Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors

676 Pages·2006·6.36 MB·English

by  Andrea Nguyen

Copyright © 2006 by Andrea Quynhgiao Nguyen
Foreword copyright © 2006 by Bruce Cost
Photography copyright © 2006 by Leigh Beisch
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown
Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House,
Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nguyen, Andrea Quynhgiao.
Into the Vietnamese kitchen : treasured foodways, modern flavors / Andrea Quynhgiao Nguyen;
foreword by Bruce Cost; photography by Leigh Beisch.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Cookery, Vietnamese. 2. Food habits-Vietnam. I. Title.
TX724.5.V5N47 2006
641.59597-dc22
2006012158
eISBN: 978-1-60774141-1
Cover design by Toni Tajima
Food styling by Karen Shinto
Prop styling by Sara Slavin
Photography assistance by Angelica Cao
Styling assistance by Katie Christ
v3.1
To my parents, Tuyet Thi Nguyen and Hoang Quoc Nguyen, and my husband, Rory.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
The Roots of Vietnamese Cooking
Kitchen Essentials: Ingredients and Equipment
1. GIFTS TO THE MOUTH
2. ESSENTIAL SOUPS
3. PRECIOUS POULTRY AND EVERYDAY EGGS
4. BOUNTIFUL FISH AND SHELLFISH
5. CLASSIC MEATS
6. THE ART OF CHARCUTERIE
7. VEGETABLES FOR ALL SEASONS
8. NOODLES FROM MORNING UNTIL NIGHT
9. INDISPENSABLE RICE
10. THE WORLD OF BÁNH
11. SWEETS AND PALATE REFRESHERS
Basics
Guide to Ingredients
Resources
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have wanted to write a Vietnamese cookbook since I was ten years old.
When I was offered the opportunity to do just that, I discovered both
how much and how little I knew. Many people assisted me along the
way, and I am indebted to all of them for their guidance and support.
First and foremost, I want to thank Mẹ and Bố, who sparked and then
fueled my interest in food, cooking, and Vietnamese traditions. How
lucky I am to have parents who are also passionate food experts. As I
wrote, they tirelessly answered my questions, shared their knowledge
and discoveries, helped with translations, and reviewed the manuscript.
When they did not know the answers, they tapped their network of
Vietnamese retirees.
A number of recipes and cooking tips were shared by family members
and friends over the years. These contributions are recognized in the
recipe introductions.
Special thanks to Susan Littwin for believing in this project from its
inception. She helped me polish the proposal and guided me with her
wisdom as a seasoned author.
I am equally grateful to recipe testers Sue Holt, Victor Fong, Al
Meyers, Maki Tsuzuki, and Mike Crane. Their steadfast dedication and
enthusiasm kept me on track and buoyed me when my spirits flagged.
I was also blessed by the insights of Asian food expert Bruce Cost. Our
lengthy e-mail exchanges helped me to solve a variety of vexing issues.
Most Vietnamese immigrants in the United States do not become food
writers. Asian parents prefer that their children follow practical and
profitable career paths. My parents were no different, but they also
instilled in me a love and appreciation for the culinary arts. I started out
in banking and went on to a handful of other careers, but this one has
been the most fun and the most rewarding. I would have never pursued
this book project had it not been for the following individuals: Colman
Andrews, who invited me to write for Saveur magazine and saw the
potential in this endeavor; Russ Parsons and Leslie Brenner, who
accepted my ideas and edited my work for the Los Angeles Times; and
Carolyn Jung, who started me writing for the San Jose Mercury News and
encouraged me to continue writing. These journalists, along with their
colleagues, helped me hone my writing skills and steered me in the right
direction. Although our interactions were sometimes fleeting, I owe each
one of them a great deal.
Generous thanks are owed to Mishka Michon for her early enthusiastic
support of this book. At the University of Southern California, Professor
Michael Preston mentored me with his practical and sage advice.
These pages would not have materialized without the folks at Ten
