Bánh Xèo (Vietnamese sizzling crepes)

One of the most unique and delicious Vietnamese foods that is not commonly known to most non-Vietnamese people is a savory meat-filled Vietnamese crepe called bánh xèo. Bánh xèo looks like a large omelette, but it actually does not contain any eggs at all! It is a rice flour-based crepe that is filled with mung beans, ground meat, shrimp, and bean sprouts, and served with fresh lettuce and herbs and nước chấm (fish sauce dipping sauce). The yellow color of the crepe comes from turmeric powder mixed into the batter, and from the mung beans added during cooking.  

If you've never had it, I REALLY encourage you to venture out from the usual noodles, pho, and spring rolls to try this. You will experience something truly unique and tastefully rewarding that you will be sure to brag about to your friends. 

I've never made bánh xèo myself, but my grandma and mom have and I've had it at restaurants. During my short break back at home with my family, my mom asked me what I wanted her to make for dinner. I suggested bánh xèo and she got real excited. She has only made it once before and was eager to try it again. Plus, we both knew how tasty the final product would be. Crispy pancake edges, creamy mung beans, caramelized sweet onions, salty-sweet nước chấm, umami meat, and refreshing greens! So many flavors! I'm surprised the food trend people and renowned food critics are not gushing over this yet!

The nước chấm for this Vietnamese dish is slightly sweeter than normal nước chấm used for things such as noodle salads (bun). To make the dipping sauce, you add fresh lime juice and minced garlic to sugar, let the acid and garlic permeate the sugar, add a lot of water, then add a good amount of fish sauce till you reach the right balance of sweet, salty, and umami. One site you can find some ratios for ingredients is VietWorldKitchen. 

To make the crepes, we used a pre-made bánh xèo mix. Here are some suggested bags to grab:

They are basically rice flour, self-rising flour, and turmeric, which are easy to make at home if you do not have access to these mixes. They also instructions in Vietnamese and rough English translations on the back.

Here is what me and my mom did:

Bánh Xèo (Vietnamese Sizzling Crepes)
Ingredients
1 bag of bánh xèo mix, 1 can coconut milk (8 oz), and 3.5 cups of water
2-3 stalks of green onion, green and white parts, chopped
1 lb of ground meat (normally pork, but we used chicken to be healthier)
1 lb of shrimp, cleaned, deveined (usually the hard skin/shell is left on, but we removed it because i don't like the sharp crunch)
2 whole yellow onions
Lots of garlic cloves, minced and divided
1 bag of mung beans (I think most bags are around 12 oz.), soaked for an hour
1 bag of bean sprouts, washed and dry
To serve
2-3 heads of lettuce
Lots of Vietnamese herbs (purple perilla, Vietnamese mint, fish mint)
Prepared nước chấm

Directions

1. Take the soaked mung beans and boil them in water for a few minutes. You only want to add enough water and to boil it long enough for the beans to soak up the water and not get mushy. Put into a bowl and set aside (drain excess water if any).
2. Dice 1 whole onion, mince the garlic. 
3. Saute the onion in oil until it starts to turn yellow, then add half of the garlic. Once that begins to turn brown, add the ground meat. Season with a bit of sea salt and black pepper. Use your spoon or chop sticks to break up the meat and cook through. Pour into a separate bowl and set aside.
4. Saute the remaining garlic till just brown then add the shrimp. Add black pepper. Cook through (do not over cook). Remove to a separate bowl and cut the shrimp in half lengthwise (the shrimp as they are are too thick to fold nicely into the crepes). Set aside.
5. Slice remaining onion into thin strips. Saute in lots of oil until caramelized. Remove to a bowl lined with paper to soak up excess oil.
6. Prepare the crepe mix. Add the turmeric powder to the rice flour mix. Pour in coconut milk and water. Stir. Add in diced green onions. Let sit for ~10 minutes.
7. Wash the lettuce and herbs. Put into colanders to drip dry. Prepare the nước chấm if not done so yet.
8. Now prepare to make the crepes. Take the individual bowls of crepe batter, meat, shrimp, mung bean, and bean sprouts and place them near the stove. 

1. Using a large nonstick skillet with a wide base (~10 inches) over high heat, pour in a generous amount of oil to cover the surface. Throw in some meat, shrimp, and onions on one side, then pour a small ladle of the batter into the pan, distributing the batter into a thin layer. Plug up any holes with extra batter. Immediately throw onto the half with the meat and onions, generous spoonfuls of mung bean then bean sprouts. 

