VIET KITCHEN IN SYDNEY

I love Apple Crumble as it is extremely easy to make and so tasty.  It’s probably one of the best winter desserts. As soon as it gets out of the oven, I only want to stuck my spoon into it before adding any cream or ice cream. J  

My family and friends love my Apple Crumble as always.   On 25 April 1915, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed on Gallipoli to fight against Ottoman Empire in World War I.  It is said that Australian wives baked Anzac biscuits to send to their soldier husbands at Gallipoli. Every year I bake Anzac biscuits or any dish that would have Anzac biscuits such as this Anzac Apple Crumble.  You can read more about Anzac Day online.    

Anzac Apple Crumble

Ingredients: (serve 4-6)

4 medium apples of your choice (Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Fuji, Red Delicious…)

3 tablespoons (40g)  sugar

1 tablespoon of water

6 home-made or store-bought Anzac biscuits

¼ cup plain/all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

40g sultanas

1 tablespoon sugar

40g unsalted butter, melted

Freshly whipped cream or home-made vanilla ice cream to serve

Method: 1.Preheat oven to 180C/350F. 2.Peel, core and cut apples into 2cm dice. Place in a pan with 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1 tablespoon of water. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Spoon into 6 1-cup-capacity mini casseroles or 1 large ovenproof dish. 3.Break cookies in a mixing bowl, add flour, cinnamon, sultanas, sugar and butter, mix until combined. Divide over the apple mixture. 4.Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until golden. Serve immediately with freshly whipped cream. Yum!

Rice or glutinous/ sticky rice is served as breakfast or day time snack in Vietnam.  When I was a child I remember waiting for the street vendor to pass by my house with her food cart which had different types of glutinous/sticky rice (Xôi).  She normally served Xôi between 2 sheet of edible rice paper (wafer paper), sprinkle with some sesame salt (dukkah) and freshly shredded coconut. Yum! 

I was given these wafer papers when one of my friends returned from Vietnam.  I use them to make some Xôi đậu phộng (peanut sticky rice) for our recent picnic trip.  I normally have assorted sandwiches, cheese, crackers, etc for picnic but I thought of making these Xôi đậu phộng for a change.   It was a hit. People recalled our childhood in Vietnam with these rice paper, even the ones who had not got the same experience like us still enjoyed the sticky rice. 

The traditional way of cooking Xôi is to steam glutinous/sticker rice until it is cooked but I normally cook Xôi in a rice cooker to save time since I came to Australia. I just cook it like the way I cook normal rice.  This recipe is for cooking Xôi with a rice cooker.

Peanut Sticky Rice/Glutinous Rice with sesame salt (Xôi đậu phộng muối mè)

Ingredients:

2 cups of sticky/glutinous rice (380g)

1 cup of raw peanut (90g)

½ teaspoon of salt

2-3 tablespoons of coconut cream

Shredded coconut to serve

For Sesame Salt:

2 tablespoon of roasted sesame

½ teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon sugar

Method:

Place peanut in a small pan and cover with water. Bring it to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain.

Combine rice and peanut in a cooker bowl, wash several times.  Using your index finger to poke down to the bottom of the bowl to measure how much rice and peanut you have in the bowl, add the same level of water to the bowl.  (if you have 7cm high of rice and peanut on the bottom of the bowl, add water to the bowl until it reaches 7cm from the rice level up.)  Once done, return to the cooker and cook as per the cooker’s instructions

As soon as the cooker changes to “warm” button, add coconut cream, quickly mix well with the rice.   Close the lid and cook until the rice is fully cooked/tender (another 15 minutes).

In the meantime, place roasted sesame, salt and sugar in a pestle and mortar, crush until combined.  

Transfer the sticky rice to the bowl, let cool to lukewarm.  Spoon some sticky rice into a wafer paper, sprinkle with some sesame salt and shredded coconut, close with another wafer paper.  Serve immediately.

In the mood for St Patrick's Day, I made this layered shot yesterday.  Very quick and simple, simply layer into a shot glass order over the back of a teaspoon 1/3 shot of crème de Menthe (or Midori), 1/3 shot of Baileys and 1/3 shot of Grand Marnier.  Enjoy!

