait for the waves to die down before writing an update. But now it's nearly the end of the year. We've been from L.A. to New York City this year, and I've only written one single post! So, gentle reader, I'm going to attempt to catch things up as much as possible. The fall semester is winding down, so I'll have a little more time to play. I promise before too long, I'll review a couple of restaurants, show a couple of crafty projects I've worked on (am working on), and offer a few new recipes before the year is out.

Here's the quilt I'm currently working on for a dear friend who is knitting me a fantastic Doctor Who themed scarf in exchange.

Here's a tantalizing starter at Le Cheval-- a Vietnamese restaurant in Oakland that Zips took me to.

Ooh, and look: I made the ratatouille recipe that was the basis for the dish in the movie Ratatouille!

In short, I hope to have Zips Veggie back up and running. This is also the very last time I make a New Year's Resolution to post something every single month. It's like when I tell a class that we'll get out early that period. It's like an immediate hex that causes the class to run long!