Vietnamese beef and lemon grass soup: Canh Thịt Bò Xáo Sả

ietnamese cuisine is pure poetry in the pot. Their soups alone are celebrations of agriculture, flavours and wholesomeness. Don't believe me? Try this recipe: beef and lemon grass soup (Canh Thịt Bò Xáo Sả).

1. Finely slice some lean organic outdoor-bred beef and marinate in fish sauce, brown cane sugar and black pepper.
2. Sweat some chopped shallots in vegetable oil.
3. Add some pressed garlic, one crushed and chopped stalk of lemon grass and the meat. Gently sautee until the meat is cooked.
4. Add water and bring to a simmer.
5. Add some bean sprouts (and some noodle, if so desired). Simmer until ready to eat.
6. Serve with a sprinkle of chopped green coriander.

Clams Breton style, recipe

Palourdes à la bretonne, or clams Breton style. Palourdes is the closest French word I could find to call these clams (they would be called coques, if they were ribbed). In fact, they are Vietnamese natives, known locally as Nghêu Bến Tre, quite a mouthful, so let's stick with palourdes.

This is also one of my improved recipes: normally, Breton style would mean aux lardons et oignons, with bacon and onions. However, a  long afternoon in St. Mâlo, Brittany, spent looking for mussels cooked that style, proved that locals have never heard of anything of the kind. I did not give up and went on to elaborate on what Breton style cooking should be like, which is how all "traditional authentic national cusines" were invented in the first place anyway.

So here's my take on nationalist mythopoetics:

1. Sautee a head of crushed garlic and three chopped shallots in butter.
   
2. Add 2 sliced leeks, a generous handful of Chantenay carrots, diced smoked bacon and stir-fry until haf ready.
   
3. Add 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of clams and continue to cook until the clams start opening.
   
4. Add a jar of double cream and a glass of dry Breton cider.  Picardian blonde beer or dry white wine can do too, although it will deliver a chink in the armour of this dish's authenticity.
   
5. Stir well, gently bring to a boil and simmer with the lid closed until the smell of alcohol goes. Did I say it: remember to stir every now  and then.
   
6. Douse liberally with freshly ground black pepper. No salt necessary as the clam juice and bacon are salty enough.
   
7. To be followed by a nice Breton dance:

Sen Viet Vietnamese restaurant London review

en Viet - a Vietnamese restaurant in London's King's Cross area is by far the best value place to gorge on Vietnamese poetry in food. My peeps from the Japanese Anthropology department hipped me to it and I trust those folks' taste buds (almost) like mine!

Between the three of us we had (it actually looked much more appetizing than Sarah's mobile could capture!):

• Caramel Pork Spring Rolls - a delicious variety of lovely textures wrapped in rice paper;
• Beef Rolls on Garlic Cloves: paper thin sheets of most tender and juicy beef wrapped around garlic cloves and grilled, served on a bed of salad with a zingy dressing;
• Catfish Stew - turned out the piece de resistance of our dinner, full of black pepper, ginger and chilli flavours, it stole the show from the rest of the dishes, which is itself was quite a feat;
• Duck Curry - unctuous and perfectly balanced to complement duck's gamey flavour, the only other good way to cook duck apart from Peking duck (kao ya)
• Rice - the plain steamed variety, as good as you expect it to be;
• Vermicelli - plain rice noodles to soak up all the nice juices;
• Baguette - very good for that purpose too, although I had crunchier and fluffier in France.

That set us back mere 31 pounds + tip -- very well deserved as the service is on par with Cathay Pacific's business class. The place has just opened since a month or so ago, it's squeaky clean, nicely appointed in your classic London hip urban style, although the exterior does not give that away at all. They also have a 10% student discount - no need to show an ID, just mere saying "SOAS" does the trick.

Sen Viet Vietnamese Restaurant
119 King's Cross Road, London
WC1X 9NH

Miền Tây: the Mekong Delta's bounty in Shoreditch

ietnam has a special place in my heart because it is where earlier this century I broke my vegan regimen for the first time. Having saved over the course of many meatless years quite a herd of animals, fowl and fish from a terrible fate, I finally caved in to the temptations of Vietnamese cuisine. It was a cinch. One sunny evening, I just told my guilt to sock it and tucked in a bowl of freshly cooked seafood somewhere on an island amongst the otherwordly beauty of the Halong Bay. A chewy squid circle. A juicy pink shrimp. An octopus tentacle deep-fried to delightful crunchiness. I never looked back to soya burgers again.

I don't know where the Vietcong escapees prefer to live in this city, but for me London's Vietnam Town is where a whole assortment of 15 Vietnamese eateries are huddled on a short stretch of Kingsway Road in Shoreditch. The majority sport a spartan café-like ambience with a couple boasting a more elaborate interior. The one wе finally decided to enter, Miền Tây, inside looked wholly laminated with paper table cloths and white-washed walls plastered with black Vietnamese lacquer panneaux. However, as it goes with Asian restaurants, there is no direct sure-fire correlation between the visual attractiveness of the establishment and the quality of food. This rule of thumb worked this time too. True to its name, which means the Mekong Delta, it serves dishes from the South of the country. Here's the breakdown of our feast.

Gỏi cuốn thịt - fresh prawn rolls win me over the more common deep-fried variety every time. Peeled shrimp, fresh coriander and glass noodles are wrapped in rice paper and served with a tangy home-made peanut dip. Vietnamese cuisine at its best: fresh, with a delicate balance of the main tastes.