Home-made natural Durian ice cream is my all time favourite as it brings back the ice cream of my childhood memory in the South of Vietnam. The key ingredient for this type of ice cream is durian, so make sure you get the best Thai or Malaysian durian for this recipe. Whenever I make this ice cream, my family cannot have enough of it.  My friends rate this as the best durian ice cream in Sydney, some even insist me selling this ice cream. :-)

Durian Ice Cream  - Kem Sầu Riêng 

Ingredients (yield about  1.2 litre of ice cream)

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon (110g) caster sugar

200g durian flesh, mashed with a fork

300ml thickened/heavy cream (35% fat)

300ml full cream milk

Method:

Combine the egg yolks and the sugar in a heat-resistant bowl. Place over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly with a whisk or electric handheld mixer/hand beaters for 5-7 minutes or until the mixture is pale and creamy.

Remove  the mixture from the heat, add the cold milk, whisk to combine, set aside.

Whisk the cream in a medium mixing bowl with an electric handheld mixer until soft peaks form. Fold the cream into the egg yolk mixture with a large whisk until almost combined, finally fold in mashed durian until incorporated.

Pour the ice-cream mixture into an airtight container and seal. Place into the freezer.

After 45 minutes, check the ice cream to see if it starts to freeze near the edges, remove it from the freezer and stir/beat vigorously with a spatula/whisk/handheld mixer/stick blender.  Re freeze, repeat this process two more times.  Finally, re freeze for 8 hours or until firm.

I’m not a vegan but sometimes I don’t feel like any meat or seafood, I just cook some vegan dishes. Also, when I have vegan friends coming over, I always have some good dishes for them.  Try my vegan “beef” stew – bò kho chay, you will definitely love it.  A tasty, quick and easy dish, only take about 15-20 minutes to cook.

Vegan “Beef” Stew - Bò Kho Chay

Ingredients: (serve 2)

2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1.5 cm long

1 lemongrass, cut into 5cm long

1 garlic clove, chopped

½ onion or a few French shallots, chopped

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

2 tablespoons of soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Ground black pepper

3 cup (750ml) of water

1 packet of fresh fried tofu (2cm cube) – available at Vietnamese or Asian grocery shops

2 tablespoons of corn starch/tapioca starch + 1 tablespoon of water

Method:

Place carrots, lemongrass, garlic and onion, tomato paste, soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil and pepper in a sauce pan.  

Stir over medium heat for 2 minutes, add water and bring it to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender.  Add tofu, cook for further 5 minutes.  Add the mixture of corn starch and water to thicken the sauce. Mix well, turn off the heat.

Ladle into a bowl or soup plate, serve with basil and warm banh mi.  

Chả Cá Lã Vọng is the only restaurant in Hanoi (and Vietnam) that was listed in the international #1 bestseller “1000 places to see before you die" by Patricia Schultz in 2003.  The name of the restaurant comes from the dish that restaurant serves, ie. Chả Cá (grilled fish) and a Chinese statue named Lã Vọng that used to stand in front of the restaurant. This restaurant has been serving this special dish for more than 100 years from their great-grandfather who created this dish.

I have tried this grilled fish dish in the original restaurant in Hanoi at 14 Cha Ca Street, Hoan Kiem District as well as the well-known ‘Chả Cá Lã Vọng” restaurant in Saigon/HCMC that all of the Hanoians living in Saigon love it. It used to be on Tran Nhat Duat Street, District 1.

This is probably the Hanoi or Northern dish that I like the most. My husband was born in Hanoi so we always enjoy making this dish together.  I’m the one who prepares the fish and all the other ingredients, he would be the one who lights up the BBQ and grills the fish for me.  When he’s not around, I normally grill the fish on a skillet fry-pan as you can see in the below photos.

I used to use sword fish to make this dish, however as sword fish is a type of big fish that contains high level of mercury, I use any firm white fish fillet that I could buy on the day instead.  My general tip for all of the Vietnamese women around the world is to use the white fish fillet that people can use to make fish steak in the country where you live.  So let’s cook, don’t wait until you go back to Vietnam for this dish. I often have lots of credit when serving this dish to friends coming from Hanoi.

