Viet World Kitchen

Big Chiles in Saigon

Chiles come in all shapes and sizes but in Saigon these days, the predominant ones are largish hot ones that resemble long chiles. They have heat and are what you'll find sliced and served at the table. They don't have the perfume heat of smaller ot hiem but do pack a punch.

Last year, when I visited, these chiles weren't everywhere and you could sometimes get smaller ones. Looks like these are the ones people like nowadays. They keep better once cut and definitely have more zip than your jalapeno in the States!

Compare the size of the chiles to the limes, which are regular sized ones. The chiles are a good 3 to 4 inches long. At markets I found the chiles already ground up so that you don't have to chop them yourself. Usually, there's a vendor who sells pre-chopped lemongrass, garlic and chiles. Other aromatics, such as shallots and lemongrass are typically sold by the same person too. The chopping is done by machine. Quite convenient.

At casual restaurants (joints), a small container of pre-chopped chiles sits at the table, ready to be added to sauces, etc. There's no Sriracha or chile garlic sauce here! You could certainly use these chiles to make your own chile garlic sauce.

Tet Sticky Rice Cakes: Banh Chung & Banh Tet

If you're unfamiliar with Tet sticky rice cakes (banh chung and banh tet), the must-have food for Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration, chances are you may be asking, "Is it an adobe brick or doorstop wrapped in banana leaf?" At Viet delis, bakeries and grocery stores, you'll find them this week and next displayed on tables. The weighty cakes will be wrapped in plastic with red or gold ribbon tied around them to make them look extra festive for this most important holiday.

Banh chung are the square ones, and banh tet are the cylindrical ones. They are the same, but the major difference lies in their shape. Northern Viet people are partial to the square banh chung whereas central and southern people prefer the round banh tet. Banh chung is the name that most people use. My family prepared and ate banh chung because my mother hails from a town named Hai Duong, which is right outside of Hanoi (in the northern region).

Other than the shape variation, banh chung are traditionally wrapped in the large green leaves called la dong (Phrynium placentarium, which is related to arrowroot). Banh tet are wrapped in banana leaves. Banana leaves impart a wonderful tea-like aroma and flavor to the rice and since la dong aren't available abroad, Viet people living overseas use banana leaves to wrap banh chung and banh tet. Regardless, the cakes are boiled for 6 to 8 hours, depending on size.

Getting the cakes to look like nice squares and cylinders requires finesse. To appreciate the wrapping process and get a few tips, check these out:

• Video on how to wrap banh chung the old-fashioned way -- without a mold, using la dong (rush/arrowroot leaves) tied with strips of reed and cooked over coals. Note how they've lightly tinted the rice pale green with food coloring, something that's definitely not old-school but a modern, widespread practice in Vietnam.
• Photos for how to wrap banh chung using a wood mold (Word file). The mold is my preferred method because it's much easier to get the square shape, a hallmark of the sticky rice cakes. The photos correspond to my detailed recipe for banh chung in  Into the Vietnamese Kitchen (Ten Speed Press, 2006).

What's inside the wrapping? The leaves encase sticky rice, in the center of which there's buttery mung bean and opalescent bits of pork and pork fat. The filling is simply seasoned with salt, pepper, and a touch of fish sauce. It's filling food that can be made in advance and sit around for days, which makes it great for Tet, when you're suppose to have fun, not slave in the kitchen. The leaves impart a wonderful tea-like quality to the rice. When you eat a fresh hot, one, the rice is soft and chewy sweet. The beans are plush and rich and the pork contributes a wonderful savoriness.

How to eat Tet sticky rice cakes and what to serve them with? Square banh chung are cut into wedges (use unflavored dental floss) so each portion has a fair share of rice, mung bean and pork. Round banh tet are cut into thick slices. It's often the case that the cake is eaten with some sugar, which sounds weird but is a great combination of flavors. Banh chung and banh tet may also be fried to a delicious chewy crispness too. The photo above is of a market vendor on Phu Quoc island frying banh tet; here's a fair amount of food coloring in her rice.

