Bánh Mì Chay for Lunch!

I've been craving a good vegetarian Vietnamese sandwich for eons now. A few weeks ago, I visited my parents who live in Albuquerque. When running errands, my mom and I ended up at Talin World Market, an absolute godsend for stocking up on Asian groceries in these parts. Its lesser-known neighbor, Talin Supermarket (the white building on the south end of the parking lot) is actually a little deli that serves bánh mì and other Vietnamese delights. Their vegetarian sandwich is stuffed with marinated, sauteed tofu, cucumber, cilantro, and thin slices of fresh jalapeno. Back at home, I've found the fresh baked bolillo loaves at the local Mexican grocery have exactly the right crispy crust and light crumb inside for a fantastic bánh mì, so my lunch plans were set!

Bánh Mì Chay!

2" chunk of an English cucumber. Thinly sliced.
1/4 c. cilantro
julienned carrots
1 fresh jalapeno chile. Thinly sliced.
Mayonaise
Maggi or Bragg's or other soy sauce
1/2 package of extra firm tofu
1/4 c. vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce

Slice the tofu block in half lengthwise, and marinate in the vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce. It can be for as short as 10 minutes. This was a new ingredient for me. I took it at my mother's insistence, and she almost always uses it to marinate tofu. It's a bit like a sweet, dense soy sauce. If you don't have any, I'd probably just use soy sauce with a little bit of sugar dissolved into it.

After marinating the tofu, brown it in a pan with a little vegetable oil. Turn it so that each side gets browned. Remove from the pan and drain on some paper towel. Then slice into uniform slices. Mine were about 1/4" thin.

Prep the bread with some mayo on each side. Not to much here. I used Japanese Kewpie mayo, because using our Veganaise seemed a little weird to me.  Then give it a squirt of Maggi or Bragg's or soy sauce. Again, not too much. I basically drew a line in soy across each side of the sandwich. You don't want to saturate either side!

Then pack it with your fixin's. I laid out the tofu slices on one side of the bread, then layered carrot shreds, cilantro, cucumber slices, and chile slices on the other and squeezed it shut. I actually used a tiny serrano chile from the humongous harvest I had all summer last year. I have a TON of tiny, fiery serranos in my freezer still. My mouth is burning, but it was totally worth it!

When I do this again (probably tomorrow), I'll probably pickle a little of the carrot shreds with some cucumber shreds in some rice vinegar and sugar and salt. My only complaint today was that it was just a tad dry. But I am thrilled I won't have to wait until my next road trip to ABQ to enjoy one of my favorite things!

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.

New Summer Food: Bun Xao Chay

After a month in Vietnam, I've picked up a couple of tricks and dishes. I tried to keep an eye out for things I could replicate/duplicate once I got home. My aunt made Bun Cha Gio Chay (I'll try making it when it gets cooler so I can fry spring rolls without dying of heat), my cousin made a vegetarian version of Banh Xeo for me, and we went to countless restaurants and food carts all over the southern half of the country.

One of my favorite things that I couldn't wait to make at home is a cool beef noodle salad called bun xao. If I'm correct in my tiny knowledge of the language, bun refers to the rice noodles, and xao suggests the stir-frying of whatever protein is in this. I've made it now with both vegetarian beef and chik'n chunks (I use Trader Joe's meatless beef strips and Quorn chik'n tenders. Morningstar used to have a Meal Starters steak strips that's similar to the Trader Joe's, but I haven't seen it lately).

Bun Xao Chay

Heat 1 Tb. veg. oil and add a minced clove of garlic (or 2!) and some lemongrass. Because I haven't been able to find fresh lemongrass here, I bought lemongrass paste in a plastic tube next to the flat pack herbs in the produce section. I used maybe 2 Tb of the paste-- add it to the oil and garlic and saute for a bit. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Then add your protein-- and continue sauteing until it's browned and coated in the lemongrass mixture.

In the meantime boil a pot of water. When it's boiling, add 1/2 a package of rice vermicelli noodles. Turn off the heat and let the noodles soak for 3-5 minutes. Once they're tender, drain them completely. It's fine if the noodles cool while you're prepping everything else.

