Smoked Salt & Pepper

  Chả Cá is a fish dish originating from north Vietnam.  Tumeric marinated fish is grilled table-side, which was always fun for me as a kid.  The fish is served with rice noodles, peanuts, and plenty of dill!  All these great flavors combine to make a delicious, yet light, bowl of savory, crunchy, satisfying goodness!  For our last visit to Houston, I had my mom teach me how to make this dish.  Here's her version: Ingredients: 4 monk fish or catfish fillets, cut in 1" pieces 1 tbs. rice flour 2 tbs Greek yogurt 1-2 tsp ground tumeric 1 inch galangal, ground in a mortar and pestel (or mustard powder) 1 tbs vegetable oil 1/2 tsp. shrimp paste (mam tom) 3 green onions, white parts smashed (save greens parts as below) Marinated for at least 4 hrs.  Bake at 400 for 5-8 minutes or until browned.  Fry in oil with  1 cup fresh dill 1 cup green onion, cut in 1" long slices until fish is crisp, about 2-3 minutes.  Serve with: Black sesame chips (b...

Shredded cucumbers, carrots, cantaloupe, red onion, cooked shrimp(also did half of the shrimp ceviche-style and marinated in lime and lemon juice) and shredded rotisserie chicken, pistachios with a dressing of nước chấm (fish sauce, minced jalepeños, minced garlic, salt and pepper). Some cilantro for garnish and ate with Trader Joe’s grainless cassava & coconut chia chips which were a pretty good substitute for the more traditional rice crackers  Inspired by frommaggiesfarm   http://frommaggiesfarm.blogspot.com  melon shrimp ceviche IG post and Andrea Nguyen’s VFAD smashed cucumber salad recipe  https://www.amazon.com/Vietnamese-Food-Any-Day-Recipes/dp/0399580352

There is a great Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant that is 24-7 called Tan Tan in Houston.  It's wrapped up in so many great childhood memories for me.  They have this one dish that we kids would occasionally order that is a weirdly amazing and umami spin on macaroni.  Ketchup-y stir fry with beef and macaroni.  When I was looking up recipes, I saw that in Vietnam they actually use macaroni made with rice (something Vietnamese people did to mimic the Italian noodles with what they had).  I was unable to get rice noodle macaroni, and made it with HEB Veggie Pasta Ridged Elbow pasta and it turned out pretty good. Nui Xao Bo, Vietnamese Macaroni Recipe adapted from  food52 Ingredients: 1 tsp. sesame oil 1 tbs. low sodium soy sauce 1 tsp. oyster sauce 1/2 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. powdered chicken bouillon 1 tsp. sugar 1 bunch green onion, sliced-white and greens separated 1 lb. thin cut ribeye, sliced across the grain into about 1/4" slices 2 garlic cl...

Xoi Lap Xuong (Vietnamese Sweet Sticky Rice with Chinese Sausage) Makes: enough for a party of >20 people Ingredients: 1.25 lb (about 3 cups and 2 tbs) of sweet rice ~ 6 lap xuong (Chinese sausage), thinly sliced on the bias 4 green onions, thinly sliced 1/4 c. vegetable oil salt  1/2 tsp. sugar Maggi seasoning about 1/2 c. thick-sliced Xa xiu (Chinese bbq pork) crispy fried onion for topping Directions: Rinse the rice until water is clear and then soak overnight in cold water. Arrange the rice in a doughnut shape into a large steamer Sprinkle a pinch of salt and steam for about 15-20 minutes, occasionally mixing and ensuring the lid does not accumulate a lot of water Slice the green onions and combine with oil in a small glass bowl.  Add sugar and salt to taste and microwave for 45 seconds.  Fry lap xuong in a large skillet or wok on medium high heat until almost cooked, then add to steaming xoi (rice) Once the xoi (rice) is cooked, add green oni...

Made a super quick dinner of Bò Lúc Lác (Vietnamese Shaken Beef) over greens, tomatoes and cucumbers with Ranger Cattle sirloin. Served with jasmine rice for my little man (and the big man, too). Old recipe that I use time and time again. Everyone is happy and it's super quick. > Bò Lúc Lác Ingredients: 1.5 lbs beef sirloin cut into 1″ cubes 1 Tbs minced garlic 1.5 Tbs sugar 2 tbs oyster sauce 1 Tbs fish sauce  1 Tbs sesame oil 1 tsp soy sauce Directions: In a shallow bowl or container, mix together garlic, sugar, oyster sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, and soy sauce.  Marinate beef for at least 2 hours, or overnight for maximum flavor. Heat a large wok or pan over medium-high heat. Add about 2 tbs cooking oil and when it begins to smoke, add an even layer of beef and allow to sear for about 1 minute, before “shaking” to sear the opposite sides for about another 1-2 minute more to brown all the sides. Do not overcook!  The goal is medium-rare beef....