1. Fry until the edges are lifting and the crepe is crispy. Fold the crepe and remove to a plate. Repeat with remaining batter and fillings.
2. To serve: place crepe on a plate, serve with lettuce, herbs, and nước chấm. Provide bowls for the dipping sauce. Use chopsticks and spoons to eat. 
3. Traditional way to eat (messy): break off a piece of the crepe. Take a full lettuce leaf, top with fresh herbs and the piece of crepe. Fold over like a little lettuce burrito, dip into the nước chấm and eat. 
4. Alternate way to eat (clean): break up crepe into a bowl, top with ripped lettuce and herbs. Drizzle in however much nước chấm you want. Eat with chopsticks.

I hope this is helpful to anyone looking to try a new ethnic dish. It is very time-consuming for sure, but the results are rewarding and the presentation is fabulous. Everyone will be oohing and aahing at your next dinner!

Quick Dan Dan Noodles

Dan dan turkey noodles

I always wanted to try dan dan noodles, but I've never gone to a restaurant to try them before. I heard about them by reading food blogs online, and it seemed simple yet satisfying. After forgetting about it so many times, I finally had the means and the memory to make it!

I looked up a recipe as a guideline and then started cooking with what I had on hand and to my preferences. Instead of traditional ground pork, I used ground turkey, which is generally heralded as healthier than pork or beef. I try not to eat a lot of pork anymore, in part because I do not eat that much meat anymore and because my mom decided one day pork was bad for us and decided not to cook it anymore at home. I also do not eat or buy beef very much because of the low amount of meat I just normally eat, and because I don't really know how to cook chunks of beef.

I doubled the recipe, but added much less soy sauce and other salty sauces than called for because I do not like things to be too salty. Despite this, the sauce came out still very salty and I will remember to lightly dress my noodles and meat with the sauce. I did not have sesame paste, but I did have leftover toasted sesame seeds from yesterday's sushi prep, so I threw those into my coffee/spice grinder, along with 4 garlic cloves, and a 1/2" knob of peeled ginger. I ground this into a chunky paste for the dan dan sauce, in place of the recipe's sesame paste. I also did not have hot chili oil nor Sichuan peppercorns, but I have an awesome Vietnamese substitue: Huy Fong chili garlic sauce! You should have this in you kitchen. I like it even better than Sriracha for cooking.

I tossed a huge glob of this into the sauce and DANNGGG was the sauce spicy. I can't ever imagine eating true Szechuan/Sichuan food. I think my tongue would light on fire and I'd die on internal burning.

So, if you don't have typical Chinese ingredients at home, but have access to soy sauce, vinegar, chili garlic sauce, fresh vegetables, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and Chinese wheat noodles, it is very easy to make a Dan Dan-like noodle dish at home in nearly 30 minutes!!!

Pauline's Easy Dan Dan-like Noodles (Serves 3-4)
Meat Ingredients
1/2 lb (8 oz) ground turkey
1 Tbs grapeseed or olive oil
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs vinegar
1 tsp Chinese five spice powder
Black pepper to taste
(I added some chopped kale leaves too. Yay vegetables!)
 
Sauce Ingredients
4 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2-ish Tbs sesame seeds (toasted, optional)
1/2" knob of ginger, peeled, coarsely chopped
1 cup of water (I accidentally added 2)
3-4 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs vinegar
2 tsp white sugar
3-5 Tbs of Huy Fong chili garlic sauce (to your spicy desire)

8 oz (3-4 servings) dry Chinese wheat noodles
Other veggies (I used alfafa sprouts and thinly sliced carrots, but you can throw in spinach, green onions, bok choy, or none at all, but veggies are so good for you!)