Viet people typically serve the cakes with tangy, sweet pungent pickled shallots, garlicky pickled daikon, and various kinds of Vietnamese charcuterie -- silky sausages and head cheese. Pigs were often slaughtered for Tet so people use some of the meat and offal for charcuterie, which keeps around. There's often a long-simmered dish too in which pork or beef is cooked in caramel sauce.

If you don't make them buy them, like many Vietnamese living abroad do these days. Check Viet markets and delis, or Chinese markets where there's a large Viet clientele. The cakes sit out at room temperature. Poke them to make sure they're fresh.

Jump to the main Viet World Kitchen website for more on Tet eats . . .

What do you serve for Tet?

Chuck asked: Does anyone have a good source for buying and ordering banh chung/banh tet in the Bay Area?

Eek! The Year of the Rat is near!

It's coming on February 7 -- The Year of the Rat.  Though we tend to think of the rodents in disparaging ways, they're highly valued for their courage and enterprising ways.  They're known to be clever, bright, sociable and family-oriented.  (Rats reproduce with abandon and perceived to be rather lusty creatures!) Their interested are diverse and they are very nimble, able to adapt and react to changing conditions.

(In Vietnam, the cuter mouse is the animal associated with this astrological sign. However, since most Asians celebrating the Lunar New Year go with the Chinese preference, I'm using the rat. The animals are close relatives.)

Those attributes will either warm the cockles of your heart or conjure up images of the Brookdale Institute in Killer Rats, a 2003 movie (see the trailer). Just kidding...

Actually, some of the dear people in my life are rats, and this is THEIR year. They should feel extra special having accomplished another full cycle of life. Famous rats you may know include: Alyssa Milano, Cameron Diaz, Charlotte Bronte, Daryl Hannah, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lauren Bacall, Margaret Mitchell, Margot Kidder, Mata Hari, Olivia Newton-John,  and Stevie Nicks.

In general, rats were born in: 1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008.  Remember because the Lunar calendar shifts around, people with January or February birthdays may be on the cusp.

Rats are in a generally unspoken part of the Vietnamese culinary repertoire. They are eaten in Vietnam, as they are  in other parts of of Southeast Asia and India. They are a protein source. In fact, at BackwoodsBound.com, you'll find typical American recipes for squirrel and the raccoon.

In 2004 when the Bird Flu was scaring people from eating chicken, rats were fetching quite a pretty penny in Cambodia. People of my parents generation recall eating rat. Apparently, the country rats were tastier than city ones.

Enough about rat as food. I'm somewhat superstitious so I always look around for some forecast of the coming year. Here's a little fortune telling that's not so weird and hokey:

Your fortune in the Year of the Rat (Asiaone.com)

Hopefully, the economy and presidential elections won't be so grim!

Skimming Scum Made Easy

Now that I've got your attention, let me tell you about my new favorite cooking tool -- it's a Japanese skimmer that lifts off unwanted crud from your bubbling brew, whether that's a stock, pot of beans or batch of Vietnamese pork riblets in caramel sauce. The skimmer works a zillion times better than any other gadget I've bought or tried.

The mesh is fine and the rim is thin enough to just glide right under the fat or scuzzy bubbles and scoop it right up. Whoever designed it was a genius because the mesh has been formed into a slight bowl shape to hold the unwanted junk. What's more, it cleans up exceptionally well with soap and can go into the dishwasher.

Some of you have said that skimming scum from your pot of pho seems like an endless task but with this lightweight skimmer, you'll be looking forward to when the scum reappears on the surface of the broth. You'll be sad when there's nothing left to skim.

I'm indebted to Niloufer Ichaporia King, author of the fabulous My Bombay Kitchen about Parsi cooking in India, for inviting me to lunch and then sending me away with this invaluable gift. She beamed with enthusiasm when she gave it to me and I knew it was special. Niloufer is no fool.  So many thanks to Niloufer! (By the way, if you're in the Bay Area, Niloufer is cooking her annual Parsi New Year Feast at the venerable Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley on March 21. Call for details.)

