The Great Cookbook Challenge of '17: Bún Bò Xào (Vietnamese Street Food)
Alright, let's get this show on the road. On Friday, I tried my first recipe for what I have now dubbed The Great Cookbook Challenge of '17 because sometimes, I'm unoriginal as fuck. Remember, I wanted to try at least one recipe from each and every of my cookbooks (I have added a new qualifier: for those that I actually do use, that will be at least one new recipe I haven't tried before. Because why make it simple when you can make it challenging?).
Friday, I started with the newest addition to the collection (it arrived at the beginning of last week, together with a smaller one on sweet potatos. Please don't judge me). Which is this:
Vietnamesische Straßenküche (Vietnamese Street Food), Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl
I bought it because I have discovered that I just really, really love South-East Asian cuisine and have, after successfully trying my hand at tom kha gai and teriyaki chicken pre last week, finally developed the self-confidence to try and make it myself instead of just buying take-away. I love the lemony, sweet and sour and spicy flavors, the freshness and the versatility of South-East Asian cuisine and decided to start with Vietnamese. I bought the street food book because I really liked the layout and the whole look and feel of the book and because I figured that, as street food is usually made using limited space and utensils, this would suit me.
I decided to go for bún bò `xào (stir fried beef with lemongrass and rice noodles) because it's one of my favorite take-out dishes and I was really happy to discover it in the book. Its list of ingredients looks pretty long but it really just comes down to beef, marinade, vegetables and rice noodles. As the beef is essential to the flavor and texture of the dish, I'm not sure if it can be substituted with meat alternatives. If anyone wants to try, I'd really love to hear of your results.
During the cooking, it looked like this (I'll have to warn you, it looks really messy because we have a really small kitchen full of stuff (my parents have lived in this flat for over 30 years, so... bear with us) and I didn't joke when I said that I'm a kitchen slop:
So, how is it made?
Bún Bò Xào
Ingredients:
(serves six)
500g rib eye steak*
3 stems of lemongrass, white part, chopped (this is important, because you leave it in and eat it, so chop well and finely)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 table spoon fish sauce
1/3 tea spoon freshly ground black pepper
600g thin rice noodles (bun/vermicelli)
oil for frying
1 cucumber, seeds removed, chopped into thin slices
90g mung bean sprouts
1/2 small iceberg salad, chopped into stripes
1 tea spoon rice vinegar
1 table spoon fish sauce
1 handful Vietnamese cilantro
1 handvoll mint leaves
90g roasted, unsalted peanuts
fried shalots or store bought roast onions
if you have, pickled vegetables
Cut the meat into thin slices and mix well with lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce and pepper. Leave to marinate for twenty minutes, so flavors can suffuse well.
Cook rice noodles for 4 to 5 minutes in boiling water, keep stirring them. Take the noodles out of the water and chill with cold water. Use scissors to cut noodles to manageable length, distribute them evenly into six bowls.
Heat a big wok pan and add a bit of oil. Put the meat in the hot oil and sauté for about 1 to 2 minutes, keep stirring constantly.
Add the cucumber, sprouts and the salad into the wok pan, mix well. Then add rice vinegar, the second spoon of fish sauce, the herbs and half of the peanuts, stir well.
Ladle the meat and vegetable mixture on the noodles and add the rest of the peanuts and the roasted onions. Serve with pickles (if you have them).
*I used pre-cut beef because a 500g steak came about 16€ and I didn't want to rob my parents blind for something I have never made before. Worked fine but I'm definitely going to try this again with the actual steak.
This is what it looked like when I was done:
I was medium satisfied with the results, as I pretty much overcooked the meat and it became kinda hard and I really should have added more fish sauce and rice vinegar. I liked the vegetables because they were still crisp and fresh but had taken enough of the lemongrass flavor to fit nicely with the meat. Concerning flavor, the meat was okay but yeah, more of all spices would have worked well. Mom definitely loved it, Dad complained that "there was no sauce and it was a bit dry" *rolls eyes (it's actually supposed to have no sauce but okay, the meat could have been less dry). I'd also advise to maybe cut back on the noodles because holy shit, there's a lot of noodles in those packs! I do like that they don't fill you up as much as Italian noodles but yeah. We had a lot of noodles left over...
In general, I found the instructions precise and easy to follow, in a sequence suited to how I like to do things (I usually end up doing steps differently than what is described in the books because I find most of them impractical in their order). Despite the longish list of ingredients, it's actually a pretty simple and surprisingly fast dish (even with the 20 minutes of waiting time). I think I'm going to try this again, to see if I can improve the results.