Directions
1. Prepare the meat topping: Heat a large skillet on medium-high heat. Add 1 Tbs of oil, then toss in the meat and cook, chopping into small pieces. As it starts to turn brown, add the kale (optional), soy sauce, vinegar, Chinese five-spice powder, and black pepper. Continue stirring over medium heat until the meat and kale are fully cooked. Remove from the pan and set aside.
2. Prepare the sauce: Puree the garlic cloves, sesame seeds, and ginger in a food processor (or spice grinder) until you get as minimally chunky paste as you can. Meanwhile, heat 2 cups of water in the skillet from step 1. When it gets warm, throw in the paste and stir to distribute throughout the water. Add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and chili garlic sauce. Taste and adjust accordingly. Let cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes.
3. Boil the noodles according to package directions, adding vegetables in the last minute. Drain.
4. To assemble: Place noodles with vegetables in a bowl. Top with meat, then drizzle a ladle of the sauce on top, about 1/2 to 1 full lade is good, depending on how salty/spicy you want it and how much you are eating. Garnish with green onions or more sesame seeds, if desired. Enjoy!

Giant California Rolls

My senior year of undergrad at Berkeley, my best friend there taught me how to roll sushi. It was a really fun experience and tasty. I also tried this raspberry beer called Framboise and I was genuinely surprised that there was a beer out there that I liked. Sometime after that, I invited a bunch of my Vietnamese Student Association friends over to my apartment for a sushi rolling party. We made a lot of different rolls, but primarily imitation crab meat filling if I remember correctly. Every time, we made maki rolls, which are sushi rolls with the nori seaweed sheet on the outside. Recently I wanted to try my hand at making California rolls, where the rice is on the outside, then the nori, and then the fillings on the inside.

Maki sushi on left. California-style sushi on right. source

I prepared the crab filling using canned crab meat this time instead of imitation crab sticks. I simply drained the water from the can of (sustainably caught!) crabmeat, and added 2 Tbs of mayo and about 1/2 to 1 Tbs of Sriracha. I also sprinkled in some lemon pepper seasoning and ground black pepper. Seeing as it was still too moist (I did not drain it that well) and my eyes thought it was not enough meat, I sprinkled in vegetarian pork floss (something like this).

source

For vegetable fillings, I sliced some avocado, cucumber, and carrots into thin strips. I also washed fresh alfafa sprouts. I just looked up the health benefits of alfafa sprouts. One cup of alfafa sprouts contain about 10% women's DV of vitamin K. It also contains vitamin C and phytoestrogens, which can help reduce risks of heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. Alfafa sprouts also contain saponins, compounds linked to reducing LDL cholesterol and raising HDL cholesterol - although the site did not say how much saponin a cup of alfafa sprouts contain nor how much saponin is needed to be effective. Nevertheless, alfafa is a green vegetable and is definitely healthier for you than filling up on fatty, meaty fillings!

Ingredients all prepped.

I made the sushi rice using Kokuho Rose brand sushi rice. I washed a cup of rice under water for a while (they recommend doing it till the washing water is clear, but this brand says "No washing necessary", so I only did it briefly), then spread it out to dry for ~30 min along the walls of a colander. After cooking the rice, I mixed 1-1/2 Tbs rice vinegar, 1 Tbs sugar, and 1/2 Tbs salt. I poured the vinegar mixture over the rice and mixed it in with chopsticks. To add something a little extra, I toasted white sesame seeds in my toaster oven and mixed some in as well.

To assemble, you spread the rice in a thin layer on top of a sheet of nori, completely covering the nori. Sprinkle more sesame seeds if desired. Place a plastic sheet on top then flip it over. Place it on a sushi rolling mat and then put the fillings inside. I spooned on 1/4 of the crabmeat, then generously added all the vegetables. I tried rolling it over, but my rolls were not tight and I had forgotten how to correctly roll these, since I had done it so long ago. My rolls ended up looking like sushi burritos! HUGE! I ate two that night, because my friend and I made 3 altogether. I know sushi is not good the next day and did not want to waste those last 4 slices of my sushi.

HUGGGEEE sushi roll

After slicing into 8 pieces.

The nori I got is not that good. I will have to buy a better brand next time. Do any of you have suggestions on good nori for sushi?

Next time, I will definitely read up on the proper sushi rolling technique and also cut my avocados thicker.

In all, after not cooking for a month because of being on winter break at my mom's fully stocked house, it was good to get back into preparing my own meals. And sushi is a great first meal back at school!

Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!

Hong Kong Day 3

There are a lot of little boutiques, food shops, and other shops around the hotel. BF and I woke up and went out to get breakfast and head to any mall nearby.

