Cha Ca Fish with Dill, Hanoi Style

This is a classic style of Vietnamese dish: cooked fish over noodles with oodles of fresh veggies for condiments and Nuoc Cham (Everyday dipping sauce). These dishes are very impressive at dinner parties with all of the color and texture.

From Quick & Easy Vietnamese Cooking.

Cha Ca Fish with Dill, Hanoi Style

I make a variation on this dish all the time. Instead of fish, you can substitute in grilled chicken or steak. Just serve your meat on top of a bowl of noodles, garnish with fresh vegetables and finish it off with Nuoc Cham, and you are set for a delicious, healthy meal.

I like to use Tilapia for this sort of recipe. It is a firm, white fleshed fish that soaks up the flavors easily and doesn't fall apart when you cook it.

Cut 1 pound of firm fish fillets of your choice into 2 inch-3inch square pieces. Toss gently with 2 Tablespoons fish sauce, 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 Tablespoon chopped ginger, 1 teas. ground tumeric (adds color more than anything else), and a pinch of salt. Cover and chill to marinate for at least one hour and up to one day.

ACCOMPANIMENTS:
1/2 pound thin rice noodles or angel hair pasta.
3 cups shredded lettuce (I like to use red leaf)
1 cup fresh mint, cilantro, or basil (or a combo)
1 cucumber, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped, roasted peanuts
NUOC CHAM dipping sauce

Cook 1/2 lb. of your preferred noodle and divide between 4 bowls.

Prepare all accompaniments before you cook the fish.

NUOC CHAM: (it is a good idea to double this, it goes fast!)
1 T chopped garlic
2 T sugar
1/2 chile-garlic sauce
3 T fish sauce
3 T water
2-3 T freshly squeezed lime juice

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well to disolve sugar. If you want to be really hard core, mash garlic, sugar, and chile sauce first in a mortar and pestle.

DO NOT skimp on the fish sauce. It smells strong at first, but will mellow.
Transfer to small bowls to serve to each guest alongside their dish or I usually just put it in one larger bowl and let everyone ladle some for themselves.

To cook fish, heat 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil in a large, heavy skillet or casserole. Heat oil until a bit of garlic sizzles when you add it to the pan. Add drained fish to pan and cook about 3 minutes. Gently turn fish and add chopped green onion and fresh chopped dill to pan. I only had dried dill, and it tasted great. Make sure green onions and dill gets lightly tossed with fish.

To serve, place a few pieces of fish on top of noodles and allow guests to add in their own accompaniments and Nuoc Cham.

Enjoy! This dish is easy to make and will give you a nice taste of Vietnamese cooking.

Cooking the Vietnamese Way

I never tire of eating Vietnamese cooking. The ingredients are always so fresh, use little added fat, and the frequent combination of chiles, herbs like basil and mint, garlic, and ginger, and peanuts are so delicious and mouth watering. They also have an interesting twist of French colonial history, so it isn't weird to put carrots and tofu on a baguette or eat a puff pastry to start out your meal.

The two main things to know about Vietnamese cooking are:
1) Fish sauce-you can't be afraid of fish sauce (nuoc mam). Yes, it smells like your brother's dirty gym socks that he insisted upon wearing three days in a row. But once you have either cooked with it or combined it with other ingredients, the smell mellows and it adds such an essential part to the flavor and smell of the dishes. Without it, your dishes will only be so-so.

2) Fresh ingredients and patient prepping of foods is key. A lot of the dishes are about delicately sliced vegetables mixed with fresh herbs over rice or noodles with maybe some sort of meat and a little sauce or broth. Substitutions can be made easily, so you don't have to panic if you don't have Thai Basil, you can use regular basil or even cilantro and just move on.

Even though we like to think we are so worldly in our local grocery stores, I still find it hard to find exactly all the ingredients I want at the local Fred Meyer's or Metropolitan Markup (Market). Just under two miles from my house, up on South 38th, is a crazy good, but slightly scruffy looking East Asia Supermarket, or maybe it's called Super East Asian Market, I can't remember. OK, maybe scruffy is a little too nice, really dirty looking would be better, like maybe they actually let the chickens run around in the shop before they butcher them--I like to think of it as the poor man's Uwajimaya. (I love Uwajimaya, but the nearest one is 36 miles up the road in Seattle and is pretty damned expensive.)

But please don't be put off by my filthy description. You can find artichoke tea here and daikon the size of your thigh and super cheap herbs and coconut milk for $1 a can and rice in 50lb sacks and rice sticks and noodles in all shapes and sizes. They also have delicate looking quail eggs, interesting East Asian beers, and plastic Chinese noodle bowls complete with classic red and white designs. I still haven't gotten up the nerve to buy any meat products here, as I prefer to buy organic meats whenever possible, but I've heard from others that the meat is fine. This is where I will be buying most of my ingredients for my foray into Vietnamese cooking.

