Text 9701, 114 rader
Skriven 2011-04-18 05:15:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JIM WELLER
Ärende: northern heat 221
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 ML> Vietnamese food strikes me as most hot-weather food
 ML> with the peculiar disadvantage of being weak in the
 ML> hot pepper department.
 JW> The heat is in the optional condiments. I get my hot pepper fix from
 JW> the hot sauce bottle that is always table-side.

Which is Thai. The Vietnamese themselves don't use it,
generally speaking, and when they do they use a few
sissy drops on the side - the joy of pho, such as it is,
is the subtle deliciousness of the broth and the anisey
basilly tastes (not my favorite, licorice, though I
accept it for what it is). The normal Vietnamese way of
adding heat is by way of a few tiny disks of hot pepper.
In Vietnam putting a squirt of sriracha in your pho is
considered extreme barbarism.

 ML> Chinese cuisine has the advantage of being 3, 5, 7, or
 ML> a hundred different genres, depending on whom you ask,
 ML> rolled into one.
 JW> I won't argue with that at all. I was merely commenting on the
 JW> quality of food served in small town restaurants. Canadian Chinese
 JW> is heavy on chop suey, chow main, battered and deep fried egg rolls
 JW> and overly sweet sweet and sour breaded things.

I was wondering if it was a genre issue. I presume that
Canadian Chinese is a response to market forces? I briefly
entertained the notion that Chinese people who would have
the attention to detail needed to properly run a restaurant
have moved on and become doctors and such, whereas the
Vietnamese haven't gotten to that stage yet, but that's
probably actually not true.

 -=> Jim Weller said to Dave Drum <=-

 DD> Sriracha is a Thai town [but]...
 DD> Huy Fong Foods "Rooster Sauce" is nearly ubiquitous
 JW> I'm pretty sure that is what my favourite noodle house offers
 JW> although the sauce is in a little red squeeze bottle with no label.
 JW> I'm sure they have jugs if not barrels of it in the back for refills.

The real Thai name for it is "saus prik," and it's hotter,
sweeter, and clearer than the red stuff that Dirty Dave
is fond of calling "who flung foo," which is American
in a similar way to that of egg rolls and chow mein (but
in a less bad way).

 JW> We have two Vietnamese places as well. One is a dump with cheap good
 JW> food and the other a little more upscale in decor and price but
 JW> downscale in quality. The dump is housed in an old building,
 JW> constructed from Atco trailers with fake log siding and sloping
 JW> floors that used to be called the Country Kitchen and Doughnut Shop
 JW> and still carries the old signage.

The dump is where you took me, of course. It was quite good,
the food reminding me of Cantonese (the real stuff, not what
you get at the Peking Moon).

Spicy Vietnamese Beef and Noodle Soup
cat: American, misnomer
servings: 6

5 Tb peanut oil
3 1/4 lb meaty oxtails, patted dry
2 lg onions, chopped
1 lg carrot, peeled, chopped
3 stalks lemongrass, chopped
2/3 c chopped peeled fresh ginger
8 garlic cloves, chopped
7 whole star anise
1 Tb black peppercorns
12 c water
7 c canned beef broth (about four 14 1/2 oz cans)
3 Tb fish sauce (nam pla)*
h - noodles
12 oz pk fresh udon noodles or fresh linguine
1 Tb oriental sesame oil
h - for serving
3 c bean sprouts
6 radishes, thinly sliced
4 green onions, thinly sliced
4 serrano chilies, thinly sliced
6 Tb chopped fresh basil
6 Tb chopped fresh mint
6 Tb chopped cilantro
Lime wedges
Additional fish sauce (nam pla)

Heat peanut oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat.
Sprinkle oxtails with salt and pepper. Add oxtails to pot
and brown on all sides, about 20 min. Transfer oxtails to
large bowl. Add onions and next 6 ingredients to same pot.
Saute until vegetables are tender, about 8 min. Return
oxtails to pot. Add 12 c water, beef broth and 3 Tb fish
sauce. Cover and simmer gently until oxtails are very
tender, about 3 hr.

Using tongs, transfer oxtails to large bowl. Strain broth
into another large pot; discard solids. Remove meat from
oxtails; discard bones. Add meat to broth.

Refrigerate overnight. Spoon solid fat off top of soup.
Cook noodles in large pot of boiling salted water until
tender. Drain; rinse under cold water. Return to same pot.
Toss noodles with sesame oil.

Bring soup to boil. Divide noodles, sprouts, and next
6 ingredients among 6 bowls. Ladle soup into bowls.
Serve with lime wedges and additional fish sauce.

source: Bon Appetit

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