Chả Cá Lã Vọng (Hanoi-style Grilled Fish with Dill and Spring Onions/Scallions)

Ingredients: (serve 4)

800g firm Ling white fish fillet, cut into 5mm thick pieces

1 teaspoon of ground turmeric

1.5 teaspoons shrimp paste or fish sauce

1 small galangal, sliced then crushed

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Spring onion (scallions) green part, washed, cut into 5cm long

Spring onion (scallions) white part, cut into julienne strips

2 bunches of dill, washed,  cut into 5cm long

2 Vietnamese sesame rice paper crackers, microwaved on 800Watts for 1.30 minutes to puff

Roasted peanut,  vermicelli noodle, perilla and mint to serve

Extra olive oil to cook

For Shrimp paste sauce:

1 garlic clove

1 bird eye chilli

3 tablespoons Vietnamese shrimp paste

5 tablespoons caster sugar

6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime/lemon juice

Method:

Combine fish, ground turmeric, crushed galangal, shrimp paste/fish sauce, olive oil and black pepper for at least 1 hour.

Combine spring onion green part and dill in a big bowl.

Make Shrimp Paste sauce:  crush garlic and chilli using a pestle and mortar. Spoon into a bowl, add shrimp paste, caster sugar and lemon/lime juice, mix until sugar is dissolved.  

Heat a frying skillet over medium heat, add one tablespoon of oil, then cook the fish, in batches, for 1-2 minutes each side.

In the meantime, heat a cast-iron frying pan  over medium heat, add one tablespoon of oil, place a handful of dill and spring onions, quickly fry them through.  Arrange the fried/grilled fish on top of the herbs, serve the whole pan on the table together with vermicelli noodle, crushed peanut, rice paper crackers, spring onion strips, fresh herbs and shrimp paste. (serve fish and fried herbs in batches)

How to eat:  place some vermicelli noodle into a serving bowl, add some fried/grilled fish together with dill and spring onions on top, some crushed peanut, rice cracker, spring onion strips, drizzle with a little of shrimp paste and serve.

Lưu ý:

If you grill the fish on a BBQ, once the fish is cooked, transfer to a baking tray and cover with foil to keep warm and fry herbs in batches then serve.

In Vietnam, the fish, dill and spring onion are cooked on the table in a hot frying pan with plenty of oil. I prefer to stir fry the herbs before adding grilled fish to avoid consuming too much oil.

Adjust sugar, lime and shrimp paste to your liking.

This is a very popular dish in Chinese restaurants at Sydney.  I created my own recipe for the sauce trying to replicate the restaurant dish.  Everyone who has tasted my dish exclaiming that it got the exact taste like the one in Chinese restaurants.

I first put up the recipe on my old blog many years ago using oyster sauce and soy sauce for the dressing.  However, I met some Chinese friends who told me oyster sauce was not good to consume often. Therefore, I omit oyster sauce and use both dark and light soy sauce to make the dressing.  I have 2 versions of soy sauce dressing below for you to try. I love both of them for the taste but prefer the 2 soy sauce dressing.

Steamed Abalones with Gingers and Spring Onions/Scallions

Ingredients:

1 dozen of baby abalones, removed, cleaned and washed then put back to the shells

5 green onion/shallot (white part), cut into 5cm long, cut into julienne strips

2, 3 slices of ginger, cut into julienne strips

5 stalks of coriander, cut into 5cm long.

For Oyster and Soy Sauce dressing:

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

½  tablespoon Maggi soy sauce

½ cup (125ml) water

½ teaspoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil (or sunflower oil)

For Dark and Light Soy Sauce dressing:

½ tablespoon dark soy sauce sauce

½  tablespoon Maggi soy sauce

½ cup (125ml) water

½ teaspoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil (or sunflower oil)

1 pinch of salt

Method:

Combine oyster sauce, soy sauce, water, sugar and oil in a saucepan, bring to the boil, reduce heat to simmer.

Steam abalones with shells in a steamer/ steam oven for 5-10 minutes depending on the heat of your steamer (do not overcook them, they will be tough).

Preheat a serving plate in microwave or oven.

Arrange steamed abalones on the preheated plate, pour hot dressing all over the abalones, sprinkle shallot, ginger, coriander. Sprinkle ground pepper on top. Serve immediately.

Note: you should ask the fishmonger to remove abalones' shells for you.

Chè is a type of dessert in Vietnam.  Bắp means Corn so Chè Bắp simply means Corn Dessert or Corn Pudding.  This dessert is vegan and gluten free. 

