4, Mar 2013
Grilled Lemongrass Pork

This is based on the lemongrass pork chop recipe in Charles Phan’s Vietnamese Home Cooking. I haven’t tried it with bone-in chops but it is amazing with pork shoulder. The fat really crisps up well and it acquires an amazing glaze from the sugar. Good with a salad, in banh…

3, Jul 2011
Banh Mi

Ingredients Baguettes Paté Vietnamese grilled pork Pickled jalapenos Pickled cabbage Directions Slice the baguettes open along one side. Spread one half with paté. Add jalapenos, pork, and cabbage. Eat.

3, Jul 2011
Thit Nuong – Vietnamese Grilled Pork

I followed this recipe. I used boneless country ribs (aka pork butt), sliced to about 1/4″. I also haven’t yet found a “meat cage” the right size (might have to make one), so just laid them on the grill. I also cannot for the life of me mince lemongrass properly;…

8, May 2011
House special noodles

House special noodles isn’t a recipe so much as a general concept — noodle soup made with whatever happens to be handy, the more the merrier. This one was fortunately much more successful than our last attempt and will probably be the basis for future recipes. The vital difference was…

22, Jan 2011
House special noodles

Inspired by a bowl of “house special” soup at Green Leaf that included all kinds of stuff (in comparison to my usual favorite, the elegantly simple pho), we decided to make our own house special soup with whatever was on hand. This one came out pretty good, though if the…

9, Nov 2010
Grilled Lemongrass Chicken

This chicken was inspired by a good Vietnamese vermicelli bowl and is meant to be good served that way or over rice. Would work well with nuoc cham or barbecue sauce (or this one) for dipping. I tried to cut the chicken in chunks and thread them on metal skewers,…

31, Jul 2010
Viet-Korean Braised Roast

After the carnitas fail, I decided to just repeat the pressure-cooker braising part, with a slight adjustment to make the beef less salty. Here is the result: a delicious braised tri-tip roast with strong asian flavors. Ingredients 3 lb tri-tip roast, cut into 2″ chunks 4 cloves garlic, minced 2″…

31, Jul 2010
Viet-Korean Karnitas FAIL

Due to certain events, we had a lot of beef to cook in a short time, and so I decided to experiment with combining the technique of carnitas with the flavorings of pho and kalbi. The first step, slow-cooking (or this case pressure-cooking) the beef actually was not a fail…

27, Apr 2010
Vietnamese Rice and Kalbi Beef Soup

This is based on my rice and grilled pork soup recipe, which itself is just one way of using leftover pho broth. This time, I decided to experiment with the broth a little, using this recipe. Also, instead of making the kalbi with country ribs I went with bottom round…

25, Apr 2010
Asian Beef Broth

This broth is based on my pho recipe, but I scaled back the spices relative to the beef flavor a little. I also took a couple of ideas from the cinnamon beef recipe, adding a cinnamon stick and a little soy sauce. Finally, I added some mushrooms for a little…