Speed Press, in particular, Philip Wood, Lorena Jones, Kathy Hashimoto,
and Aaron Wehner, my enthusiastic and thoughtful editor. They all
believed that I had something valuable to say. My words benefited from
the professional excellence of copy editor Sharon Silva and proofreader
Desne Ahlers; photographer Leigh Beisch, assisted by Angelica Cao; food
stylist Karen Shinto, assisted by Katie Christ; prop stylist Sara Slavin
(and the generous loan of props by Sue Fisher King); designers Ed
Anderson, Toni Tajima, and Katy Brown; and indexer Ken DellaPenta.
A zillion thank-yous to William Rubel and Sonia Bañuelos for cracking
open the door.
My dear husband, Rory O’Brien, has always been and continues to be
my number one fan. He has suffered, celebrated, critiqued, and smiled
through this entire journey. His patience, understanding, and love are
amazing.
Finally, generous thanks go to Internet visitors like Karl Nguyen who
have perused the content of vietworldkitchen.com and e-mailed
comments. Their insights and feedback inform and improve my work.
FOREWORD
Andrea Nguyen has taken a big step forward on behalf of Vietnamese
cooking. She has written a cookbook that you can use and enjoy, layered
with details—practical, historical, and personal—that foster a deeper
understanding of this ancient cuisine.
You need only turn to her recipe for phở bò, Vietnam’s famed beef
noodle soup, to appreciate her achievement. She wants you to love this
soup, but in order for you to do so, she insists that you must make it
right, a process that begins (and ends) with the broth. This requires
using high-quality marrow bones, to impart a rich beef flavor, and a
little yellow rock sugar (also used in the wonderful braised pork and
duck dishes of eastern China), to lend complexity that mere granulated
sugar lacks. When Andrea introduces a recipe by writing, “Traditional
cooks use extra lard or oil to give the shrimp, which are still in the shell,
an appetizing sheen,” she is giving the reader an important option:
follow her recipe, which is delicious, or seek even greater insight into
the cuisine by rendering your own pork fat and sourcing head-on, or
even live, shrimp.
I have gotten to know Andrea over the past couple of years, mostly
through lengthy correspondence about arcane aspects of Asian food and
cooking. She has taken me shopping and eating in Little Saigon in
Westminster, California, and she directed several of my top chefs in
Chicago in the preparation of an array of classic dishes from this book. I
felt a kinship with her in her search here for a whole catfish, with skin,
because the gelatin is necessary to give proper body to her caramel
sauce. Her technique of cooking shrimp in a little water and salt until
dry, and then mincing them as a garnish for steamed rice pancakes, was
new to me. Capturing the essence of their flavor, the method
transformed the shrimp into a terrific seasoning.
Andrea’s book is timely because Vietnam is rapidly becoming a tourist
destination for Americans after years of isolation following the Vietnam
War. I had the opportunity to travel in Vietnam last summer with my
teenage son, Ben, eating and visiting markets. What struck us (and this is
true elsewhere in Asia) is that the freshness of the ingredients drives the
cuisine, as Andrea so often reminds us. When entering a seafood
restaurant on the coast south of Nha Trang, rather than looking at a
menu, our first task was to peruse tanks of swimming fish and
crustaceans both familiar and unfamiliar, such as mantis shrimp and
slipper lobsters. After deliberating with the restaurant staff over how
each should be cooked, our table was loaded with the tastiest possible
sea creatures and an array of delicious dipping sauces and fresh herbs.
Andrea’s book vividly evoked this memory for me, and should I care to
re-create the feast, she equips me with the necessary recipes and
insights.
Andrea brings an extra measure of intelligence to this volume, and she
is an uncommonly good writer, encouraging readers to share in her
vision and learn what she knows. She is an engaging ambassador for the
wonderful cooking of Vietnam.
Bruce Cost
Chicago, May 2006