Back in October of the last year, I lost my grandmother. She lived in Paris and I was thankfully able to attend her funeral. It's been a hard loss, and I'm not sure I've really allowed myself to fully process it all. I loved my grandmother, my ba ngoai , so much. More than I can even grasp. She is how I was able to appreciate food. She is the reason I can fully understand how love can be shown through food and cooking. Her cooking, the smells wafting through her tiny apartment in Paris, are tied to some of my best childhood memories. My ba ngoai taught me how to love everyone. She taught me how to smile in the face of adversity; how the glint in smiling eyes can disarm anyone. Ba ngoai lived through a lot. She lived through a war that tore her home and wealth from her, she lived through re-establishing herself and life in another country, she lived through her brother never coming home, she lived through raising 3 children, she lived through her husbands death...

(This is an update of my 2017 Austin Best Eats guide) When I moved to Austin over 10 years ago from Houston, finding Vietnamese restaurants helped me with my homesickness.  When I don't have the time to cook or want to eat out, some of these places have been solid!  I think the Austin Vietnamese scene has really blossomed over the last few years as Vietnamese food has become more mainstream.   Vietnamese food in Austin is plentiful! Sometimes, you just need to know where to look.  Here is just a SAMPLING of a few popular places around town.   The  hours and addresses are listed and website linked when possible.   If I left out your favorite, please  comment below! In an effort to keep this post from being  repetitive  or way too long, I left out places my fellow food blogger over at  The Smoking Ho has included in his Banh Mi roundup .  888 Pan Asian Vietnamese Cuisine * 2400 E. Oltorf Suite 1A, Austin, TX 7...

Another year of feeding ourselves is behind us, and here we are, scraping the dried bits of dough off the kitchen counter, scrubbing the sheet pans that worked so hard, or replacing the 9-by-13-inch casserole dishes we forgot to retrieve at summer and fall potlucks. Anyone who cooks knows that it’s often a thankless job, yet one so necessary. But when there is creativity or inspiration... http://www.mystatesman.com/lif estyles/food--cooking/readers- instagram-posts-help-inspire- holiday-cold-weather-cooking/u cTNxQFqcWaDMEcG6LVkTN/ My photo was in the Austin-American Statesman newspaper! love, C

I have only made pho on my own a total of two or three times ever.  Mostly because making it means committing to having a giant pot's worth and babysitting the broth either overnight or the entire day.  But, it was starting to feel like fall recently and so, I bit the bullet.  Plus, we had help in town to finish up some of it! Pho bo , or beef pho, is relatively simple to make.  Probably the hardest part is acquiring all the ingredients and scheduling some time to make the broth.  And having a giant pot.  I bought all the ingredients at my local Vietnamese grocery store and it costs less then $30!!! Can't beat that.  Although braving the parking lot and streets in Chinatown are no joke.  I literally had to translate Vietnamese/English for a lady who hit an old man's car while trying to back out of her parking spot. They were trying to file a police report as I was walking into the grocery store and flagged me down to help.  Thank goodness...

Getting together the Austin Foob Bloggers' 2017 City Guide and checking out some Vietnamese places I hadn't been yet.    Mi Xa Xiu at Cyclo Restaurant

My mom stayed with us for a whole month after John was born.  To say we were pampered is the least of it.  She made this for us while I was wallowing in self-pity about my peri-partum Bells Palsy (facial nerve paralysis) and Reid was fighting a flu-like cold.  And she helped with baby John.  The kitchen smelt so good.  I asked her to write down her recipe for me (a very hard task for someone who cooks as well as she does).  We ate it in baguettes with French mayonnaise and cucumbers and shredded and pickled carrots for banh mi xiu mai  (though I couldn't chew the crusty delicious outer crust so I ate mine with lettuce). Xui mai, or su mai , or whatever other crazy spelling we've come up for translating Chinese/Vietnamese words into English phonetics are basically Asian meatballs.  They are savory from fish sauce and soy sauce and have a bit of a chewy/crunchy bits sprinkled throughout from the waterchestnuts or jicama root.  So like instead...

