Recipes: vietnamese style

1. Add the pork to a pot of water and fill to cover by 5cm. Bring to the boil. Allow to boil for 1 min then remove and drain. Rinse impurities off the pork pieces in fresh tap water and set aside.

2. Add sugar and water to a clean wok or medium sized pot. Heat on med-high heat to create the caramel. Let it bubble away until a rich, dark caramel forms (not burnt). Swirl the pan as you do this to distribute the heat in the pan.

3. Add in 1T oil and swirl through. Add ginger and onion and saute until the onion has softened.

4. Add prepared pork pieces and cook for about 5 mins.

5. Add Shaoxing wine, soy sauces and fish sauce. Stir to mix and heat through.

6. Add coconut water. Stir through then bring to the boil.

7. Cover with a lid, reduce heat to low and allow to simmer for one hour.

8. After one hour, remove the lid, add in the eggs and turn the heat up to medium. Allow the braising liquid to evaporate and thicken into a sauce. Gently rotate your eggs from time to time to allow it to absorb and take on a darker hue. Turn of the heat when the sauce reaches your desired consistency. Taste and adjust seasoning if required.

Prepare the Sago

1. Add water to a large, deep pot and bring to the boil.
2. Add in sago and give it a stir. Immediately reduce heat to low when it comes to the boil. Cover with a lid and gently simmer for 15mins (stirring occasionally).
3. Turn off the heat and keep the lid on the pot. Let sit for 25mins.
4. Drain cooked sago through a sieve and rinse with cold tap water to remove the excess starch. Place cooked sago in a large bowl filled with iced water and set aside.

Prepare the Taro

1. Bring a pot of water to the boil.
2. Split taro evenly between 2 steamer baskets.
3. Steam for 20mins or until cooked. Set aside.

For the Soup

1. Add coconut milk, water, sugars and knotted pandan leaf into a large pot and bring to the boil
2. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
3. Remove the pandan leaf
4. Add in half of the cooked taro and blitz with an immersion blender/stab mixer until smooth.
5. Drain prepared sago and add into the coconut soup. Stir to evenly distribute. Add salt.
6. Add in cooked taro pieces and gently stir through.

This recipe makes a very generous portion, so there should be plenty of leftovers, or gather some friends or loved ones and share it together.
 

Makes 50 small rolls or 15-20 medium sized ones

1. Thaw frozen wrappers in the fridge (in its wrapper, unopened). This will take a couple of hours.

2. Meanwhile, add noodles to one bowl, and dried mushrooms to another. Add boiling water to both bowls to fully cover. Leave to soak for 10mins then drain & rinse dry.

3. Slice noodles into shorter strands and finely chop mushrooms. Add both to a medium sized bowl, along with the rest of the filling ingredients. Mix thoroughly to combine.

4. Take wrappers out of its packaging & carefully separate each one by peeling them away from each other. Stack wrappers on top of each other and cover with a clean tea towel.

5. Prepare the slurry by mixing the flour and water together in a saucer.

6. Wrap your rolls with the prepared filling & secure the end with a dab of slurry.

7. Heat oil in a wok/pan and deep fry your rolls until golden. Drain on a wire rack lined with kitchen paper.

Serve these rolls with a side of nuoc mam dipping sauce.

(You can reheat cooked spring rolls in the oven or air fryer to bring back their crunch)

Makes approx 22 balls

1. Thaw out your spring roll wrappers and carefully separate into individual sheets. Using scissors, cut strips out of the sheets and separate into loose strips.

2. Blitz all the filling ingredients in a powerful food processor. You can have your balls chunky or blitz the mix longer for a sticky paste to get smooth and bouncy balls. Chill this filling mix for 30mins.

3. Take out your chilled filling and form into balls. This mix will yield about 22 balls.

4. Roll each ball into the strips of spring roll pastry to completely wrap each ball in pastry. Gently press in the pastry so that it sticks to the balls and trim off any long strands with scissors.

5. Heat up your oil to 180C and deep fry until golden. Drain on kitchen paper then serve hot with sweet chilli dipping sauce and/or yuzu mayo.

1. Peel bananas and slice in half lengthways. Sprinkle on sugar and gently toss to coat. Leave to marinate for a couple of hours.

2. In a very large mixing bowl, add condensed milk, coconut milk, fresh milk, melted butter, egg, vanilla and salt. Whisk to combine.

