From the Slanted Door to Your Front Door

Cooking Fish for "Halibut Vermicelli with Dill"

It is rare I cook four recipes from a book in a year, let alone a week.  Yet since the moment I received Charles Phan’s new cookbook, Vietnamese Home Cooking, I have only been able to put it down long enough to pick up my chef’s knife and start chopping. 

It is no secret I love Vietnamese food (my blog is named after the country’s most famous dish). And The Slanted Door, Phan’s deservedly popular San Francisco restaurant, has also long been one of my favorites in that city.

However, I will admit I was skeptical the first time I pulled up a stool at the sleek and sunny restaurant bar with its sweeping bay views.  How could this chic space possibly remain true to the food I had devoured on roadside plastic stools and make shift restaurant shacks? 

Then came the crepe.  The Slanted Door may have boasted central air conditioning and walk-in refrigerators, but the golden pan-fried crepe presented to me, stuffed with bean sprouts, pork and shrimp, was a near perfect replica of one I had eaten some years before in Saigon on an oppressively humid day sitting outdoors on the dirt floor of restaurant tucked down a narrow alley. 

Ever since I have been wondering how to make that crepe at home.  Would it ever be possible to form that perfect golden batter tinted with turmeric and scented with coconut milk in my own kitchen?

Crepe with Pork and Shrimp

Thanks to Vietnamese Home Cooking I can now definitively answer “yes”.  To be sure, this book is not Vietnamese cooking lite.  Phan’s recipes sometimes require upwards of fifteen ingredients.  But they are the sort of Vietnamese pantry staples- tamarind, rice flour, fish sauce- that once stocked, will keep you in good supply long enough to work through much of this book.

As devoted as he is to creating authentic recipes, Phan remains a sympathetic teacher.  In a recipe for “Hue Rice Dumplings” he demonstrates creating the batter and forming the dumplings in six beautiful, full color photos accompanied by nine, clear-cut steps.  For “Bánh Cuón: Rice Crepes with Pork and Mushrooms”, he explains how to make the proper steaming contraption (a pot that would be sold specifically for this purpose in Vietnam) using a common pasta pot with steamer insert, fabric, and a 16-inch hose clamp easily purchased from Home Depot.

I have already worked my way through a few of the simpler, everyday recipes (Lemongrass Chicken, Halibut Vermicelli with Dill) as well as some more time consuming (Pork Clay Pot with Young Coconut Juice).  As for the crepe, or Bánh Xèo, it was as I had always hoped.  Thanks to an excellent teacher and his well written book, my crepe emerged as an authentic taste of Vietnam, cooked simply, at home. 

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Cookbook Obsession: “Secrets of the Red Lantern”

Southern Vietnamese Fish Cakes

 About once a year a cookbook comes my way that for a period is the object of my culinary obsession.  The latest, “Secrets of the Red Lantern”, arrived a few weeks back via Amazon, a gift from a friend halfway around the world. 

For a cookbook to captivate me, it must add something novel to my kitchen repertoire.  And no, I’m not talking about “50 Ways with Mac N Cheese”, or “Halfway Homemade with Packaged Foods”.  A good cookbook will teach me.  It might teach me technique, as in the case of Jennifer McLagan’s book “Bones” which continues to provide everything I might want to know about cooking meat on the bone.  Or, more often these days, the book goes deep into a particular cuisine of which I have only some familiarity but a lot of curiosity. 

“Secrets of the Red Lantern” is a bit of a hybrid book.  Two parts family history, one part recipes, it is Pauline Nguyen’s story of her family’s flight from Vietnam and settlement in Australia told in words, pictures, and food. 

Tom Rim- Shrimp in Tomato Sauce

This is not the sort of book you take down all in one sitting.  But it is beautiful enough to take a place on the coffee table allowing me to dip in a dip out to read tales of Pauline and her brother Luke’s childhood, drool over the beautiful pictures of some of the favorite family dishes, and dream up which recipe I wish to try out next.

Favorites so far have included Luke’s recreation of one of his mom’s signature dishes at his parents’ restaurant opened when they resettled in Australia.  Tôm Rim, shrimp sautéed with tomato, fish sauce, and black pepper, was assembled with ingredients I can find these days at any American supermarket- tomato paste, shrimp, fish sauce, cilantro.  But the wide range and nuance of flavors from sweet to spicy to tart to bitter, were pure Vietnam.

These days Pauline along with Luke and Mark Jensen, her partner in life and love, make up the team behind the popular Sydney restaurant Red Lantern.  In addition to sharing family recipes these three also manage to break down some better-known Vietnamese dishes into step-by-step instructions simple enough to replicate at home.  Fish cakes, one of my favorite Vietnamese appetizers, appear shockingly easy in this book.  Even though the recipe can be done entirely in the food processor, I took the chef’s recommendation to work the fish sauce into the paste of mackerel, garlic, and green onion by hand.  The work was tough but satisfying.  I could see and feel the texture change to the non-sticky consistency described in the book that signals it is ready to form into cakes and fry. 