Corn pudding is normally served with coconut sauce in the South of Vietnam.  In the North, people tend to eat Chè Bắp without coconut sauce in the old days.  Nowadays, Vietnamese northerners also add coconut sauce in their Corn puddings.  However, southerners tend to add some salt to the coconut sauce as we believe the salt will balance the sweetness of the pudding and make it taste better. Traditionally, Vietnamese will cook sticky rice before adding corn but I find it harder to cook them separately as sticky rice sticks to the bottom of the pan. This is how I show my friends to cook and serve corn pudding to my guests.

Vietnamese Corn Pudding (Chè Bắp)

Ingredients: (server 4-6)

250g thinly sliced corn (3 medium ears of corn)

¼ cup (50g) sticky rice/ glutinous rice

½ cup (110g) sugar

2-3  cups (500-750ml) of water

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or 3 pandan leaves , cut into 8cm length

Coconut sauce to serve 

Method:

Combine corn, sticky/glutinous rice and 2 cups of water in a medium pan; cover with lid and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat to lowest (as low as possible), simmer until sticky rice is tender, about 30 minutes, stir occasionally.  If the mixture thickens but rice is not tender yet, add another cup of water, continue to cook until rice is tender.

Stir in sugar, cook for further 2 minutes.  Remove from heat, add vanilla extract, leave to cool to lukewarm or room temperature.

Prepare coconut sauce according to directions here.

Spoon corn pudding into a bowl or desert glass, top up with coconut sauce, serve lukewarm, at room temperature but best served cold.   

Notes:  

Pandan leaves lend natural flavour and aroma to the pudding.  In case you cannot find pandan leaves, stir in a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the pudding right after removing it from heat. Cook pandan leaves with corn and glutinous rice from the beginning, remove the leaves before adding sugar.

Chè (Vietnamese pudding) normally tastes less sweet when hot.  Keep that in mind to adjust sugar to your liking.  

Before serving, sprinkle with some sesame seeds if you like.          

I make this ice cream to replicate the Mango Macadamia & Cream Weis bars which are my only favourite supermarket ice creams in Australia. Everyone around me knows that I make almost everything at home. I like making my own ice-cream as I know what I put in it and adjust sugar/flavour to my liking.  Also, home-made ice cream does not contain food additives such as emulsifier, xanthan gum, thickeners, stabilizer etc.   Mango and Macadamia are a perfect combination of Australia's best produces.  Mango season is still on in Australia.  Let's make some ice cream for the hot weather this week.

Mango Macadamia Ice Cream

Ingredients (yield about 1.5 litre of ice cream)

4 egg yolks

120g (1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon) caster sugar

Cheeks of 1 large mango (about 350g), pureed

300ml thickened/heavy cream (35% fat)

300ml full cream milk

½ cup macadamia, crushed

Method:

Combine the egg yolks and the sugar in a heat-resistant bowl. Place over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly with a whisk or electric handheld mixer for 5-7 minutes or until the mixture is very warm, pale and creamy

Remove the mixture from the heat, add the cold milk, whisk to combine, set aside.

Whisk the thickened/heavy cream in a medium mixing bowl with an electric handheld mixer until soft peaks form. Fold half the cream into the egg mixture with a large whisk/spatula until almost combined. Add the remaining cream and fold gently until thoroughly combined, fold in pureed mango until combined.

Pour the ice-cream mixture into an airtight container and seal. Place into the freezer.

After 45 minutes, check the ice cream to see if it starts to freeze near the edges, remove it from the freezer and stir/beat vigorously with a spatula/whisk/handheld mixer/stick blender.  Re freeze, repeat this process two more times.  Finally, fold in crushed macadamia and re-freeze for 8 hours or until firm. Serve with extra crushed macadamia.

Note:  

Alternatively, churn the ice cream mixture at step 3 in an ice-cream maker/machine according to the manufacturer’s directions.

KOI’s 6 course degustation ($77)

Last week we visited KOI to try Reynold Poernomo’s new dessert bar.  Reynold was the best dessert contestant in Masterchef Australia history. He impressed the judges and viewers with his chef-quality desserts during the Masterchef 2015.  We were pleased with his pastries  and coffee and decided to book for a dinner to try his 6 course degustation menu.  I’m a big fan of degustation menu so if the restaurant has a degustation menu, I always want to try it.

The first dish “Snack” was actually a slice of fresh tomato with chilli sauce, topped up with a crispy, twisty cracker and micro herbs.  It was a very refreshing and tasty dish. I totally enjoyed it.  It was a great start with that chilli heat. 