The dressing is a vegetarian version of nuoc mam-- substituting low sodium soy sauce (preferably Vietnamese soy sauce, but we can't have everything) for the usual fish sauce.

Nuoc Mam Chay (also great with cha gio chay)

(all of this can be adjusted to taste, esp. the hot stuff)

1 minced garlic clove

juice and pulp of 1 lime

2 Tb. rice vinegar

2 Tb. low sodium soy sauce

1 tsp. garlic chili paste (the stuff like Sambal Oelek, not Sriracha)

1 tsp. sugar

1/4 c. warm water

The rest is lettuce, mint, thai basil, cilantro, shredded carrots, thin slices of cucumber, bean sprouts, and crushed peanuts.

Assembly is a little messy. Usually each component is placed independently, rather than tossed together. Put down the greens and herbs, then a pile of noodles, then the protein and finish with bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. I topped mine off with some finely sliced jalapenos that went red on the plant. They were sweet and had just a little bite of heat. My relatives would probably throw on a ton of those tiny red and green bird's eye chilis. This is my humble approximation.
I topped everyone's serving with about 3 Tb. of the nuoc mam chay. I also added a little of my own pickled carrots and daikon radishes (just let them marinate in some rice vinegar, sugar, water and a little of those finely sliced chiles for at least an hour-- up to a couple of days). Pickled veggies were always present at every meal! I'm thinking of sauteing tofu with the garlic and lemongrass next time. We've had it twice in the past two weeks, so I guess everyone else likes it too!

Pineapple-Soy Glazed Tofu recipe that Zips stumbled upon

So Zipper has stumbled upon the web discovery engine StumbleUpon.com and is completely hooked. It's her new evening pasttime. She's clicked off Vegetarian Recipes among her fields of interest, and so stumbled upon the basis for our new dinner adventure: Pineapple-Soy glazed tofu.

The original recipe called for pineapple preserves, orange or pineapple juice and diced pineapple chunks. Having just peeled and cored our first perfect pineapple of the summer, I just substituted finely minced pineapple for the preserves and juice portion. One of the user comments also suggested adding 1/2 c. sweet and sour sauce, which we don't have. So I looked up several recipes for that too, which I'm including. The result is deeelicious. I'm only sorry we didn't have any more bell pepper (used it last night in the tagine) or green onions. We agreed that cashews or peanuts would also be a great addition to this. But once you have the sauce down, you'll be great to go!

Sweet & Sour Sauce

1/4 c. ketchup

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. white vinegar

1/2 tsp. granulated garlic

1/4 tsp. dry mustard

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1-2 tsp. soy sauce

1 Tb. cornstarch

Mix these together in a microwaveable bowl and heat it for 1 min. Stir and heat it 1 more minute until cornstarch is "cooked" and the sauce is glossy. Yields about 1/2 c. (would also be great with spring rolls!)

Pineapple-Soy Glazed Tofu

1 package firm tofu cut into cubes or slices (I sliced mine and pressed it to drain out the liquid-- lay them out on several paper towels, cover with another paper towel and set a cutting board on top. Then add weight to the cutting board to press the tofu)

1-2 Tb. oil (I used half sesame and half veg. oil)

2 cloves minced garlic

After the tofu has been drained/pressed for 10 minutes, heat the garlic in the oil and brown the tofu on both sides. Lower the heat and whisk together:

1/2 c. finely minced fresh pineapple (and whatever juice leaks out of the fruit while you're chopping it)

2-3 Tb. soy sauce

1/2 Sweet & Sour Sauce

Pour these into the tofu and add 1/2 c. diced pineapple (cut it the same size as the tofu). Now would also be a good time to add other veggies-- bell pepper, baby corn, whatever strikes your fancy. Simmer tofu and pineapple in the sauce until well incorporated and heated through. Serve over brown rice with sliced green onions and cilantro.

Baby it's c-c-c-cold outside (Happy Lunar New Year!)