I am diving into Quick and Easy Vietnamese by Nancy McDermott. I hope you will join me. The food is delicious.

New Cook Book(s)

Okay, how long has it been since I have posted here? I'm embarrassed. But I guess that is the way of the world when you are a blogging newbie. I have a new blog now that covers the whole range of things in my life: arts, the garden, design, do-it-yourself, and, of course, cooking.

House InsideOut

But I am sticking with this blog as well. In fact, I have even found myself a new cookbook to be cooking out of. Actually, I have found two cookbooks; two that are diametrically opposed from each other.

The first one is The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. She, a genius in her own time, yes? These are classic foods, stripped down to the basics. I am sure there are some badly needed basic tips and tricks for me in this book.

The second is Quick & Easy Vietnamese by Nancie McDermott. I originally checked this out from the library and then found so many delicious recipes that I had to go and buy it! I love Vietnamese food and am looking forward to exploring this book thoroughly.

I discovered in my first project, cooking from How To Eat Supper, I got a little bored with the author's tastes. My second mistake was trying to cook all of the variations. I now know that many of these variations in many (ok, not all, but many) cookbooks are basically space fillers. By the results of some of my "variations" I am fairly certain the authors never even tried them themselves. Finally. I am giving myself as much time as I need to finish; no rushed deadlines and stress--who needs it?

So now I have two cookbooks with lots of variation between the two of them and off I go!

Day 46: Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup With Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho)

Ok, after the last dud, this one is a real winner. However, I wish they would just quit with the obnoxiously long names.

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup with Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho)

Pho always seemed a little too complicated to make at home, like there was a mystery item, a certain something (like some nasty ingredient I probably didn't want to know about anyways) that gave it the delicious flavor. Happily, I was wrong. About the disgusting ingredient, that is. The secret to the broth is anise, believe it or not, and the ubiquitous fish sauce. You cannot skip these ingredients.

Note: You are going to be cooking your beef by pouring the boiling broth on top of it in the bowl. Your steak (6-8 oz. top round) will need to be sliced extra thin so wrap it and throw it the freezer right now so that in 20 minutes you can slice it more easily.

Turn on your broiler. Set your oven rack 4-6 inches from heat.

Start by spreading foil over a baking sheet. Spread out (all peeled and thin sliced) one onion, 4 cloves garlic, and one 2-3 inch piece of ginger. Add 5 grinds of fresh black pepper and 1 whole star anise, bruised or 1/2 teaspoon anise seeds. (I used the anise seeds, it turned out great.) Broil 5 minutes, turning once. Watch carefully! It is good if the onions get a tiny brown. A couple of mine became black and I had to toss them because I think the burnt flavor would permeate everything.

Scrape onion/spice mix into large 6 quart pot. Add 4 14 0z cans of chicken broth. (The authors hate boxed broth. I use it all the time and think it tastes fine.) Also toss in 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons fish sauce.

Bring to a gentle boil, cover and simmer 20 minutes.

While the broth is cooking, cook your 6-8 oz. of rice noodles to your preference. Some cooks prefer to just soak the noodles in hot water. I usually bring the water to a boil with the noodles in the pot and then immediately pull them off the heat and let them soak in the hot water.

While your noodles are cooking, prepare the veggie part of the meal. On a serving platter, arrange cilantro sprigs, fresh Thai or regular basil, thin-sliced jalapenos, a big handful of bean sprouts, and lime wedges.

When your noodles are ready, divide them into 2 large bowls. We had a lot of left over noodles. We could have easily served 4 versus 2.

Slice your steak as thin as you can and divide into the bowls, on top of your noodles. (You could easily substitute chicken for steak.)
Ladle the boiling broth into the bowls and serve immediately. Top with your veggies and serve hoisin sauce and chile sauce at the table.Easy to make and gives such a lovely presentation. Delicious. The jalapenos I used were so spicy our noses and eyes were running. But damn, it hit the spot!

73 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 45: Spring Vegetables and White Beans Scented with Fresh Bay

The name is deceptive on this one. There are very few vegetables in this and they can be easily had at any time.

Spring Vegetables and White Beans Scented with Fresh Bay

This is one of those few recipes in here where you wonder if they actually really made this. It is under the vegetable main events (A very desperate chapter) but it is more like a soup than anything else and you don't get the idea that it is a stew until the last paragraph when it says "serve the stew with drizzles of olive oil...." I thought it was going to be something to serve over rice. Hmm.

Anyways, combine 2 cups of chicken broth with 4 medium carrots (cut into 3" long matchsticks), 8 thin sliced cloves of garlic, and 2 fresh bay leaves, bruised. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until the carrots are cooked to your preference.