Second dish was “Steamed barramundi, dashi, parsnip quinoa porridge”. The fish was cooked to perfection and quite nice to pair with the dashi porridge which was actually jelly.  Although the dish was quite lean and light to enjoy, it was like a Japanese dish.  I expected more Indonesian cuisine here.

The third dish which was the poached chicken with toasted nuts and grains and spiced coconut espuma (foam).  I liked the espuma which had curry flavour and was the centre of the dish as it brought all of the elements (chicken, rice, nuts, grains) together.  However, I would love a little bit more of curry powder or chilli in the espuma. It  just needed a punch in this dish.

After the three savoury dishes, the fourth dish was the first sweet dish.  It was described as “Citrus cheesecake, honeycomb, curd, burnt orange and fraiche”. It was a very well balanced dish and had all of the elements and flavours.  We all loved it.

The 5th dish was “Chocolate mousse, raspberry gel, consommé jelly, chocolate almond soil and chocolate ganache strawberry”.  This is a version of his famous “Forbidden apple” in the Masterchef 2015 show.  Chocolate mousse and raspberry gel were filled in a chocolate shell which was perfectly combined with jelly, almond soil and fresh strawberry and raspberry.  It was a great dish to enjoy!  My children especially loved the moment of truth when they cut open the ball to see the raspberry jelly oozed out.

Last dish was “Poached peach, almond soil, rosemary cream, rose and thyme.”  The poached peach looked perfect with a thin jelly layer like peach skin but it was quite sour, I would love the peach to be poached with some sugar or alternatively increase the sugar level on other elements.  Overall, this dish was not sweet enough for me and I’m sure it would not be sweet enough for Australian people in general.

In general, the menu was nice to try and shows Reynold's strength in desserts. However, I think Reynold can do it better with his talent. Firstly, there should not be 2 "steam" and "poach" dishes for the savoury as they are somehow the same cooking method with mainly water. If the first dish is "steam", the other dish should be "grill" or "roast" or "bake".  Secondly, the menu should be rearranged again. The very first dish came out with a chilli heat but the other two savoury dishes followed on were very light. Furthermore, the chocolate mousse dessert should be served at the end as it was the sweetest dish of all.  After having the sweet chocolate mousse I could not finish my sour poached peach.  Lastly, it was probably the very first degustation menu that did not make me feel full.  Perhaps he should design a 8 course menu with 5 savouries and 3 desserts and I would love to see more Indonesian influence on his savoury dishes when we return next time.

Some of the pastries we got at his café last week: ($9 each)

KOI Dessert Bar

Address: 42-44 Kensington Street, Chippendale, Sydney

Here is the funky, chunky, messy and trendy chocolate milkshake that I made with my children on weekends.  Nowadays cafes and restaurants in Sydney offer this messy milkshake everywhere.   I often make chocolate milkshake for them since they were much smaller.  In general, chocolate milkshake is very simple to make, just remember 3 main ingredients: milk, chocolate and ice cream.  If I have my home-made chocolate ice cream, I only need to add milk. However, if I only have my home-made vanilla ice cream, I normally add some chocolate powder such as Milo.  Below is the recipe for this funky drink:

Chocolate Milkshake

Ingredients (serve 1)

1 cup (250ml) full cream fresh milk

2 scoops of chocolate ice-cream

100g dark chocolate + 2 tablespoon heavy/thickened/whipping cream

Assorted chocolates to decorate

Freshly whipped cream to serve

Method:

Microwave dark chocolate and thickened cream in a bowl, stir until dissolved.  Dip the rim of a glass into the melted chocolate, spread some melted chocolate inside the glass and leave to cool.

Place milk and chocolate ice cream into a blender and process until smooth.  Pour into the prepared glass, add some whipped cream, and decorate with assorted chocolate.   Serve immediately.  

Tips:

Add 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream + 1 tablespoon of Milo (chocolate power) if you don't have chocolate ice cream on hands.  

Mango is my most favourite fruit.  I use mango for making cakes, desserts, ice creams, jams, salads, savoury dishes, smoothie and cocktails.  I love margarita and like to make mango margarita when it's mango season in Australia (from November to February).