On Cameron Road, there is a very small shop that sells fresh fruit and vegetable juices. You can get a wide selection of fruit and even vegetables juiced: pear, dragonfruit, bittermelon, starfruit, kiwi, celery, tomato, carrot, orange, mango...Each is about $15 HKD, which is about $1.88USD. We went with the mango with sago (little tapioca pearls), which was only $8 HKD and came in a small cup (about 8 or 12 oz, I think).

We were trying to head to a mall called "The One," which was supposedly nearby but with my limp was much farther. Plus the rain started coming down a bit and so we stopped into some little restaurant for breakfast. BF got a plate of ramen with chicken wings and a bit of veggies. I got the Hong Kong style (french?) toast. The noodle plate was rather small and underwhelming.

 I poured sweetened condensed milk and some liquidy peanut butter on top of my toast. This is how the Hong Kong people eat their french toast: with condensed milk, peanut butter, and honey. Pretty tasty and different than the french toast I'm used to eating. Not bad. The price tag for these two items plus a drink was around $8.50 USD, which is very affordable.

 For lunch, we met up with the grandma and aunt, uncle, and cousins on BF's dad's side at Maxim's Palace. This restaurant is housed in what used to be a theater. Going inside, I was awestruck by the grandeur of the interior. There were two stories, chandeliers, and fancy wall decorations.

Click image to see full size of the panaroma shot!

Maxim's Palace is a dim sum restaurant. Ladies go around pushing carts with various dim sum, but we primarily put in orders from the papers on the table.

Fried noodle with some sauce, chicken, and bean sprouts

Bitter melon with fish

Honeydew panna cotta: yum!

Sweet tofu pudding with longan and dates

Everytime we go to dim sum, we get so much food and I get so stuffed by the end of it, trying a bite here, a bite there. Also ordered were char siu bao (BBQ pork buns), fried rice, beef rice rolls in soy sauce, porridge, and more.

We then went karaoking at Red Mr with the cousins. You can rent out a room, in which there are several couches, coffee tables, and a TV. A touchscreen next to the TV lets you browse music and then add music to the queue. They had a good selection of old and new songs, popular and not as well known artists as well. Some that we sang were: Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, LFMAO, One Republic, Usher, Chris Brown, Lonely Island (I'm on a BOAT!), Justin Timberlake, Pink, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kanye West, and Kelly Clarkson.

We spent over 3 hours in there singing. It was pretty fun. Each person gets 2 free non-alcoholic drinks. The parents (BF's mom, aunt, uncle) ordered some food for us: fried platter (fries, shrimp, onion rings) and a meat platter (skewers, cucumber with pork floss or something). BF's grandma came and stayed the whole time. I was soo amazed by her and felt a lot of respect for her because it's hard to be patient and stay doing nothing for 3 hours just to be with her grandsons. She also managed to nap while we sang really loud and horribly, which I thought was also amazing.

  A famous tourist attraction is the light show at the Kowloon Public Pier (south Tsim Sha Tsui), which occurs every day at 8pm. We gathered amidst the other tourists (and locals, I'm sure) on the edge of the pier and waited for the show to start. Across the water, you can see all the tall buildings and the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center in Wanchai. At the start, the Samsung building has a large LED banner that proclaims "Symphony of Lights". Basically, lots of buildings light up with many colors in coordination with the background music. People can also take the ferry around the harbor to watch. It was a little underwhelming. Pretty, but I got bored after 5-10 minutes.

Click to see full-size panaroma image!

Once it ended, we headed back to the hotel while window shopping. BF's family stopped by a jerky store. Jerky in Asia is sooo much better than in America. The jerky is not tough; rather, it's sweet, soft, and super flavorful. The flavor is dynamic, not just like smoked meat flavor like in America.

I wanted to walk around a digest still, so we wandered a bit. Went into a McDonalds and was impressed by their McCafe. Totally classy like a Starbucks. Fast food usually seems to be so much nicer in countries other than the USA.

Cheesecake, lamingtons, and muffins!?

After this long day, we finally headed back and passed out on the wonderfully hard beds. I knew I was excited for the next day and fell asleep planning what I could potentially do and eat...

Hong Kong Day 2

I think I have lost track of everything already! So much has happened already. It is hard to believe that it is already the end of Sunday here and coming onto Monday.

(Happy Fathers' Day too, by the way!)