Add one can of white beans, 3 cups fresh baby spinach, salt and pepper, and stir to wilt the spinach. Cook, covered, for up to 5 minutes to heat the beans through.Squeeze in some lemon, remove the bay leaves and "serve the stew with drizzles of olive oil and sprinklings of grated Parmigiano."BOR-ING.
It wasn't quite soup and it wasn't quite thick enough to serve over rice. The bay was completely over whelming, and it just have been called White Beans with Soggy Carrots in Bay Broth.

Skip this one. A rare lump of coal.

72 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 44: Crisp Brick-Fried Chicken With Rosemary and Whole Garlic Cloves, Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes"

In every cookbook there exists one or two recipes that look incredibly technical, or just plain intimidating, is inevitably avoided at all costs, and this is one of them.

Crisp Brick-Fried Chicken with Rosemary and Whole Garlic Cloves
Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes"

I have avoided this recipe from the beginning. If I wasn't committed to cooking everything in the book, I probably wouldn't ever have made it. Anything involving a garden variety brick placed on top of a chicken was enough to send me into shock without the idea of butterflying the chicken as well.

In truth, this recipe probably has the fewest ingredients of any of the other recipes and requires dirtying only one, maybe two pans at most.

First, you need a nice organic chicken, butterflied. The annoying thing is that while there are instructions on how to butterfly, there are no diagrams or photos. So you have to wing it and be confident that it will turn out exactly as it should.

I made the butterflying part easy. After picking out my chicken, I had the butcher at the grocery store butterfly it for me. He had a nice big cutting board and it took him less than 15 seconds. Problem one, down.

Problem two, find a brick. Or two bricks if you have a large chicken. So run out into the garden find your least mucky brick and then cover it in foil. The weight of the brick helps press the chicken down on the pan so it will brown and cook faster.
Next, you need to rub salt and pepper all over the chicken and press four sprigs of rosemary into it as well. The authors tell you to tuck the wings back, flat against the breasts, but I could never get the wings to stay put.Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat in the largest, heaviest, non-stick skillet that you have. Place chicken, skin up in the skillet and place your brick on top of your bird. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the underside of your bird is brown.Turn over with tongs and tuck 8+ cloves of unpeeled garlic, lightly smashed around the bird. If you peel the garlic, they will burn. Replace the brick and make sure the chicken is making good contact with the pan. Cook for 12 more minutes until the skin is crisp and brown. The temperature in the thighs should be 170 F. After 12 minutes, my chicken was nowhere near done . The oven was already on to cook garlic bread, so I actually transferred the chicken to a baking sheet and popped it in the oven for another 10 minutes(sans brick) and it came out perfect. The rosemary is really the secret ingredient here. The chicken ends up with a delightful rosemary essence, not over-powering at all.

While the chicken was cooking, I made the Garlic-Cauliflower "Mashed Potatoes". Basically, chop up a head of cauliflower, along with the core and leaves. Layer into a steamer basket, the leaves and core, then half the cauliflower florets, sliced garlic, salt, and the rest of the cauliflower. Steam, covered for 8 minutes. Once soft, puree in a food processor with 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, and pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.

Surprisingly, this was a little more high maintenance than it really needs to be. I make mashed-cauliflower all the time and instead of steaming it and messing up another pan and the food processor, I throw all the ingredients in a pot with 1/2 cup of chicken broth. (add more broth if nec. as it cooks.) Cover, and once everything is nice and soft, add your butter or oil or whatever, and use an immersion blender to mash it all up.

Either way, mashed cauliflower is delicious. I used orange cauliflower and that is its natural color. I also made a green tomato/tomatillo sauce that I served over the cauliflower. And I served our favorite garlic bread on the side as well. Don't forget a bottle of cabernet and you have a feast!71 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.

Day 43: North Shore Shrimp Scampi

The larger the prawns you get your hands on for this recipe, the better.

North Shore Shrimp Scampi

This is easy and fast and tasty. The only thing difficult about this recipe is that you need to marinate the shrimp overnight.

The night before, make your marinade: Combine 1 1/2 pounds of shelled prawns with 1/3 cup olive oil, 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice, 7+ minced garlic cloves, and 1/4 teas each of salt and pepper. The authors recommend that if you are using frozen prawns you can boil them with lemon juice, but every restaurant I've ever worked in used frozen prawns and as long as they aren't old, they should thaw out fine without any bad effects.

When ready to cook, set a large skillet over medium-high heat. Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter with some salt and pepper. Stir in the shrimp along with the marinade and turn the heat down to medium low. Cook, turning once or twice, until done, about 4 minutes. With your handy tongs, remove prawns and set on serving platter.

The the heat up to medium-high and add 1/4 dry white wine. Boil for one minute. Remove from heat and melt in another tablespoon of butter. Pour onto prawns and drizzle with lemon juice and top with chopped parsley. Nice with plain white rice.

69 recipes down in How To Eat Supper.