A slice of Vietnam, ”A Different Orient”

The breathtaking Vietnamese bays

Living in Hungary directly means that you have very few options if you wanna eat something exotic and cheap, other than Chinese, Turkish or some greasy junk food. But the advantage of being a gastro-freak is that you constantly look for the newborn restaurants on the horizon and whether you are at home or abroad, the best places cannot elude you.

The first time when I tasted Vietnamese food was in Paris. I went there for a holiday together with my Ex for two wondrous weeks. Paris, the city of love and lights, the city of the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Seine. The list can be continued forever, but I am sure that if you think of Paris, you don’t list the Quartier Chinois (巴黎唐人街) among your top 10 places that you want to visit. Well, no surprise, it was on my list definitely.

I am not really into advertising places, but the one I visited in Paris is worth mentioning. The restaurant is called Pho 14 (14 Rue de Rivoli, 75004), it is a really small diner and usually there is a long queue waiting in front. The menu is very simple, the restaurant focuses on the soup called Phở and offers some tasty appetizers and desserts, but if you have eaten Phở  then you must already know that people don’t go there for anything but Phở. Most of the gastrobloggers already know this soup, but my advice is that if you want to cook Phở, first try it at the local Asian market or look for a Vietnamese friend to prepare it for you since Phở is a typical example of secret-ingredient dishes.

So, this is where it all started, Phở became one of my all-time favourites, and my journey to Vietnamese cuisine began that day. Today I wanna show you one of my own creations. My inspiration comes from a dish I tasted in a Vietnamese restaurant in Beijing and I was absolutely amazed by the complex flavour with which this dish can pamper your taste buds. It is fresh, citric, sweet and hot at the same time, a perfect combination for a hot summer afternoon. Moreover, you can freely change the recipe according to your mood. There are some compulsory ingredients but besides those you can add basically whatever you feel like. You can eat this dish with or without tropical fruits, with various vegetables, with beef, pork, chicken, shrimp etc. So if you don’t feel like spending hours by the oven, you have to try this salad, I hope you will like it. Yummmmmy!!!

Vietnamese Cold Noodle Salad

Ingredients:

Rice vermicelli (bun)

Fresh mint, cilantro and thai basil

Grilled pork (from soup):

• sugar
• scallions
• fish sauce
• soy sauce
• salt

Roasted, unsalted peanut

Sliced pineapple, cucumber, carrot etc.

Nuoc cham sauce:

• 1 clove of garlic
• 2-3 fresh chili peppers without seeds
• 1 tbsp of chili paste
• 5-6 oz water
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 shredded carrot

Preparation:

1. Before starting this really simple dish you have to prepare the pork. Usually I make this dish when we cook any type of broth (Phở is also good). If you cook the pork for long hours, it becomes super-tender and that is exactly what we need because I just like shredding the meat before frying it.
2. So when you finished shredding the meat fry some finely chopped scallions on sugar and oil. When the onion caralamizes add the meat and some salt to taste. Fry it for a couple of minutes and when you turn off the oven add some tablespoons of light soy sauce and fish souce.
3. The meat is ready, let’s start preparing the salad. One of the key ingredients of this salad is the Nuoc cham sauce, which is commonly used in many Vietnamese dishes. You can buy it at a shop but I prefer preparing it myself. All you have to do is to take a medium-sized jar and add the garlic, the chili peppers, the chili pase, the sugar, the fish sauce, the lime juice, the shredded carrot together with ½ cup of water (120 ml) and mix it well until the sugar dissolves completely. (You can prepare this sauce in advance since you can store it in the fridge for a couple of days.)
4. Now comes the fun part. Look for a big bowl and start adding the ingredients. First the previously cooked and cooled rice vermicelli, then the vegetables and the pineapple. Mix it well together with the sauce and the meat. If you are ready, the last step is to sprinkle it with roasted peanuts and lots of fresh herbs (cilantro and thai basil are compulsory).

Help yourselves! Bon appétit!