Mango Margarita

Ingredients:

2 oz (60ml) Tequila

1 oz (30ml) Triple Sec or Cointreau

150g cold mango, chopped

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime/lemon juice

1 teaspoon sugar syrup or 1 teaspoon of caster sugar

5 ice cubes

Method:

1.      Spread salt onto a saucer.  Rub the edge of the margarita glass with a lime wedge then press into salt to create a salted rim. Place the glass into the fridge.

2.      Place mango into a blender, add tequila, triple sec/Cointreau, lime juice, sugar syrup and ice cubes.  Process until smooth and pour into the margarita glass. Decorate with a slice of mango. Serve immediately.

Fresh Rice Paper Rolls are one of my favourite dishes in summer (but frankly speaking I have them all year round).  I can have them for lunch or dinner.  They are also great for finger foods when I host a party at home.  My work colleagues and friends love them so much that they always ask for my recipe after tasting them.   Some of them even talked about the rolls with their partners at home.  I have received lots of compliments about my traditional Vietnamese fresh rolls.

The recipe below is the traditional Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls with the ingredients that you can find in the South of Vietnam (North of Vietnam did not have rice paper rolls before but you can find them now in Hanoi too).  However, you can roll it with any meat/seafood that you like.   I sometimes use BBQ chicken at supermarkets to make the rolls when I don’t have time to peel the prawns or cook the meat. 

Prawn Rice Paper Rolls (Gỏi Cuốn Tôm Thịt)

Ingredients: (serve 4-6)

1 kg cooked king prawns or tiger prawns, peeled, deveined, split lenghways in half

500g of cooked pork belly, thinly sliced

300g of dried Vietnamese rice vermicelli noodles

Lettuce, mint, coriander and garlic chive; washed, drained

Vietnamese rice paper wrappers

Vietnamese peanut dipping sauce

Shredded carrot (optional)

Dried shallot, crushed peanut, chilli or chilli sauce to serve

Method:

Place the noodles in a pan, cover with water, cook over medium heat and bring to the boil, simmer for 5 minutes or until just tender. Drain in a colander and run under cold water until completely cool. Leave to drain. Transfer to a plate and microwave for 1 or 2 minutes before serve.

Make the sauce following the instructions in Vietnamese peanut dipping sauce.

Fill a large shallow bowl with room temperature water. Quickly soak one rice-paper sheet in the water. Drain on a dinner plate. Place some lettuce and a noodle on the rice paper sheet towards you. Top up with some herbs and pork belly. Fold in ends and top with 2 prawns and some garlic chives. Roll up firmly to enclose filling, see below photos. (Alternatively place all the ingredients at once and roll up firmly) – just similar to roll spring rolls, see how to roll a deep-fried spring rolls for more details here.

Serve with Vietnamese peanut dipping sauce .  

Tips: 

After quickly dip a rice paper sheet into the water, try to arrange the filling as quickly as possible and roll it before the rice paper sheet is too soft to roll (it will stick to the plate). (should be in 2-3 minutes J)

Try to look for the Vietnamese rice papers as the Thai ones are very thick, chewy and you will need soak them in hot water instead. When I first arrived in Australia 13 years ago, I was very disappointed with the only Thai rice papers that was available. For the last 4 years, Vietnamese rice papers have been imported to Australia.  They are much thinner and you only need to quickly soak them in normal tap water.  

Vietnam is famous for its fresh tasted food such as prawn or chicken rice paper rolls.  My friends and colleagues at work have often asked me for the recipe of the dipping sauce so that they can make their own fresh rolls at home. Here is my recipe for you to whip up in minutes. (I use 15ml tablespoon and 250ml cup measurement)

Vietnamese Peanut Dipping Sauce for Rice Paper Rolls

Ingredients: (make about 1 cup)

4 tablespoons Hoisin sauce

3 tablespoons smooth/crunchy peanut butter

1 tablespoon tomato sauce/ketchup

3/4 cup (180ml) water

Method:

Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat.

Stir or whisk until combined and bring to a boil, turn off the heat and leave to cool to room temperature.

Add shredded carrot, dried shallot, crushed peanut and serve as dipping sauce for the Vietnamese fresh rice paper rolls.

Notes:  Add more water if you would like a runny sauce.  Bear in mind that the sauce is thickened when cool.

I made these cocktails for my husband and I after dinner today as it was such a hot day in Sydney and I have spare passion fruits lying in the fridge. It is going to be so hot this week.  Let’s make some Passionfruit mojito or Cherry mojito for yourself.