It's record-breakingly freezing in southern New Mexico. We have our second snow day from the university-- not necessarily because of the weather itself, but because of the power company's inability to support keeping us all warm. During our two hour rolling blackout last night, all I could think of was what could I make to eat when the lights came back on. We lit candles all over the house and I laid under a blanket with a cat purring on my lap and though of soup.

So I decided to come up with a vegetarian variation on a Vietnamese comfort food: chao ga, or chicken and rice soup (also commonly made with crabmeat and corn, and also often called congee in English). When I traveled to Vietnam with my Vietnamese mother nearly eight years ago (almost exactly-- we were there for lunar new year!), I got sick with a persistant hacking cough (maybe it was SARS?). I loved rice soup. I haven't had it again since, so I sleuthed around for common ingredients and came up with my own.

Chao Chay (vegetarian Vietnamese rice soup)

3 c. vegetable broth

1/2 " piece of fresh ginger (cut into slices)

1/2 clove of fresh garlic (leave it whole so it can be taken out)

1/2-1 c. frozen corn

1/2 c. quorn chik'n pieces (or cube some naked cutlets)

1 Tb. soy sauce

1 Tb. corn starch

1/2 tsp. garlic chili sauce (sriracha)

1 egg (optional)

1 c. cooked jasmine rice

white pepper to taste

chopped cilantro

chopped green onion

Add ginger and garlic to veg. broth and bring to a boil. Add corn, chik'n, dissolve cornstarch in water separately and whisk into broth until clear and thickened a little. Season with soy sauce and sriracha to taste. Scramble raw egg in a bowl and drizzle in to the broth while stirring (pretend you're making egg drop soup). Add rice and bring to a simmer. When you serve, add white pepper, green onion, and cilantro. **note: the rice will suck up all the broth, so if you have leftovers, you'll want to add more broth to get it soupy again.

I googled "chao chay recipe" before posting this and used the translate function on a recipe. My favorite portion of the clunky translation was at the end:

Cook for instance, remove the seaweed and fried tofu and oyster mushroom give up no end. Tasting eating and asked to draw a bowl add pepper, and coriander on top for flavor. This soup is very cool food and supplements!

Wish appetite.

Wish appetite! ngon lam! and Chúc mừng năm mới

What's for dinner? What's in the fridge?

Of course the down side to having a break from working is having a break from getting paid. It's dinner. We're out of everything. We've got a fruit bowl with oranges (3lb. bag on sale for $1) and some bananas. We have some frozen stuff we've stocked up on, but very little produce. We're sick of Boca burgers. I can't believe I'm out of soy sauce. (I can't believe I can't afford to buy soy sauce right now!) We have dry goods like rice and lentils but no broth.

So I did a little internet recipe searching and came up with:

Orange Sesame Ginger Chik'n with Brown Rice

Throw some brown rice (jasmine, basmati, whatever) in the rice cooker and whisk together this marinade:

2 Tb. sesame oil

1 Tb. soy sauce (I had 3 packets from a take out sushi from one of our travels)

2 Tb. honey

juice & zest of 1 orange

2 cloves garlic minced

1 Tb. fresh ginger minced

I thawed out a 12 oz. bag of frozen Quorn Chik'n Nuggets and marinated them for about 30 minutes. Then sauteed a little bit of onion (thinly sliced) and one more garlic clove in some sesame oil, threw in the marinated chik'n chunks and browned it, adding all the marinade. I sprinkled a teaspoon of corn starch so the leftover juice would thicken into a sauce (or at least a glaze).

Serve over the rice with some cilantro. Here I've pickled a little bit of red cabbage and carrot with rice vinegar, sugar, and a little sriracha garlic chili sauce.

It was a hit. And I didn't have to leave the house or do any shopping. Just gotta get to Friday!

Gyoza From Scratch!

So file this under "Really? that's all I do?" I made some wonton soup last night, but could only salvage half a package of wonton wrappers. So today I had to do something with all the leftover filling I made (tofu, cabbage, carrot, ginger, cilantro, green onion). I found a recipe for gyoza/wonton wrappers that is *literally* 1 c. all purpose flour mixed with 1/2 c. boiling water. Mix into a dough and knead for 5 minutes. That's it. I rolled mine out into a long rope and cut into 1/2 inch pieces, then rolled those out to a 3" or 4" round.