We are currently staying at the Ramada in Tsim Sha Tsui, which is in the heart of many tourist spots and shopping in Hong Kong. The hotel is an old one and, therefore, has rather small rooms but is good enough, considering that we are out all day and only come back at 10 or 11 pm to clean up and sleep. The room has two twin beds pushed together to make it look like a large full or queen bed occupies the small space. The bed is rather hard, but we can still sleep fine in them. They give you a fruit basket (apple, orange, bananas) and some water. A small refrigerator and mini-bar is in the room as well, but drinks are for purchase (single-serve Bacardi, whiskey, vodka...).

BBQ pork bun

Shrimp in fried tofu

Late Friday (6/14) morning, we got dim sum at Star Seafood Restaurant near Amoy Plaza. For all these meals with my BF's family, I just let the adults do all the picking, because I cannot speak or read Cantonese and the locals know what's best. The spread is always generous and quite tasty. Everything is served in the center and you can pick and choose as you please, allowing you to eat as much or as little as you want. The two twos are the same as before: Ti Kuan Yum and Pu-erh.

Steamed meat and bitter melon rice

I got to meet the grandparents on my BF's dad's side of the family that day. Another aunt joined us. It's cool how fun the Hong Kong people are. The family chats a lot over the food, laughing and chatting away. The food may be in the center, but is only a side to the experience of people's company. The family always jokes around and even gets the waiters to join in the laughter. It's a truly jolly time.

Afterward, we went to Salon di Beauty (near Hollywood Plaza, I think) to get our hair done. This salon was recommended by BF's mom's sister. BF's mom and I got are hair permed (permanent curls) while BF and BF's brother got their hair trimmer. BF got a new style that I like, in addition to his usual haircut. I really like my new curls. This salon did really well, but I should hope so because the treatment took about 4 hours to complete. They even have really crazy looking machines inside to hot air dry your hair, or heat your curls, and such.

Once my hair was done, the boys and I wandered in the small plaza of the salon. We went into the Circle K (or is it "OK"?) convenient store and we got Vitasoy soymilks and cola candy. The Hong Kong people have such a wide selection of cola-flavored candies. I have to admit, these are pretty good. BF also got some curry fish balls and egg tarts from the little bakery next door. Pretty tasty, but the egg tarts were just decent (as he reports).

Finally, we went off to explore the mall. We wandered up and down, I got some new Reeboks (not much cheaper than in America, but I really liked the color and the feel of the shoes), looked at a couple bakeries.

Egg tart cup!

Asian savory baked goods

We went into a bookstore and I luckily found a cookbook in both Canto and English! It has a load of Canto dishes that I definitely want to learn and try out when I return to the US. The author is food blogger: Christine Ho from Christine's Easy Recipes.  Some highlights include  BBQ pork, egg tarts, shredded pork noodles. I am very excited and happy about this book.

 We got some snacks in the mall as well. There was this one bakery selling good looking egg tarts. One of them was an egg white tart. Highly intrigued, I got one. The BF said this one was really good, and by just looking, I could tell it was. I ate my egg white tart and was in heaven. The crust was buttery and slightly crumbly. It was also thin so that you get a lot of the egg filling. The egg white filling was light, fluffy, not too runny, perfectly sweet. It was the best egg tart I've ever had. I seriously want to go back and get some more.

After wandering down the mall, we stumbled upon the BF's favorite dessert place: Hui Lau Shan. We got the trio sampler.

The first is mango ice cream with fresh mango and some kind of jelly. The second is mango puree with fresh mango and tapioca balls. The third is fresh mango with mango flavored and filled mochi rolled in sweetened coconut flakes. They used sweet mangoes and everything was good. The curry platter in the background was standard packaged stuff and was fine. Tasty but standard, just like the instant House Curry stuff you can get in the supermarket. It comes with fish balls, white radish, and octopus/squid.

Cute cartoon candies at snack shop

BF looking at single-serving jerky in snack shop

They have a music store in the mall. I went inside and was enamored by the gorgeous pianos. It felt so good to brush the keys with my fingertips again and hear the full and beautiful resonating sounds come forth as I depressed the keys. I pulled out a piano book of 50 favorite songs and tried to play some. I want the book so bad. One song I tried was "Eye of the Tiger".

 There were so many amazing things I saw. Every thing and place was new to me and amazing and enticing. Hong Kong is really the City of Asia!

More excitement and pictures of the next days to come!