Where can you buy one? Try an Asian market or restaurant/kitchenware supply shop like the Kamei or the Wok Shop in San Francisco Chinatown, where Niloufer got hers. I saw them at Marina Foods market in Cupertino. Wherever you are, I imagine that these are not hard to find.

The one I have came in a plastic sleeve with yellow and black Japanese lettering. One of the words -- if you read characters  -- is for oil. I noticed that there are some that don't come in the plastic but look the same. Also, they come in different sizes.

How much does this thing cost? About Less than $2 my friends. Go forth and seek one for yourself!

Half-hatched Duck Eggs: Hot Vit Lon

Vietnamese people partake in many foods that may be considered reviling to those who are unfamiliar with them. One of such foods is hot vit lon -- fertilized duck eggs that are partway incubated. I call them half-hatched duck eggs. They are a delicacy in Vietnam, as well as a nutritious food that my mother says is a great restorative for women who've just delivered.

Contrary to current beliefs, hot vit lon (pronounced "hoht veet lone") are not traditional aphrodisiacs in Vietnam. They're a food for noshing (often with liquor, if you're a man) and perhaps, for weak and recovering women. Many Filipinos are crazy for hot vit lon, which they call balut (pronounced "bahloot"). The eggs are a super popular Filipino street food, and there are Filipino aficionados who claimed that the eggs are a sex stimulant.

I have not had one since I was a kid in Vietnam but started thinking about hot bit lon when prompted by Quan, who emailed asking how the eggs are cooked and eaten. I remember eating them with my siblings, tapping on the egg shell with a spoon and then breaking the membrane underneath to sip at the flavorful liquid, which was broth like. Then we ate the solid stuff, which basically was the embryo. I don't recall beak, bones or feathers, but they can be in there, depending on the age of the egg. We didn't eat the hard white albumen. It was a kind of weird dare and that was it. It wasn't as positive of a food memory for me as my first bowl of pho.

When we got to the States, my mother said that it was hard to find a reliable source so we never had hot vit lon here. We gave it up, and I didn't miss them since there were lots of other great things to eat and obsess about. To digress, Mom loves to tell the story of a Vietnamese American hot vit lon vendor who was making a delivery during the hot summer and his van broke down on the road. He was stuck waiting in the heat for a while. The eggs started hatching and soon, his had a load of ducklings instead of eggs to sell!

Seriously, for those who are curious, here's the lowdown on the eggs:

What are half-hatched eggs?
Half-hatched eggs are basically fertilized duck eggs (a.k.a. fetal duck eggs) that are 16 to 20 days in age. The older it is, the larger the chick and the more pronounced its feathers, bones, and beak. An embryo at 17 days has beak and feathers which are more developed at 20 days. Normally, after being fertilized, a chick hatches after 26 to 28 days of incubation. The taste depends on the breed of duck. Hot vit lon from Muscovy ducks (a leading breed in the U.S.) are considered among the best. You can half-hatch chicken eggs too but duck eggs are larger and more prized.

Who eats them?
Not just Vietnamese and Filipinos, but also Cambodians, Laotians, and Chinese. They're not as popular with  Thais, Malays and Indonesians, but those folks also consume them. Filipinos are the main connoisseurs of half-hatched duck eggs. For an in depth discussion, see this article on the significance of balut in Filipino culture.

Why eat them?
Look, I'm Vietnamese food lover but haven't had one in decades. But there are those who are extremely fond of them. Hot vit lon is full of nutrition (each has about 190 calories and offers 14 grams of protein and tons of B-carotene, calcium and other good stuff) so in circumstances where protein is in limited supply, it's quite a godsend. Eggs in many parts of the world are eaten more than poultry or fowl. A chicken or duck is better as an egg layer than roasted meat on your table. Beyond the nutritional aspects, there's the fun food factor, the memory of home, the nostalgia for foods of the past, the nosh to accompany beer or cognac.