3. Cut baguettes into 1” long slices on the diagonal. You should roughly get 5 slices out of each baguette. Add baguette slices into the mixing bowl and coat with the ‘custard’. Leave for 15mins to soak.

4. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm tall round cake tin.

5. Build your cake, layer by layer. Start with a base layer of soaked bread. Make sure the pieces are tightly packed and there are no gaps. Use half of your bread for this layer.

6, Next, arrange half of your bananas to form the next layer. Keep your bananas flat with no overlapping.

7. Add the remaining soaked bread to form the next (third layer). Gently pressed down on the cake to remove any air gaps.

8. For the final top layer, arrange your bananas, cut side up. This is the presentation layer. Gently press down so that the bananas nestle into the bread layer.

9. Bake for about 70 mins.  Cover the top with a piece of foil at around the 45min mark to prevent the top from getting too dark. Remove the foil 15mins later to allow for the top develop a nice golden top until the end.

10. Leave the cake to cool in its tin. Chill overnight to set in its tin.

11. Turn out cake and then serve.

Pork chops:

1. Add the lemongrass, eschalot and garlic into a food processor. Pulverise everything into a fine straw and add to a large mixing bowl. (If you don’t have a powerful processor, you can finely slice rings from your lemongrass before chopping it into small pieces. Mince your garlic and finely dice your eshalot)
2. Add the remaining marinade ingredients to the mixing bowl and stir to combine
3. Tenderise pork chops by pounding each side with a meat mallet or the back of a knife. Cut 3-4 slits into the skin side of each chop and place into the marinade. Coat all sides of each pork chop with the marinade then cover and chill overnight.
4. When ready to cook, spray pork chops with oil. Place chops flat, in a single layer in your AirFryer basket*. Air fry for 10 mins on 230C. Turn, then air fry for a further 10 mins**

Spring onion oil

1. Place your spring onions to a heatproof bowl.
2. Add oil to a small skillet and bring to smoking point.
3. Pour the hot oil onto the onions. The onions will spit so be careful. Stir to mix and spoon them onto each pork chop

Enjoy as is or serve with broken rice and a fried egg (com tam) or even eat with rice vermicelli (bun) and salad. Don't forget the fish sauce! (nuoc cham)

* These can also be deep fried, or thrown onto the barbeque as well 

** Turn your chops again and air fry further if you like your chops dark.

1. Put the black fungus in warm water for 10 minuntes to hydrate. Chop into small pieces.

2. Chop onion and mince garlic and eschalot finely . Dice tomato.

3. Marinate pork mixture : add pork mince, eschalot, 1/2 garlic, salt, pepper, black fungus together and mix until combined. Marinate for 30 minutes.

4. Slice tofu in half to make a small pocket and slowly stuff the marinated pork in the tofu.

5. Place tofu into steamer and steam for 5-7 minutes.

6. In a pan or wok, add oil bring to medium heat.  Add garlic and onion and cook fry until frangant. Add tomato paste and cook it down, add the diced tomatoes until combined.

7.  Add water, fish sauce, salt, sugar, chicken powder to sauce. Bring sauce to boil, add tofu and reduce the heat to simmer until pork stuffing mixture is  cooked and sauce is reduced.

8. Serve with steamed rice.

1. Wash glutinous rice and soak at least 2 hours before cooking.                                     

2. Finely chop garlic and 1 clove of eschalot. Thinly slice the rest of eschalot and shallot and set aside.                                    

3. In a medium bowl, add chicken, 1 teaspoon of garlic, 1 teaspoon of sliced eschalot, cooking wine, five spice powder, fish sauce and 1 tbsp oyster sauce, sesame oil and 1/2 tbsp sugar. Mix well to combine and let it marinade for 1 hour.

4. Take glutinous rice out and drain well. Add glutinous rice to steamer on medium high heat, add salt and stir evenly. Steam for about 10 minutes. When it turns soft and sticky, add coconut cream into sticky rice and stir evenly to combine and cook for another 5 minutes. Make sure glutinous rice is not too mushy or too dry.

5. (Fried Eschalot) In a saucepan on medium heat, add 1/2 tbsp of oil. Once the oil is heated, add sliced eschalot and fry it. When eschalot turns golden brown, turn off the heat and set aside.                                                                            

6. (Shallot Oil) In a saucepan on medium heat, add the remaning oil. Once the oil is heated, add shallot in and quickly stir for 15 seconds and then add a pinch of salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and set aside.

7. (Sauce) In a small pan on medium heat, add oil, the remaning garlic, chopped eschalot and fry until fragrant. Add soysauce, chilli sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, chicken powder and mix well to combine. Turn off the heat and aside.           