When I had a pile of these, I filled them with my mix and tried both lightly pan-frying, and also steaming them. They were awesome! Probably tasted better than the dried out, freezer burned Nasoya wraps I used last night!

Here they are in their first incarnation as gyoza-- with a little dipping sauce:

And here they are steamed in a broth. I should probably make them a bit smaller for a soup, but they ended up being an entire meal!

Great Summertime Eats

One of my favorite foods that's a mix of flavors (mint, basil, ginger, soy) and textures (crispy lettuce, noodles, tofu) and only requires minimal cooking is Vietnamese goi cuon chay (or fresh spring rolls... some call them summer rolls or garden rolls). Ordinarily they would include pork or shrimp, but we sub slices of tofu, in addition to rice vermicelli noodles, green leaf lettuce, chopped cilantro, thai basil, and mint, and usually a little bit of onion sauteed with ginger in some soy sauce. Then wrap them all up in some rice paper and try not to overindulge. Just try!
Traditionally eaten with a hoisin peanut sauce, Zips prefers a peanut ginger dipping sauce:

2 Tb. fresh grated ginger
1/2 c. peanut butter (we use creamy, but I don't think chunky would be a problem)
2 Tb. white miso
2 Tb. soy sauce (we use low sodium)
4 Tb. rice vinegar
1/4 c. hot water

Whisk them all together (I like to add a swirl of sriracha) and dip away!

Why Haven't I Ever Tried This Before?

Classes have been out for a month to the day today, and I think we are finally starting to really unwind. We sleep in. We watch bad reality tv. We play video games. We cook dinner and eat outside at least once or twice a week. Last night, instead of doing our usual veggie hot dog and corn on the cob, I decided to try grilling slabs of tofu. I've read about it, and even eaten it, but hadn't ever tried putting tofu directly on the grill. It was AWESOME!
So I just took a block of tofu and pressed it between two plates for about 20 minutes, with paper towels to catch the water and cans of kidney beans to weigh them down. Then I cut the block into 6 equal slices (maybe 3/4 - 1 inches each) and laid them out on dry paper towels to get out more of the moisture. Then I made a teriyaki marinade, whisking together all of this:

1/4 c. soy sauce
1/4 c. mirin
2 Tb. olive oil
1 Tb. sesame oil
2 Tb. rice vineger
1/4 c. brown sugar
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tb. ginger, minced

I put the drained tofu slices into a ziploc bag with half of the marinade for about half an hour in the fridge. Then I threw them on the grill with some thickly sliced zucchini, green bell peppers, onion, and carrot slices. Every now and then I would brush everything with the marinade. The tofu cooked for maybe 3 minutes on each side.
It's the first time I brought a bowl of jasmine rice out with the cookout, and it was so successful that Zips wanted it again the next day!

New Year! New Books! New Soups!

It's hard for me to believe that it's been six full months that we've lived here. Half a year in our new life, new job, new home, new time zone. It's lovely not to be cold in the winter. This is a new pleasure. In fact, one of my resolutions for the new year is to let the cats roam in the backyard when they ask (see example below)... okay, maybe once a day or so is more realistic. Already, Bijoux (below, far right) has abused this resolution by defiantly jumping the fence and tight-rope walking the stone wall between our backyard neighbors' yards. I had to climb into someone else's property to retrieve him. Thank goodness he didn't get too far! Everyone else is positively sedate by comparison. Zipper (you must recognize her by now) likes to chase crickets and moths and dust motes. All of these usually outsmart her. Mini (above) is happy to luxuriate on the hammock, soaking in the sun. She's clearly the smart one.
The holidays have been nice. Quiet, with the exception of a nasty cold that went through each member of the household. Some wonderful presents I received (aside from a remote controlled R2-D2 that promises to bring me a can of Coke from across the room when I command) include Keri Smith's awesome guide to life The Guerilla Art Kit; Lotta Jansdotter's Lotta Prints, Zakka Sewing by Therese Laskey, Chika Mori, Yoko Inoue; Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin and Thayer Allyson Gowdy; and Esther Smith's beautiful How to Make Books. Clearly I have work to do so that I can get to doing fun work! Here are my most favorite etsy-oriented crafty books. My kingdom for more time!
Over the holiday break, we took a brief excursion to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It was so cold, my favorite part was actually huddling up in the guest bedroom of my parents' house watching WALL*E on our laptop. The (only) other bright spot was a sopa de tortilla tradicional that Zips ordered at a restaurant on the plaza in Santa Fe. It helped thaw us out from the icy streets of the historic downtown. I'd never tried it, and Zips was feeling adventurous. Happily, I memorized the ingredients listed in the menu, and cobbled together some recipes that pretty closely approximates the zippy, spicy, smokey soup we had!