Passionfruit Mojito

Ingredients: (serve 1)

6 mint leaves

2 passion fruits

1 ½ oz (45ml) dark Rum

1 oz (30ml) sugar syrup

1 oz (30ml) freshly squeezed lime juice

Soda water and ice cubes

Extra mint and passion fruits to garnish

Method:

Muddle mint leaves to release the mint oil.  Add rum, sugar syrup, lime juice and passion fruit pulp (reserve ¼ passionfruit for garnish).  Fill the glass with ice and soda water.  Stir and garnish with extra passion fruit and mint.  Serve

I have introduced the traditional Beef Pho and Chicken Pho to you.  Now  I'd like to show you another version of Pho that I often cook for my children as they love beef tendon. Beef tendon is actually made from ground beef and tendon that are processed in the food processor until smooth and made into balls. It's quite easy to make, I'll make a separate post for beef tendon one day.  To make it simple for this post, you only need to get beef tendon at any Vietnamese grocery shops. 

Beef Tendon Pho - Phở  Bò Viên

Ingredients: (serve 4 or 6)

1 kg of beef marrow bone/ beef soup bone

½ kg of beef brisket or flank steak

2 onions

1 piece of ginger about (about 6cm)

3.5 litre of water

3 tablespoons of Vietnamese fish sauce

2 teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

 1 small piece of cinnamon

A few star anise, cardamom, and black pepper

A few coriander/cilantro roots

1 packet of beef tendon, available at Vietnamese grocery shops

Extra onion, thinly sliced.

Coriander, spring onion, Viet/Thai basil, bean sprout, lime/lemon to serve

Fresh Pho rice noodle to serve

Method:

Place the beef bones into a large pot, covered with cold water and bring it to the boil on high heat for a few minutes.　Drain and wash both bones and pot, return the bones back in the pot.　Add the　brisket, cover with 3.5 litres of water.

Char the onions and ginger over the open flame. Remove the burned skin, wash and add onions and ginger to the pan. Add fish sauce, salt, sugar and coriander roots, cinnamon, star anise, cardamom and black pepper to the pot. 　Cover with lid and cook over medium heat, bring to the boil then place the lid slightly askew and reduce heat to gentle simmer for 1.5 hours, occasionally skim off scum while simmering.

When the meat is tender, remove from pot, leave to cool then cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge until required.　 Continue to simmer the beef bones for another hour (don’t fully close the lid while simmering the broth).　 The longer you cook this nourishing broth, the more savoury and concentrated it will become.　 At this stage, taste the broth, season with extra fish sauce, salt and sugar to your liking.　

Quarter each beef tendon then place in a small saucepan, cover with hot boiling water, cook for a few minutes, drain and transfer into the stock pot.

Slice the cooked brisket as thinly as possible.

Place rice noodle on a bowl, add onion and microwave for 1 minute to heat up the noodle bowl.　 Add sliced brisket on top, ladle over the hot boiling stock with beef tendon, garnish with coriander, spring onion. Serve immediately with bean sprout, basil, chilli, lime/lemon (serve the bone marrow as well if you like ).　　

Tips:

If you can’t get fresh Pho rice noodle, buy dried noodle instead.　 Place the dried rice noodle in a pan, cover with water, bring it just to a boil, drain and run under cold water.  Leave to drain. Don’t overcook it, keep it slightly chewy, it will be soften when soaking in hot boiling broth.

It is important to skim off scum while cooking to have a clear broth. Add one cup of water (250ml) into the stock pot while simmering if the stock has reduced/vapourised too much.　

I don’t use MSG or chicken powder in my cooking, but all of the restaurants use these in their Pho.　 After tasting your broth, if you’re not happy with the taste, add 1 teaspoon of chicken powder into the broth.

In Vietnam, they normally heat up the fresh noodles in boiling water,　 I use microwave to speed up the process and reduce the washing up.

Happy New Year 2016 everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful New Year celebration.  We had a great holiday with our friends who came from Melbourne to stay with us for a week.  We did a lot of fun trips together.  Hopefully I can have time to update you some of recent trips.

We had a little celebration in the evening at home.  As my place is quite close to the city, at 11:30pm we drove to The Rocks to watch fireworks from there.  We have tried not to join the crowd for fireworks but do it this way for the last few years. It's better for the children.   Below are some photos of the fireworks at Sydney Harbour Bridge and Darling Harbour.