Gỏi đu đủ tôm - prawn and shredded unripe papaya salad – very much Thai somtam but with a gentler, finer dressing. Served with rice crackers instead of steamed sticky rice, more common in Thailand.


Canh hải sản chua cay - spicy and sour seafood soup - is a veritable potion of life, that gave me a much needed spicey kick gently enwrapped in pineapple's sweetness and lime's refreshing sourness. That's what I call comfort food, not sugar packed calorie busters. Generously packed with both seafood and vegetables, enough for two, really.


Dê nướng - grilled goat – crunchy and juicy strips of goat’s meat, smoky from charcoals. Very moreish, even more so in the light of a very economical volume. I really wonder why: goat's meat may be a novelty item but it defo does not cost much.


Bún Bò Xào Xả Ớt - beef stir-fried with onions, chillis and lemon grass - turned out the least looker of all we ordered. Really heavy on shredded lemon grass, it proved not such a lucky choice tastewise too.

Savouring all that herby exuberance, I was thinking how good it is not to be vegetarian any more.

Pro's: Delish food cooked to perfection. Friendly service.

Con's: Smallish portions so comes out rather pricey. Plasticky interior.

In a nutshell: Great place for authentic Vietnamese munches if you don't need a fancy ambience (I, for one, don't).

Miền Tây
122 Kingsland Road Shoreditch
London, E2 8DP

Fish sauce: South East Asia's favourite condiment

cquired taste takes some exposure and experience. You need to have lived enough to appreciate decadence. There are precious few people who take to runny French cheeses, coffee or caviar as a kid. I remember how disgusted I was when I tried olives for the first time. A six-year-old would really rather have had a cake.

I was twenty when I got the first sniff of fish sauce but I did not yet have enough mileage. I was instantly turned off. The concept of just-one-notch-before-decay fragrance was too advanced for me. The fact that I just started treading the militant vegan path did not help either. It took me a few years before I learnt to appreciate nam pla's (that's what they call fish sauce in Thailand) flavour.

Fish sauce is made by mixing anchovy-like fish, salt and water and let nature take its course. The result is a clear brownish liquid with a pungent flavour. It has a wide coinage in mainland South East Asia and the Philippines as well as in parts of Southern China were it is referred to as "fish dew" (魚露). South and west of the Thai border it, however, suddenly loses popularity. Only ethnic Chinese use it in cooking there.

These days I can't imagine cooking without it. A bit of fish sauce improves nearly any savoury dish, even some European ones, but shush, don't tell anyone!

Fish sauce is known as nước mắm in Vietnam, aek jot (어장) in Korea, teuk trei in Cambodia, patis in the Philippines, nam pa in Laos.


++++++

Thai language school and translation agency in Bangkok, Thailand offering Thai, Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian and Laotian (Lao, Isarn, Isaan) language courses.

Mung bean sprouts: the pure energy of life (もやし, 豆芽)

ruly, truly, one man's food, another man's poison. I remember how I scared my Moscow friends when I brought a bag of bean sprouts to fix some Chinese food for them. They decided they were in for a feast of creepy Asian worms.

Bean sprouts are widely used in Pacific Asian cuisines. They are known as moyashi (もやし) in Japan, dou ya (豆芽) in China, kongnamul (콩나물) in Korea, tauge in Indonesia (and Holland), thua ngok (ถั่วงอก) in Thailand. In Iran, they are traditionally prepared for the New Year's festival Navrooz. There they symbolize the power of new life.

In Thailand, folk wisdom has it that bean sprouts, when consumed raw, increase sexual drive. It come as no surprise if you consider all the life energy of enzymes and vitamines of freshly sprouting seeds!

I use them for a number of dishes: from Indonesian gado-gado to Chinese mapo-dofu. I can chew them raw much to the consternation of my friends. But I don't mind as it defo gives me a huge perk once in between the sheets! +wink wink+

Steamed Vietnamese tilapia with spicy dip (cá hấp xốt cay)

ietnam swept me off my feet with its culinary sophistication. A Vietnamese roadside hawker probably uses more types of herbs than a chef in a posh Western restaurant. And I really admire how the Vietnamese use chilis: just to let some spiciness linger in the background, bringing out the taste of the main ingredients.

This tilapia was grown in Vietnam so it deserves to be cooked according to the customs of its country of origin. The only foreign influence I allow is the traditional Japanese marinade for white fish. Mix equal shares of shoyu, sake and mirin and let the fish marinate for at least half an hour to enhance its natural flavour.

Then I lace a bamboo sieve with:

• circles of leek (preferably the white part)
  
• slices of carrots
• julienned celery root
• half-circles of daikon
• half-circles of topinambour (Jerusalem artichoke)
• slices of lotus root
• julienned shiitake
  

Do not stuff them too tightly, allow for the steam to get through later. Put tougher veggies like topinambour or carrots close to the bottom. Top it all with filets of white fish. Give it a good grind of black pepper.

Bring 5cm of water in a pot to boil, add a stock of lemon grass chopped, top it with the bamboo sieve. Don't forget to put the lid on!

While it all is steaming away - it takes just 5-7 minutes, really, prepare the dip:

• grated ginger, abt. 2 inches;
• one clove of garlic, crushed;
• one chilli pepper, finely chopped;
• juice of one lime;
• a tablespoonful of palm sugar;
• 3 tablespoonfuls of fish sauce
• 2 tablespoonfuls of water
  

Mix it all well until the sugar dissolves completely.

Serve with steamed rice and dry white wine or lemon grass tea.