Tortilla Soup:

2-3 poblano chiles-- roasted, peeled, seeded, diced

1/2 c. green chiles (mild to medium) (I used Bueno frozen mild. I'm kicking myself for not being more adventurous earlier in the season and buying and roasting them fresh! Lesson learned!)

1 clove garlic (or about 1tsp)-- minced

2 Tb. olive oil

1 28oz. can whole tomatoes-- including juice

2 Qt. vegetable broth (2 boxes or 4 cans)

1 tsp. oregano

2 Tb. cumin

2 Tb. chili powder

1 c. diced onion

10-12 small corn tortillas-- torn into squares

Saute the chiles and garlic in olive oil. Add tomatoes, juice, broth, and spices, and bring to a simmer. Add tortilla pieces to soup and simmer until they dissolve completely. This will thicken the broth and add the wonderful corn tortilla aroma to the soup. Blend with an immersion blender to desired consistency. I added a can of sweet corn after blending. Garnish with slices of avocado, sour cream, cilantro. Other recipes serve with a wedge of lime, shredded cheese, and fried tortilla strips.

The other offering I have to get us through winter is a vegetarian version (yay!) of one of my favorite Thai soups-- Tom Kha-- usually tom kha gai or chicken coconut soup-- I think this one is Tom Kha Hed-- or coconut soup with mushrooms. Whatever you want to call it.. it's delicious.

Tom Kha (Thai Coconut-Lemongrass Soup)

1 1/2 c. coconut milk (1 can)

1 Tb. fresh grated ginger

2 tsp. lime zest

2 2" pieces of fresh lemongrass (bruise the pieces by whacking them with the back or flat of a knife)

3 c. vegetable broth

2 tsp. sugar

1 Tb. soy sauce

lime juice

Combine and simmer, then add your choice of:

diced firm tofu

bamboo shoots

fresh mushrooms

cilantro

green onion

Today's Tomatoes & Tempura

(Not together, of course)... First off, a quick swing by the garden gave us this lovely handful of tomatoes and herbs: Zips has her sights set on another arabic salad before the night is over. I grabbed some sprigs of parsley and mint and basil just for good measure.

Here are some of the happy melons we have growing in the melon patch. The watermelon is a crimson sweet. We refer to her as "Mama," as she has taken the lead in size. There are also two growing at the edge of the garden we call "the twins," and a small sugar baby we call "baby."
I hope it's not too weird to name fruit as it's growing. We also have several honeydew melons in the works (4 of 'em), and a lone cantaloupe growing that Zips has just dubbed Canaloupe. Because the cantaloupe CAN. Here's Canaloupe now. Growin'.

We did some yakisoba for dinner, and I tried tempura for the first time. I used a tempura batter mix (dynasty, I think), and panko crumbs. We made green bell pepper, broccoli, onion, green onion, carrot, snow pea, yellow squash, and zucchini squash tempura. Of course we used the lovely ginger sesame sauce. I also improvised a tentsuyu sauce with 1/4 c. mirin, 1/4 c. soy sauce, 1 tsp. sugar, and some water to taste (I didn't have any broth or dashi). It was very mild compared with the ginger sesame, but I really liked it. Tempura action shot: I think that's an onion cooking away. Zips was also the genius who figured out that the semi-circular wire thingy was probably made for this exact use.

It's the best kind of battered, deep-fried food around. I am seriously re-thinking my stance against fry-daddies.