Pauline writes in reference to the name of their restaurant, “To raise a red lantern outside your home is a symbol of honoring good company.”  I don’t know when I will have the pleasure of visiting Sydney, but until I do “Secrets of the Red Lantern” is poised to keep me excellent company in the kitchen for sometime to come.

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Yes, You Can Cook Indian

Indian food can be intimidating.  Mysterious sauces, unidentifiable seasonings, potent odors.  But oh is it delicious.  Yet I’m afraid the intimidation factor keeps a lot of people from cooking it and more inclined to eat out. 

Long before Padma Lakshmi was making Indian look sexy on Top Chef, Madhur Jaffrey was helping a generation of home cooks realize that cooking Indian at home for non-Indians can be as sensuous and maybe even more satisfying than having someone cook it for you. 

Madhur Jaffrey’sIndian Cooking is my go-to resource when thinking up a lamb curry with a side of saag (spinach) for a weeknight dinner or a spread of yogurt marinated chicken and green beans when having company over, like I did last weekend.

If the combinations of lentils, rice, flat breads, and meats confuse you, rest assured Jaffrey has that covered.  Each recipe comes with suggestions of what to serve it with.  For instance, a recipe for “Lamb with Spinach” suggests serving it with a side of fried eggplant and a yogurt dish- it is a godsend for menu planning. 

As you become more proficient in the sauces and curries, a few things may become apparent.  1. In some ways, Indian sauces require less work.  For the most part, the sauces go in the blender so less time is required for the precise dicing of vegetables as you may do with more European dishes.  2. Many dishes can be prepared in advance, a boon for the host or hostess.  For instance, in “Chicken in a Butter Sauce” both the chicken in its marinade and the sauce (minus the butter) can be made a day in advance then assembled for cooking just as guests arrive.  3. If you are catering to a mixed group of veggies and meat eaters, this is the cuisine for you.  Side dishes alone can make a complete meal for a vegetarian leaving more Tandoori chicken for everyone else.  That’s what I believe is called a win-win. 

There’s a reason Jaffrey’s books remain some of the top selling books on Indian cooking almost four decades since her first book was published.  For the cost of one take out order, or 3-4 bottles of pre-made sauce, you could hold in your hands a simple step-by-step guide to creating a world of Indian cuisine at home.  Having friends over for a delicious Indian food feast that is simple and crowd pleasing, that’s not just sexy, it's timeless.

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell

Can’t Live Without: 3 Cookbooks for the Holidays

Can’t Live Without: 3 Cookbooks for the Holidays

This time of year, three of my cookbooks seem to spend more time off the shelf than on.  Whether baking holiday treats, setting up a spread for a cocktail party, or dreaming up a show-stopping main course for dinner, I go back to these books for tips over and over again.  These cookbooks are old friends, dog eared and beat up, who are always there for me, no matter how many spots of food I spill on their well loved pages.

  

Martha Stewart’s Hors d’Oeuvres Handbook:  The queen of all things domestic may have just come out with a new book on entertaining, but for my needs, the Hors d’Oeuvres Handbook covers it all.  If you’ve ever wondered how those catering companies find so many clever ways to hold bits of food- cucumber bowls, stuffed grapes, phyllo pockets- Martha has all the answers.  Beautiful photographs detail instructions for the more complicated dishes.  Menus in a back appendix give suggestions for every event from baby showers to a New Year’s Eve cocktail party.  I’m no Martha, but with a little help from her Hors d’Oeuvres book my cocktail parties always feel a little bit classier.

Baking with Julia:  I’d like to think if Julia Child had been my grandmother, this book would have been her collection of baking secrets passed on to me before she died. I go to this book when I need a refresher on making a tender pastry crust or step-by-step instructions for brioche sticky buns.  The holidays are all about baking and the recipes found here cover everything- delicate cookies, bagels, everyday bread, simple tarts, even wedding cakes.   For an infrequent baker such as myself, this book is part teacher, part inspiration, and part grandmotherly baking wisdom. 

Bones- Recipes,History, & Lore:  I have this thing where every Christmas I try to make a more interesting Christmas dinner than I have ever before.  It is to Jennifer McLagan’s indispensable book Bones I go to first when thinking up a new, grand, meat based centerpiece.  McLagan gives tips and recipes for cooking with almost every kind of meat and fish on the bone.  The Millennium Rib Roast, a recipe where a beef rib roast gets a multicolored peppercorn crust bursting with flavor, is one I have gone back to multiple times.  But there is enough in here worthy of a celebration- Crown Roast of Pork, Osso Buco with Fennel and Blood Orange, Seven Hour Leg of Lamb- I’ll have elegant and memorable dinner ideas for many holidays to come. 

Amy Powell is a food and travel writer based in New York City. She is a graduate of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration and the French Culinary Institute. Follow her on Twitter @amymariepowell