Vietnamese Comfort Food – The Real Fried Rice

As it is with most ‘foreign’ cuisines, there are a couple dishes that make it mainstream. For Italian, it might be pizza and spaghetti with meatballs; Mexican might be nachos and burritos; and Chinese might be fried rice and stir-fry. And like it is with all food, no matter where it comes from, the home-made versions can sometimes be very different. As a foodie, I am always seeking out the ‘real’ thing which isn’t always easy to find. A lot of the time, the only way you’ll ever get a true version of a dish is if you have it in someone’s home or go visit that country yourself.

There is one particular dish whose mainstream version has always bugged me – fried rice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_rice). I’ve recently been looking a lot of things up on Wikipedia to see what ‘the world’ has to say, and the description for fried rice was pretty much what I expected. The first thing Wikipedia points out is that it is “a popular component of Chinese food”. However, with Chinese food becoming more and more mainstream over the past decade (example: Panda Express: http://www.pandaexpress.com/)   I feel like the true flavors of dishes such as fried rice have lost their way. I have to point out though that I’ve never been to China (only Vietnam and Thailand), and I’ve never had fried rice in someone else’s house (who wasn’t family). But with that said, I have to confess my constant disappointment when someone orders fried rice from a restaurant (whether it be Chinese, Vietnamese or other) because I just know it is SO easy to make and would be a million times better home-made. Do you notice that the restaurant version is usually brown and a bit dry? Don’t you find it pretty salty too?

To be true to my last blog though, I have to remain unbiased here. Everyone has their version and their preferences. Nonetheless, I thought I’d at least share one of my absolute favorite recipes (it’s also the only dish my boyfriend will actually request that I make). It’s probably one of the first dishes I ever cooked before I was even ten. It’s one of those dishes that is seriously comforting on a Saturday morning or even for a quick mid-week dinner. (Note – it’s great for hangovers too)

It can be eaten for any meal of the day, and I’ll give you ideas for variations at the end. It really is best to use day (or two) old rice, but fresh rice is possible too. The best type to use is Jasmine or any long-grain rice (in the UK, Tesco sells what they call Thai rice). If you’re not sure how to make rice, just order a couple extra servings the next time you order in Chinese or Thai. My version is made with Chinese-style sausage which can be found at any Asian supermarket. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen this at a ‘regular’ grocery store but it can be easily substituted with any leftover chicken or pork. You could even use some leftover rotisserie chicken. Just be sure to add a bit of oil when heating it up so that it doesn’t dry out.

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Serving for one (depending on your appetite just double or even triple the recipe!)

INGREDIENTS

2 shallots or half an onion  

2 garlic cloves or garlic powder

Small handful of cilantro (aka coriander)

Chinese-style sausage

~2 cups of cooked white rice

2 eggs

Maggi soy sauce or any other light soy

Vegetable oil or any other plain oil

Small piece of butter, to your liking 

Fresh black pepper

* Fish sauce is optional

* Sriracha hot sauce also optional

DIRECTIONS

If using cold rice, take it out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature. This will help soften the rice a bit and speed up cooking. Try to break up any lumps while it’s still cold. It will allow the flavors to get into the rice easier.

Thinly slice your shallots. If using onion instead, chop into small pieces. Mince your garlic. See the picture for a little trick to mincing garlic. I cut it like I would an onion. Cut long slits into the clove. Then thinly slice it. This may not be the best description, but hopefully you get the picture. Roughly chop your cilantro and set aside to add in at the end. Finally, slice your sausage. If you’re using another type of meat just chop it up into small bite-sized pieces.

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Why I Love To Cook

“In what art or science could improvements be made that would more powerfully contribute to increase the comforts and enjoyments of mankind?” – Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (In a 1974 essay on the Art of Cookery)

Cooking can be described as many things – necessity, art, science or even a waste of time.

I know for some it’s an odd career transition that I’ve made – corporate finance/accounting to culinary school/food management? What does that even mean? While I currently have it in my mind that food development is what I want to do, I am aware that the education I am about to embark on will invariably change what I now think I know about food and the industry. But for now the transition just comes naturally to me.

You see.. The science aspect of cooking appeals to my need for everything to have a right answer. Despite the obvious flexibility of food, there are certain things that are just fact. For example, the temperature at which chicken is cooked, the amount of yeast needed to make bread rise, the success of growing certain vegetables during certain times of the year or the fact that egg whites when whipped becomes white and fluffy…

Similarly there are excel formulas, macros, SOX (not talking sports for non-finance folks) and US GAAP. And let’s face it numbers never lie. Well, what I mean is 1 + 1 will always be 2. And I have to sadly confess balancing a general ledger, making a pretty spreadsheet or teaching someone a new excel trick is still fulfilling in some twisted way. However, I still adamantly disagree with my family that I was “meant to be an accountant” (probably partly due to the fact that I’m quite stubborn and independent). But I also know this because despite being able to geek out on excel for hours, there has always been some part of me dying to be creative, free-spirited, spontaneous or even a little irresponsible. I also really enjoy making others happy which accountants don’t exactly do. In fact, to offset my guilt, I occasionally brought home-cooked food or even jelly beans into the office as peace offerings when asking someone to explain some accounting concept or other.