The concept is one that's hard to swallow, but there are people out there for whom a half-hatched egg is the bomb. They may think it's weird that some people eat moldy, stinky cheese like Roquefort. I'm not saying to run out and eat one, but do understand that it's a well-liked food.

Where to buy the eggs:
They're mostly sold at Viet markets but how do you know their age? I'd buy them from the professionals to ensure freshness. For example, go to a farmer's market where there's a big Asian clientele. In Northern California, I've seen hot vit lon sold at the Friday Oakland market and the Saturday Alemany (San Francisco) and Stockton markets.  Look for an egg vendor, who may have signs in Tagalog, Chinese, and Vietnamese.

In Little Saigon enclaves, there may be a hot vit lon store, such as Hot Vit Lon Long An at 8942 Bolsa Avenue in Westminster, California.

For a party, you can even mail order them from Metzer Farm duck and goose hatchery in Gonzales, California!

How to cook half-hatched eggs:
The ones sold in the U.S. at markets are usually uncooked. Treat it like a humongous chicken egg and gently boil it for 20 to 30 minutes. It's enjoyed warmed, not cold.

How to eat the eggs:
Vietnamese people like to eat hot vit lon like you would a soft-boiled egg. Tap the broad end with a spoon, remove some of the shell. Break the membrane and sip the liquid. Then use the spoon to scoop up the solids. Add salt and pepper. Vietnamese people like to eat hot vit lon with rau ram (Polygonum odoratum, Vietnamese coriander), a fresh herb that tastes cilantro but finishes with a bit of heat. The  rau ram herb is suppose to offer heat to contrast with the cold of the egg, a yin-yang kind of thing. Others say that rau ram aids in digesting hot vit lon.

I've not posted photos because frankly, I don't eat them. For graphic details, see:

• YouTube video of Anthony Bourdain eating hot vit lon in Vietnam.
• 2003 blog posting from the Wily Filipino is full of juicy, tantalizing detailed instructions on how to eat the eggs. 
• Wandering Chopsticks has photos and description of eating hot vit lon as part of her his outing at a Little Saigon food court in Westminster, CA.

Pho Secrets and Techniques

It's so hard to get the flavor of pho broth just right. You're best off leaving it up the professional cooks at pho noodle shops. Don't even try. It takes so long to make the broth, anyway.  It's more convenient to go out. I don't have the time. Ha! You're teaching non-Vietnamese people to make their own pho? That should be interesting...

Cooking is a skill and craft that just takes practice to master. I've never been one to be discouraged from tinkering in the kitchen. At the end of the day, it's just food. If you mess up, you can still eat whatever you made. It's not likely to harm you.

But there's something about pho. I often hear from young Viet people about how her or his mother, father, grandmother or grandfather says that there's no way to make a bowl of homemade pho that's as good as what you'd get out. Indeed, the fragrant noodle soup is practically Vietnam's national dish, but it's no State secret! I suspect that the elders themselves don't know how to make a good bowl at home so there isn't much wisdom to impart to the kid. 

That, fortunately, is not how I was raised. My parents were determined to tease out the secrets and techniques for making all kinds of Vietnamese foods. They'd ask their friends, professional cooks and family members. They also read stuff too. Their mantra was that they could make most dishes just as good, if not better than store-bought. (My mom stopped at Chinese roast pork when she was shown the inside of the roasting chamber at a Chinese barbecue shop.)

With regard to pho noodle soup, it's really not hard to make a fabulous bowl.  There are detailed recipes in my book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, as well as at the Vietworldkitchen.com mega pho page.  Vietnamese cooks have lots of tricks up their sleeves, but my approach is to keep things straightforward and true.  Before leaping into making pho yourself,  consider the following:

Basic Pho Tips and Techniques

1. Start with good beef bones: Avoid neck bones. Look for knuckle bones and leg bones that contain marrow. At Asian markets, you'll find beef bones cut and bagged in the refrigerated section. Vietnamese markets will sometimes have the leg bones at the butcher counter. You can specify how you want them sawed; ask for two- to three-inch sections.