Nem Nuong are traditionally Vietnamese grilled pork meatballs or patties.  They can be eaten over a bowl of vermicelli noodles or rice, over a simple salad of greens and herbs, or rolled up in rice paper wrappers.  Basically you have the meatballs + some format of rice (vermicelli noodles, rice, rice paper wrappers) + lettuce + herbs + some kind of crunchies.  When making the spring rolls in rice paper wrappers, they are dipped in a savory peanut/hoisin sauce.  Nem nuong cuon (rolls) are super refreshing and tasty and a great alternative to anyone tired of shrimp filled spring rolls.  Because making them actually does require a lot of different components, I learned a trick from my mom to get dinner on the table on a weeknight, after work, on time, and....I use store bought chicken teriyaki and pineapple meatballs from Costco! Ok, I admitted it! I didn't actually make the main part of this dish.  But that's what makes this so great! It's so delicio...

Goi du du kho bo , or Vietnamese green papaya and beef jerky salad sounds weird.  I know.  But I promise that there is nothing better on a hot summer day.  It literally involves no cooking and is cold and refreshing, while being pretty fulfilling.  Reid and his sister approved.  It's really good. The ingredients are the only difficult thing about this.  I was in the LA area a few weeks ago for hubby's father's pHd graduation ceremony and we were staying in Anaheim about 15 minutes away from Bolsa Ave.  Bolsa Avenue, aka Little Saigon, in Orange County is a great community for Vietnamese immigrants and second generations.  It's probably the only place in the States that's better than Houston's Chinatown in what you can find.  Most likely due to the fact that LA has the #1 population of Vietnamese immigrants and Houston has the #2 biggest population.  Anyway, I took husband's family to breakfast/lunch on our last day there to Quan Hy res...

There have been over 24 days in a row where the temperature has exceeded 100*F here.  I'm like 6 months pregnant? Don't ask me questions, I'm hot and my brain doesn't work.  Anyway, one respite from the heat is soda chanh , or Vietnamese style limeade.  Because, as I was reading in Real Simple magazine whilst waiting the hour for my gestational diabetes test at the doctor's office, nothing is better on a hot day than lemonade  limeade. Soda chanh is probably the drink I'll order out at a Vietnamese restaurant unless I'm enjoying some Vietnamese coffee ( Cafe Sua Da ) or it's winter and they have fresh warm soy milk.  May need to do a post on cafe sue da  later, but since I'm preggos, and it's 105 freaking degrees outside, it's soda chanh  time, baby.  Some restaurants don't make it right.  There should be a visible layer of sugar at the bottom.  You use the spoon to mix it all up, and sip it through a straw.  Ahhhhh! Hubs has a ...

After many requests from my sister and cousin, I finally documented my mom's vegetarian bun bo chay !  Get ready, this recipe is kind of intense and usually takes 2 days to make.  My mom makes a giant pot of it and the whole family eats it in the span of a day or two.  She freezes the broth for later use (if there is any left over!).  The flavor does enhance each time the broth is reheated, so it's usually better the second day and each subsequent time.  It's so good, I often prefer it to regular bun bo (Spicy Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup). Bun bo Hue  is a specialty of the central region of Vietnam, where my dad's side is from.  You won't find it as commonly as pho  or bun  (vermicelli bowls) in most Vietnamese restaurants.  This is a soup that is a labor of love and family and spicy-tolerance.  My ong noi  (paternal grandfather) used to make the best bun bo hue !  Now my Aunt Angelique/ Co Be  makes a cleaner, tast...

Banh bot chien is a Vietnamese street-food of crispy and chewy rice cakes surrounded by an omelet-style amount of eggs, green onions, and pickled radishes.  It is probably one of my most favorite things to eat.  There is a 24-hour Vietnamese-Chinese restaurant in Chinatown called Tan Tan and in my opinion, makes the very best banh bot chien.  My childhood was filled with Tan Tan's banh bot chien.  We'd often eat lunch there with my family and their friends after an early morning tennis match (that I probably got dragged along to).   Banh bot chien was the carrot on my stick on those super early mornings. And it is extremely similar to Chinese  jianbing , which according to this Tasting Table is the next big trend.   http://www.tastingtable.com/dine/national/jianbing-chinese-breakfast-crepes-mr-bing-nyc?utm_medium=email&utm_source=TT&utm_campaign=Weekend&utm_content=Editorial I vaguely remember gobbling down some jianbing  a...