8. Turn oven on 180 degree, grill the chicken for 30 minutes.                                    

9. Remove chicken from the oven and rest it. Then cut chicken into small pieces.

10. Place sticky rice on a plate. Place pate, shallot oil, sauce, fried eschalot and chicken on the top.                                     
 

1. Finely chop garlic and shallots. Peel taro stem. Cut pineapple, okra, taro stem in diagonally intosimilar sized batons. Slice tomato into quartered pieces. Roughly cut herbs for garnish.

2. In a medium pan, add 2 tbsp oil, bring to heat, add 1 tsp of garlic, eschalot until fragrant. Add the fish and cook each side for 2 minutes. Then leave aside.

3. In a medium pot, add 2 tbsp oil. Once hot, add garlic and stir fry in a pot until it turns golden brown. Scoop out the garlic and set aside in a small bowl for garnish. Add 1/2 the amount of tomato in the pot, and stir fry until very tender. Slowly add in chicken stock or water and bring it to a boil.

4. Reduce heat to medium. Add in the remaining 1/2 of tomatoes, pineapple, okra, and cook for 3 minutes until almost soft.

5. Add in basa fillets. Season to taste with tamarind, sugar, fish sauce. Simmer until Basa is cooked through for 3 minutes. 

6. Add in bean sprout, taro stem and cook for another minute then remove from heat. 

7. Serving method: Put veggies first and then place the fish, herb, chilli and fried garlic.

8. Serve with steamed rice.

1. Slice off the bottom root of the lemongrass stalk and peel off any dried-out leaves and layers. Then cut 4 of the lemongrass into 12cm batons, smashing it under the side of a cleaver or knife to release the flavour. For easy removal from a pot of hot liquid, tie the stalks into a knot and set aside.  

2. Peel and cut carrots and white radish into 2cm chunks. Thinly slice onions. Slice shallot and coriander for garnish and set aside.

3. Cut beef into large 3cm chunks

4. In a large bowl, combine the beef with 2 tsp of garlic, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp eschalot, 2 tbsp fish sauce, 1 teapoon salt and white or raw sugar until each piece is evenly coated. Marinate for at least 1 hour.

5. In a large pot on medium high heat, add oil and remaining garlic, eschalot, ginger. Fry until fragrant then add tomato paste, beef spices to pot.

6. Add marinated beef to the pot and then stir fry. Add water, coconut juice, remaining fish sauce and rock sugar. Bring to boil, reduce the heat to medium low, cover pot with a lid and simmer for 1 hour. Season with salt and beef or chicken seasoning powder.

7. Add carrots, white radish and simmer for another 30-40 minutes until beef is tender. 

8. Mix lime, salt and pepper together for the dipping sauce.

9. Place beef stew into a bowl and sprinkle the top with shallots, coriander, sliced onion and some pepper.

10. Serve with bread.

1. Slice off the bottom root of the lemongrass stalk and peel off any dried-out leaves and layers. Then cut 4 of the lemongrass into 12cm batons, smashing it under the side of a cleaver or knife to release the flavour. For easy removal from a pot of hot liquid, tie the stalks into a knot and set aside. Cut the remaining lemongrass thinly and place in food processor machine to be grated.               

2. Finely chop garlic, eschalot. Peel ginger and cut into 2cm medallions and smash it to release its flavour. Peel and cut carrots, potatoes, sweet potato into 1 inch chunks. Thinly slice onions and set aside.

3. Cut chicken into large 3cm chunks. 

4. In a large bowl, add chicken, 1 tsp lemongrass grated, 1 tsp of eschalot, 1 tsp garlic, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp fish sauce and 1 tbsp curry powder. Let it marinade for at least 1 hour.

5. In a large pot on medium high heat, add oil and remaining garlic, lemongrass grated and eschalot . Fry until fragrant. Add curry paste and stir for 20 seconds. 

6. Add the marinated chicken to the pot and combine well. Add ginger, lemongrass, water, coconut juice, sugar, curry leaves and the remaining fish sauce. Bring to boil then reduce the heat to medium low, cover pot with a lid and simmer for 1/2 hour. Season with salt and chicken seasoning powder.

7. Add carrots first then add potatoes and sweet potatoes in the soup. Continue to simmer until potatoes are cooked.  

8. Add coconut cream and sliced onion into the soup and turn off the heat. 

9. Serve with bread.