 

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The Real Reason I Moved To Britain

While my dear boyfriend is handsome, loving and always full of interesting (sometimes completely useless) information, I must confess there might have been something else that lured me over the pond. Having known me for only a couple of months, he proved how clever he really is by where he took me to dinner on my first trip to the UK.

Now let me begin by saying my love affair with Yorkshire pudding began long ago. Christmas Eve dinners or the occasional visit to my aunt and uncle (Bac Oanh and Uncle Jack) often consisted of roast beef and my aunt’s famous Yorkshire pudding. They often looked like this – made in a cupcake tray.

Now it’s been a few years since I’ve had them made by her, but I can still remember how light, crisp and rich they were. You know how you can have a childhood memory or even an adult memory of something you ate that you absolutely loved? As in, your mind can distinctly remember the exact way it looked on your plate, the exact way it tasted and the way it made you feel completely satisfied? Well that’s how I felt about Bac Oanh’s Yorkshire pudding. It was always a treat. I remember being just tall enough to watch them rise in the oven (although depending on whose kitchen I’m in now, I can barely reach the oven)…

But then… I met Chris. And on my first trip to the UK ever, Chris took me to Rules (http://www.rules.co.uk/), London’s oldest restaurant. And this is what we ordered:

As you can see, this Yorkshire pudding takes up half my plate and almost all of Chris’. It’s more than twice the size of his hand for crying out loud! You can only imagine how wide my eyes got when all this came out to our tiny little table for two. Everyone around us stared. I was a little embarrassed (not really). What I was really thinking was – why did I let him have the bigger portion?? Needless to say I devoured the entire thing. It wasn’t very lady-like, especially considering it was technically our second date/visit. But maybe that’s why he loves me? Let’s just say yes for now.

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Southern Hospitality And A Whole Lot Of Seafood

Hello friends!

About a week ago, I was very fortunate to make an unexpected trip to New Orleans for the NFL Divisional Playoffs between the Cardinals and the Saints. Although I do like football, I love food more. So I jumped at the chance to visit the South for the first time.

When growing up, I would hear loads of stories from my parents about the amazing experiences they had in New Orleans. Of course in my family, those stories consisted mainly of crawfish, everything Cajun or Creole, shrimp and muffulettas. And naturally they loved the energy and hospitality that ‘Nawlins’ showed them every time. My experience was no different (despite the fact that I was rooting for the Cardinals). * I warn you that there is a whole lot of food that will be discussed in this post. That’s what happens when you unleash a foodie into New Orleans for a couple days!

But let’s just get straight down to business. Our first stop (immediately after checking into our hotel) was the Acme Oyster House (http://www.acmeoyster.com/). My parents and aunts and uncles had been here many times before, so my mom insisted we go here first. Now let me preface that I do love my shellfish but have only ever tried oysters once and wasn’t all that impressed. But now that I’m going to be going to culinary school, I’ve promised myself to at least try something no matter how scared or grossed out I might be. So first thing was first – raw oysters.

After a moment of hesitation, I swallowed my fear and then the oyster. It was slimy, kind of gooey and covered in hot sauce. Honestly, it didn’t taste like anything other than a delivery system for hot cocktail sauce. So I tried another with lemon juice and a little salt and pepper. Again, it didn’t taste like much. I really was expecting it to taste salty and kind of fishy, but that experience fell a little flat for me. So I moved on to the next thing.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the most beautiful picture because we started digging in immediately before I realized I wanted a picture. The first dish is a combo of beans and rice, gumbo and Cajun Jambalaya. The second dish is a wonderful assortment of fried goodness – fried shrimp, fried oysters, hush puppies and my all-time-new-favorite fried catfish. The gumbo and jambalaya weren’t particularly impressive compared to others I’ve had before. However, the catfish – oh the catfish – was exactly as I dreamed it always would be. From all the food shows and movies I’ve seen with fried catfish – my goodness it was ‘scrumptious’ as my good friend Anwar would say. It seriously melted in my mouth. You have to love fish that is so fresh it melts. The batter was cornmeal and was incredibly light and crunchy. The hush puppies were also fantastic although I honestly felt that if I had to feel guilty about eating fried food I’d prefer the catfish. The fried oysters and shrimp, sadly, just tasted fried – masking the actual flavor of the seafood.

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