Vietnamese dishes in thought

So the culinary adventure continues. A few months ago, I tried my hand at Banh Cuon. Being the first time ever, I was a little intimidated. Collecting all the necessary ingredients was only the first step, and usually the hardest part to cooking Vietnamese food. I roughly followed this recipe, but basically threw together the filling items, added fish sauce to taste, and followed the banh cuon batter mix's instructions on the bag. The filling turned out great and tasty (now I understand why Viet use ground pork in everything). The most difficult step by far was turning the banh cuon batter over in the pan. Otherwise, the steps weren't too bad and in the end we got to enjoy one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes.

Churning out banh cuon gave me the courage to try more dishes. Next on the list was Banh Xeo, the hubby's favorite. Once again, just getting all the essential ingredients was half the battle. I followed the recipe on the flour mix bag. This one is actually much easier to make than banh cuon, the hardest part here being getting the crepe nice and crispy. I'm no expert by any means, but the more oil, the more crispy (think deep-fried foods), though I'm not a fan of using lots of oil. So I ended up covering the pan with some cooking spray to prevent the crepe from sticking, and turning up the heat. This crisped it up decently, but for extra crisp, I put it in the toaster/convection oven for a few minutes to 1. keep it warm, and 2. did I mention how important the crisp is?? :) All in all, it was pretty good, though I would pre-cook the pork less next time so it doesn't overcook once I put it in the banh xeo. This one I wouldn't mind making from time to time, since it's much less labor intensive than banh cuon (though that is still my favorite!). If you're curious about the recipe, but don't want to run out just to look at a bag of the flour mix, check this recipe out (with great pics too).

And here's two more things I tried and liked (I have a big chunk of taro in my fridge right now for the next che batch).

Pandan Waffles-

the aroma of the pandan and coconut milk that
fills the kitchen is simply amazing

Che Khoai Mon-
taro dessert soup (another hubby favorite); it's the same as my
Che Bap recipe but replace the corn with cubed taro;
click on the name for the revised recipe

So what to try next?? :)