Showing posts with label vietnamese. Show all posts

Chicken Pho


Bo luc lac (Vietnamese shaking beef)



2 pounds beef sirloin, cut into ¾-inch cubes

Marinade

1 teaspoon nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons canola oil

Lime-Pepper-Garlic Dipping Sauce:

2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice (about 3 limes)
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic

Stir-fry:

3 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1 ½ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup soy sauce
Garnishes:
15 green or red leaf lettuce leaves
1 sliced tomato
Steamed jasmine rice, for serving

Directions

Combine all ingredients for marinade and add cubed beef. Allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes at room temperature, then pour off marinade.
Combine all ingredients for lime-pepper-garlic dipping sauce and let stand at room temperature.
Heat oil in a large sauté pan or wok at high heat. Add garlic, sugar and black pepper and allow to caramelize for a minute.
Add drained, marinated beef to the pan and stir-fry for 2 minutes. (If the beef can't fit comfortably in one layer in the pan, separate it into batches and divide the ingredients in step 3 accordingly.)
Add soy sauce and cook for 1-2 more minutes. Beef should be seared on the outside and medium-rare to medium on the inside.
Garnish a platter with the lettuce leaves. Mound the cooked beef on top. Garnish with tomato slices.
Serve lime-pepper-garlic dipping sauce on the side, or pour over the cooked beef just before eating. Enjoy with steamed jasmine rice.
Lettuce leaves can be used as wrappers for the beef.

I liked this recipe for several reasons. After I cooked it, it had a sauce to it. Normally this dish is sauce-less, besides whatever juices are coming from the meat. Or maybe I messed up but I like having saucy meat. Additionally it had a slight sweet taste too from the caramelized sugar. The recipe calls to make a lime-pepper-garlic dipping sauce but I disregarded that and just made the typical salt-pepper-lime to dip my meat. I will definitely try this again but add sliced onions.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

http://www.salon.com/food/recipes/2011/02/14/shaking_beef_recipe

Thit kho (caramelized braised pork)



I've probably made this recipe 5-10 times, each time tweaking the recipe or cooking technique. Below is the recipe for today's attempt:

1 lb pork tenderloin, sliced
3 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp minced garlic
[marinate for 30-60 mins]

2 Tbsp sugar
[in pan and heat until caramelizes]

1/2 onion, chopped
[add marinated pork and onion once sugar caramelized]

1 can Coco Rico
1 can chicken broth
5 hard boiled eggs (more or less, or none, your preference)
q.s. with water to cover meat (q.s. = quantity sufficient)
[cover and simmer for 30-60 mins]
[remove cover and reduce]

Okay, so I normally would have cooked it for a longer time but since I got a cut of tenderloin, I figured that I wouldn't need to cook it long as it's already tender. The drawback is that it didn't give enough time for the eggs to absorb the liquid and the eggs just tasted like well, eggs. I had previously made this recipe with tenderloin and cooked it for over 2 hours and the meat fell apart on contact. Depending on your preference, that could be a good or bad thing. I lean towards the latter. Next time I'll probably buy a different cut of pork. As for the liquid, I didn't reduce it that much, leaving plenty to soak the rice but it wasn't as flavorful as I'd like. (My taste buds tend to be on the saltier side.) This can easily be solved by reducing the sauce, making it more concentrate to the point where a little goes a long way. With this recipe, you can't really mess up. In all of my attempts, it pretty much tasted the same, never outright nasty.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Thit suon ram mang (braised short ribs)



1 lb pork short ribs (cut at each bone)
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 Tbsp minced garlic
cracked pepper
[marinate 30-60 mins]

2 Tbsp sugar
[in pot on high heat, until sugar caramelizes]
[add marinated meat]

chicken broth, as needed
[add enough to cover meat]
[bring to a boil, cover, turn down heat and cook for 1-2 hours]
[uncover, bring back to boil, reduce sauce]

In this recipe, I used chicken broth since I didn't have any Coco Rico and added a little more sugar to get the sweetness I'm missing. You could probably use water instead of chicken broth. My intention was to leave it on the stove for 4 hours to get the meat really tender but I was getting too hungry. A little over an hour, the meat was already tender and fell off the bone. I reduced my sauce to intensify the flavor, so a little goes a long way. I learned my lesson with my first bowl, as my rice was drenched with the sauce... it was super salty.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
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