If you have to buy a little more than what the recipe calls for, lucky you! Your broth will be extra beefy. Miko in Seattle said that his bones were on the biggish side but he bought more than what was called for. I suggested that he thrown them all in for a more intense broth. There was more fat than usual, but Miko refrigerated the broth and lifted the congealed fat off.

From eating pho in Vietnam and observing how the cows there live low-key lives grazing in the countryside, I was inspired to make pho broth from the fragrant bones of grass-fed and natural beef. The experiments have consistently yielded amazing results, with the essence of beef captured every time. To find the bones, ask a butcher who breaks down large beef carcass sections into small retail cuts. Also check these sites for sources for natural, organic or grass-fed beef: Eatwellguide.org, Localharvest.org, Eatwild.com

2. Aim for a clear broth: This is achieved by parboiling and rinsing the bones, which greatly reduces the amount of residue in the broth. You may think you're pouring essential flavors down the drain, but you're not. The bones exude their essence during the three-hour gentle simmer. Cooking at a low heat also helps produce clear broth. [1/19/08 -- Check out the great tool for efficiently skimming scum and fat!]

3. Char the onion and ginger: It imparts a wonderful brown color and deepens the overall flavors. DO NOT skip this step.

4. Use yellow rock sugar: It rounds out all the rough edges and brings the flavors together. Many Viet cooks in the past used granulated sugar and the flavor is just sweet and flat. Look for the golden-yellow sugar sold in plastic bags or paper boxes at Chinese and Vietnamese markets. Avoid the insipid white version, which is like using regular sugar.  Note that the sugar may be labeled rock candy. One package lasts a long time. Just bang on large chunks with a hammer to break them up.

5. Don't dilute. Why simmer broth for hours to create an intense flavor and then dilute it with water? I never got that approach. As my friend Linda Carucci points out in her helpful book, Cooking School Secrets for Real-World Cooks, bones give up their all after about 3 hours of simmering. Unless you're simmering industrial quantities of bones (then you don't need my help), there's no need to simmer the broth for half a day. The only time that'd you need dilute the broth is if you added too much fish sauce or salt and need to correct the seasoning.

6. Leave some fat: Despite all the talk about obesity in the United States, I like some shiny globules of fat floating in the broth. They lend a richness that underscores pho's beefiness.

7. Serve it hot: To cook the raw beef and warm the cooked beef and noodles, the broth must be boiling when it's ladled into the bowl. But hot pho shouldn't be left to sit in the bowl. The noodles will absorb too much broth.

8. Freeze it! Leftover broth and cooked meats may be frozen for a treat on another day.

Pho Secrets?

• Roasting the bones. I've tried this and have not found that it's done much to the broth aside from making the broth dark, something that I've not found to be attractive. If you start with good bones, there's no need to roast, as the French would do for a veal stock, or demi-glace, as Miko pointed out.
• Filet or Wagyu beef in pho. I like my beef to have taste and have never found super tender, rich filet or Wagyu (American Kobe) to have much oomph. There's plenty of flavor and fat from regular (and cheap) brisket, chuck, drop flank (nam), tendon, etc. Pho is humble food and to add filet or Wagyu removes some  soul from the soup.  Finally, after reading a story by Gary Estabrook in the December 2007 issue of Gourmet on how Kobe and Wagyu cows are raised, I refuse to eat that meat. Let's say that the cotws are massaged because they're arthritic from having to standing still and carrying all that weight!
• Pho seasoning packets. These little bags sold at Viet markets save you no time. You still have to simmer the bones and meats for broth. You don't know how old the spices are too. Why not gather them yourself?
• Instant pho extract/paste. Can contain MSG.  If you don't use bouillon for broth, why would you use something like this?
• Hoisin. Spicy sweet hoisin sauce adds flavor and is something that southern Vietnamese folks like. For me, it obliterates a well crafted broth. Perhaps pho shops set the bottles of Lee Kum Kee out and encourage diners to squirt it into their bowls because their broth isn't well-flavored? I reach for the hoisin to dip a beef meatball into, but that's about it.

