Filed under: Cook, Eat, Go | Tags: appetizers, Asian, easy, Hanoi, pho cuon, recipes, sauce, Vietnam
Has anyone in NYC found a Vietnamese restaurant that serves pho cuon? I haven’t found a single place outside of Hanoi that offers this delectable rolled pho dish (as my friend Thanh calls it) to its customers. This is New York City. Isn’t there some Northern Vietnamese place in Queens or something that y’all can direct me to? Anyone?
I first discovered pho cuon on the northeast side of Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi. Thanh, a Hanoi native and then-classmate of mine in Seoul, wanted to take us around to some of the local eateries to sample Hanoi cuisine. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as that day at Truc Bach Lake (the seafood shack later also helped). We stopped at a nondescript roadside stand, no one spoke English, and before I knew it, a glorious plate of pho cuon sat before me.
Pho cuon is simple. It’s just a sheet of Vietnamese rice noodle rolled up around some slightly sweetened sauteed beef, fresh lettuce, and cilantro; served with a dipping sauce composed of what tasted mostly like fish sauce and vinegar with carrots and onions (and possibly daikon). So simple, yet I find myself dreaming about it still.
After a quick search on the web, I found this post on the Wandering Chopsticks blog and nearly wept for joy. Now I can make pho cuon at home! Further, she even posted a recipe for the dipping sauce, nuoc mam cham ngot. I guessed most of the ingredients correctly above, though I missed the sugar (duh – I should’ve caught that).
See ya. I’m off to the Asian grocery now.
Filed under: Cook, Eat | Tags: appetizers, cantaloupe, easy, hors d'oeuvres, melon, prosciutto, recipes, summer
The combination of salty ham and sweet fruit makes for a delightful summer appetizer. It’s also probably the easiest thing you’ll ever make for a party (with the exception, perhaps, of dumping a bag of tortilla chips into a bowl) since it requires absolutely no culinary skill whatsoever besides knowing how to cut up a cantaloupe and wrap meat around it.
Well. I guess there’s no real need to go through the motions of writing out a recipe. Buy prosciutto (or other salty cured ham – sliced paper thin), buy a cantaloupe (or other melon – but honeydew is usually a little too sweet), cut up melon into chunks, wrap prosciutto around melon chunks, and serve. If desired, you can add a dollop of mild goat cheese, a fresh mint leaf, or fig. Totally up to you. If the other ingredients won’t stick to the melon, hold them in place with some toothpicks. The world is your hors d’oeuvre.
My friend David lives in the relatively unspoiled and supremely fertile Tasmania, and it allows him access to a wide variety of fresh organic produce from all over the world that is grown locally.
He sent me the following note some weeks ago:
Hey you! Try this: Hard boil some free range eggs and quarter them lengthwise. Lay them side by side on a long dish. Dris them in Tamari, Japanese mayo, dots of wasabi and then sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and toasted granuated garlic. I think it looks as good as it tastes! Ciao!
His is definitely a Japanese “deviled” egg. I only just got around to testing out my own version based on ingredients I had on hand, and I am admittedly lacking in my presentation skills so it didn’t turn out nearly as nicely as I imagine David’s did. Not only do I lack imagination, I lack counter space, and I also lack photogenic dishware and a camera with a decent low-light sensor. Forgive me.
It tasted great, though. Like an Asian deviled egg, though I didn’t remove the yolks and blend before returning them to the whites, so it’s “deviled” with bunny ears, not actually deviled. Recipe after the jump. Continue reading
eat. shop. love. nyc. 