Making Bánh tét has always been pretty challenging for me as I was never a good wrapper. What I learned after much experimenting is that I could create Banh Tet in a mason jar. Makes 1 3.75″ mason jar, you can scale this to as many as you need Day 1:* Soak 1/4 cup of…
Magic Bullet
In the modern cooking age we are pretty inundated with tons of gadgets. From weird things like avocado slices to egg slicers, you probably can buy any gadget imaginable. Oddly enough the attachment that has really stood the test of time is the magic bullet. In particular are two attachments that stick out. On the…
Sous Vide Vietnamese Chicken Chả
One of the things that always has been a challenge is to make chả. Recipes on youtube would require to put the meat in the food processor, freeze it, thaw it out, blitz it again, then steam it. After some experimenting, I found cooking it with Sous Vide is way easier. You get the same…
Qualities of Chicken Stock
Chicken stock is one of those items which we have perhaps used but rarely made. Really though, with the advent of the instant pot it has become much easier to make it. An odd thing I have always wondered is the difference of western chickens vs chickens at the Asian market. In Vietnamese there is…
The Secret Vietnamese Facebook Instant Pot Groups
I was probably the first in my family to get an Instant Pot. The first one I got was the Instant Pot Bluetooth version. You could create and run scripts which was interesting, but it never really worked well. Unfortunately my Instant Pot Bluetooth burned out , but the company replaced it with an Instant…
Stand Mixer Udon Noodles Experimentation
After going to a trip to Taiwan, I had a strong desire to make Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. One of the things I’ve find more successful is to search for the recipe of a food on Youtube in the native language. So after searching for 牛肉麵 on Youtube (I don’t even know if that is…
Steamed Eggplant Recipe
Figuring out what to cook always is a struggle. My first instinct is to Google a recipe, but search results vary so much. The really great recipes are nestled deep in cookbooks or in the minds of grandmas not yet transcribed. When I google recipes, I try to use some reference point. Today I googled…
Rice Noodle Stirfry Fail
I made a Thai stir fry and it didn’t come out as good as I would have liked. Some mistakes: The noodles I bought from T&T weren’t that fresh. When I microwaved it and started separating it they started breaking. After stir frying the noodles got really gummy. I also stir fried too many things…
Memories of Mi Quảng
Very few dishes bring up vivid memories such as Mi Quảng. This dish originates from central Vietnam and is multi componented as many Vietnamese dishes. Personally though, it is the story of my uncle which I remember. Whenever I would visit he would cook this dish and for years I tried to replicate it. Sadly…
Mi Quảng Recipe (Boneless Chicken)
Mi Quảng is a Vietnamese dish flavoured strongly with turmeric. There are a couple ways of cooking the dish. Personally I don’t like eating a lot of things with bones so this is a boneless variation. Unlike pho, you probably can get beginning to end in about 40 minutes. Also consider this a more advanced…