Feel free to debate the points I've made here, or add any tips, etc.  of your own!

Related information:

• Evolution of pho (history and background)
• Chicken pho noodle soup recipe (on this blog)

Chestnuts for the Holidays

As I type, my parents are probably peeling chestnuts. It's not because they're in their seventies and don't have anything to do, but rather that for our Christmas Eve dinner, we eat lots of chestnuts. It's a tedious task, but they do it as a team and it's a ritual they share. (Chestnuts are enjoyed in Vietnam, China, Japan and Korea. They originally came from West Asia and have been cultivated in China for as long as they've been cultivated in Europe!)

Once the nuts are peeled, my mom simmers them in broth with butter, canned chicken broth and cilantro. Many years ago, when she forgot to buy parsley, she substituted cilantro and found the flavor to be extremely agreeable so we've made the chestnuts that way ever since. The buttery sweet results go into the sticky rice stuffing and are served as a side dish. She reserves the biggest whole ones to serve on the side and will likely say, "There's enough so that you each get X number." We savor each one because we know that we won't have them again on our menu until the next season.

My parents are into feeding a crowd so they're working on several pounds of chestnuts. You don't have to be as over-achieving as they are. Here's a recipe pulled from my cookbook to get you on the way:

Chestnuts Simmered with Butter and Cilantro

Makes about 2 cups

11/2 cups shelled and peeled chestnuts (3/4 pound unpeeled), whole ones halved lengthwise
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
5 sprigs cilantro
2 cups or more low-sodium canned chicken broth

Select a small saucepan in which the chestnuts may lay in more or less one layer. Add the butter, cilantro, and broth to cover by 1/2 inch. Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and simmer softly for about 20 minutes, or until the nuts are tender-firm and still holding their shape. Avoid boiling or the nuts will disintegrate. When done, some pieces will be intact while others will have broken apart. Set aside to cool. Use in your stuffing or serve as a side dish.

Buying and Storing Chestnuts
Chestnuts are in season in the late fall and early winter so you may be able to get some fresh ones still. (Chinese and Korean markets are good source for them.) Select shiny, heavy-feeling nuts and store them in a cool, dry place. Use the nuts while they're still full and heavy. Or, freeze them unshelled, thawing them in the refrigerator before use.

How to Shell and Peel Chestnuts
To shell and peel chestnuts, first use a sharp paring knife to cut a cross on the flat side of the nut; do this on a dishtowel to prevent the nut from rolling away. Preheat a toaster oven or regular oven to 400°F. Place the nuts, cut side up, directly on the rack or in a shallow pan. Bake them until they feel hot and the cut part of the shells open and curl (about 5 minutes in the toaster oven, or 10 to 15 minutes in the regular oven).

Put the nuts on a dishtowel, wrap them up, and squeeze on them to crack their shells. Working on one at a time, remove the smooth outer shell and then peel, scrape, and/or cut off the papery inner brown skin. Use the knife tip to pry out skin bits stuck in the crevices. It's okay if a nut breaks during peeling. As you work, keep unpeeled nuts warm in the dishtowel so the shells remain pliable and easier to remove. Shell and peel chestnuts up to 3 days in advance and keep them refrigerated. They also freeze beautifully for months.

Gifts that Keep on Giving: Knives

There a lot of talk these days about the U.S. economy being on the verge of stumbling. The housing market hiccups, personal credit crunches, weak dollar, rising oil prices and federal budget deficit are making consumers a little skittish.

People are tightening their belts by eating out less. I've read about a couple who up until recently ate at the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) everyday. They may be jonesing for their daily pancake fix but may have to work the griddle themselves. Painful as that may sound, those folks may discover that homemade can be as good if not better than restaurant food.