I'm currently in the process of looking through my books to find something for this week but haven't really found something I like yet. Will keep you posted, though!
Friday, I started with the newest addition to the collection (it arrived at the beginning of last week, together with a smaller one on sweet potatos. Please don't judge me). Which is this:
Vietnamesische Straßenküche (Vietnamese Street Food), Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl
I bought it because I have discovered that I just really, really love South-East Asian cuisine and have, after successfully trying my hand at tom kha gai and teriyaki chicken pre last week, finally developed the self-confidence to try and make it myself instead of just buying take-away. I love the lemony, sweet and sour and spicy flavors, the freshness and the versatility of South-East Asian cuisine and decided to start with Vietnamese. I bought the street food book because I really liked the layout and the whole look and feel of the book and because I figured that, as street food is usually made using limited space and utensils, this would suit me.
I decided to go for bún bò `xào (stir fried beef with lemongrass and rice noodles) because it's one of my favorite take-out dishes and I was really happy to discover it in the book. Its list of ingredients looks pretty long but it really just comes down to beef, marinade, vegetables and rice noodles. As the beef is essential to the flavor and texture of the dish, I'm not sure if it can be substituted with meat alternatives. If anyone wants to try, I'd really love to hear of your results.
During the cooking, it looked like this (I'll have to warn you, it looks really messy because we have a really small kitchen full of stuff (my parents have lived in this flat for over 30 years, so... bear with us) and I didn't joke when I said that I'm a kitchen slop:
So, how is it made?
Bún Bò Xào
Ingredients:
(serves six)
500g rib eye steak*
3 stems of lemongrass, white part, chopped (this is important, because you leave it in and eat it, so chop well and finely)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 table spoon fish sauce
1/3 tea spoon freshly ground black pepper
600g thin rice noodles (bun/vermicelli)
oil for frying
1 cucumber, seeds removed, chopped into thin slices
90g mung bean sprouts
1/2 small iceberg salad, chopped into stripes
1 tea spoon rice vinegar
1 table spoon fish sauce
1 handful Vietnamese cilantro
1 handvoll mint leaves
90g roasted, unsalted peanuts
fried shalots or store bought roast onions
if you have, pickled vegetables
Cut the meat into thin slices and mix well with lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce and pepper. Leave to marinate for twenty minutes, so flavors can suffuse well.
Cook rice noodles for 4 to 5 minutes in boiling water, keep stirring them. Take the noodles out of the water and chill with cold water. Use scissors to cut noodles to manageable length, distribute them evenly into six bowls.
Heat a big wok pan and add a bit of oil. Put the meat in the hot oil and sauté for about 1 to 2 minutes, keep stirring constantly.
Add the cucumber, sprouts and the salad into the wok pan, mix well. Then add rice vinegar, the second spoon of fish sauce, the herbs and half of the peanuts, stir well.
Ladle the meat and vegetable mixture on the noodles and add the rest of the peanuts and the roasted onions. Serve with pickles (if you have them).
*I used pre-cut beef because a 500g steak came about 16€ and I didn't want to rob my parents blind for something I have never made before. Worked fine but I'm definitely going to try this again with the actual steak.
This is what it looked like when I was done:
I was medium satisfied with the results, as I pretty much overcooked the meat and it became kinda hard and I really should have added more fish sauce and rice vinegar. I liked the vegetables because they were still crisp and fresh but had taken enough of the lemongrass flavor to fit nicely with the meat. Concerning flavor, the meat was okay but yeah, more of all spices would have worked well. Mom definitely loved it, Dad complained that "there was no sauce and it was a bit dry" *rolls eyes (it's actually supposed to have no sauce but okay, the meat could have been less dry). I'd also advise to maybe cut back on the noodles because holy shit, there's a lot of noodles in those packs! I do like that they don't fill you up as much as Italian noodles but yeah. We had a lot of noodles left over...
In general, I found the instructions precise and easy to follow, in a sequence suited to how I like to do things (I usually end up doing steps differently than what is described in the books because I find most of them impractical in their order). Despite the longish list of ingredients, it's actually a pretty simple and surprisingly fast dish (even with the 20 minutes of waiting time). I think I'm going to try this again, to see if I can improve the results.
I'm currently in the process of looking through my books to find something for this week but haven't really found something I like yet. Will keep you posted, though!