I love to eat out, but at the end of the day I root for the home cook. Vietnamese food poses challenges to cooks because there tends to be a fair amount of chopping involved. Don't despair, gift yourself a few good knives this season (I always launch the holidays by buying myself something), and you'll find that they're the kind of gift that keeps on giving for years to come.

When I first moved away from home, my first serious knife was a  Henckels 8-inch chef's knife, purchased from a now-defunct chain of discount stores called Adray's.  I can't remember which kind it was but at the time, it was a major investment. I felt like I could conquer any culinary task placed before me. After he sold his Italian restaurant and retired, my husband's uncle, James Hoffman, gave me a well-worn cleaver (see second photo, on the left). Jim butchered his own meat so I started hacking away at chickens with that knife. I invested in one of the diamond-studded electronic knife sharpeners to keep my edge.

Those knives worked fine for me until I started work on my cookbook manuscript and was testing recipes over and over and over to get things just right. The amount of repeated prep work was astounding and I was honing my knife skills as well as my knives. What I found was that the Henckels lost its edge quickly, and the sharpening didn't help much. An article in 2005 by Los Angeles Times food writer Russ Parsons led me to try out a Japanese vegetable knife -- the lighter, thinner santoku that are popular nowadays.

As a struggling writer, I had no money for fancy blades and picked one up for $13 (above, on the left) at a restaurant supply shop in Culver City called Surfas (it wasn't as dolled up as it is now, but it's still great). That knife changed my life.  The blade stayed sharp, was easy to maintain, and best of all, allowed me to chop and mince to perfection without wearing me down. It's very light.

In the past, I looked down upon such knives because they seemed so flimsy. Now I'm eating crow. That's how Asian cooks get thin slices and perfect cut without little fuss. Then I stepped up to a $19 rectangular usuba (above, on the right, what a splurge!) which doesn't have the pointy tip like the santoku. After 3 months with these Asian knives I reluctantly slipped the Henckel and a Chicago Cutlery chefs knife I'd picked up in protective sleeves and put them in a drawer. The Japanese knives took their places in the knife block. 

The electric knife sharpener had a lifetime guarantee but its lifetime seemed to have past for me. My husband gifted me a steel for my birthday one year and I've used that primarily ever since.  Once a quarter I have my knives professionally sharpened. In between sharpenings, all I do is lightly steel the blades and they come back nice and sharp.

Knife sharpening tip: My local knife sharpening man, Terry Beech of Sharp Quick mobile sharpening services (if you live in the Monterey Bay, he'll come to your house if you want!), says that if you hold the knife up with the sharp blade facing you and you can make out the edge of the blade, it needs sharpening. It should be so razor thin that you can't see a clean line in the blade. I also gently brush my thumb across the blade to see if it's sharp or not.

A few months ago, I semi-retired Jim's cleaver. Turns out it was a vegetable cleaver all this time. It was fine when it went through the many cheap chickens I'd bought for stock. But when I wanted to hack at pork ribs or a duck, it was no good. Terry told me that I shouldn't have been using a vegetable cleaver anyway and suggested I find a heavy meat cleaver.

The ones at the Chinese restaurant supply shops were too big and heavy for me. I wasn't about to work at a barbecue joint.  In the end, I went with a cleaver made by F. Dick (stop your laughing, it stands for Friedrich Dick). A German cutlery company, F. Dick markets to chefs and commercial kitchens and they've started out in the butchering business, Terry told me. (F. Dick kitchen knives are supposedly also sold under the name Calphalon Professional Cutlery, but I've not seen them.)

The blade is a good 3/16" thick and it weighs in just over a pound. Jim's vegetable cleaver weighs 11 ounces. The weight is important because that gives you an assist when you're striking a blow at thick bones.

At first, I ordered an 8-inch cleaver, but it was huge -- like something from a bad cartoon. The 6-inch cleaver (about $60, to the right above) felt better in my hand, though at first I felt like I was being a bit wimpy. Probably for liability reasons, the cleaver came completely unsharpened and Terry did the job for me. I used it first on a couple of free-range chickens that I bought from a local farmer and the bones cut nice and clean. Last night I needed some tomato sauce quick and took a block out of the freezer and hacked a chunk out with the cleaver. It was great -- one of the best gifts for myself that I bought this year.

Knife buying/gifting tips:

• Go for the full tang. The metal of the blade (called a tang) should go all the way through to the end of the handle. That's one of the major marks of a sturdy knife.
• There are certain knives for certain jobs but in the main, multi-purpose knife, like the santoku  or usuba are fabulous. Get a few cheapie paring knives.
• Never buy a knife until you've held it. Hold the knife and see if it feels good in your hand. Price doesn't guarantee comfort. Those little ceramic steels don't cost much and work very well.
• If you gift someone a knife, it's Vietnamese custom for the recipient to give you a little money in return -- like as if they paid for the knife. Otherwise, it's considered bad luck.
• Visit restaurant supply shops (Asian and non-Asian), housewares stores like Sur la Table and Williams Sonoma. In Berkeley, try Hida Tools and Tokyo Fish Market, both on San Pablo. In San Francisco, try the Wok Shop in Chinatown or Kamei housewares on Clement.

More info at:

• Kitchen Knife Buying Guide
• eGullet Japanese knives (discussion thread)

What are you buying yourself for the holidays?

Bass Leaves: What are they?

Lookit, Asian people eat all kinds of plants and animals for that matter. It's hard to keep up. A Hmong farmer a while back said to me that you can eat practically everything. "There's no harm in trying," he said. The Hmong are fearless survivalists. They are people who eat fresh Sichuan peppercorns that numb your mouth and leave a biting spicy bitter taste on the palate for about 30 minutes.

I thought of them because two people have recently asked about the same oddball vegetable lately. Elise in Massachusetts queried and then sen in the photo of what she recently bought at a Viet market in the town of Lowell. They were labeled "bass leaves."

In New York a few weeks ago, I saw packages of vines and leaves resembling Elise's bass leaves. They weren't labeled as bass leaves. My friend James Oseland, a fellow Southeast Asian food expert and editor in chief of Saveur magazine, was with me and said that they were morning glory leaves. We later got some takeout Thai food from a video store in Flushing and the leaves were in a stew/curry of sorts. I can't remember whether or not there were stems and tendrils. Overall, the vegetable didn't taste like much, nor did they impart interesting texture. On the other hand, the food was extremely spicy and could have easily overwhelmed any flavor the vegetable had.

A few days ago, Jaden of the Steamy Kitchen blog in Florida asked about an unfamiliar, kinky Asian vegetable.  She sent me one of her handsome photos of a seared scallop dish thay she prepared and set atop the vegetable in question. At first I thought the kinky veggie was curled up water spinach stems (rau muong) but she had some large, heart shaped leaves in the bowl.

So what do you folks on the East Coast have? I do think that it's morning glory vine and leaves, as James identified. Morning glory belongs to the huge Ipomoea family comprising of 500 different species. They grow very very quickly and have pretty trumpet-shaped flowers. Most gardeners think of them as weedy pests and like to grow them in containers to control the vines. But  Ipomoea  plants aren't ornamental. In fact, sweet potatoes are members of that genus.   

Guess who grows lots of sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) ? Southeast Asian  farmers.  Typically what we see at Asian markets as "yam leaf" are non-producing sweet potato vines (see photo below). They have delicate hear-shape leaves and you stir-fry just the leaves and discard the stems. They have an earthy flavor and are slightly slimy when cooked but not offending gross.

Those same farmers usually cultivate sweet potatoes too, and now is the season to harvest the potatoes for market. I suspect that they're bringing the vines too as a way to maximize their earnings.  I've not seen these leaves on the West Coast but will keep an eye out. Above is a photo of a type of sweet potato plant. Below that is a typical morning glory flower.

If I were to get a hold of some, I'd try stir-frying or blanching the leaves and stems separately and see if they're flavorful.

If you're familiar with this vegetable, do share your thoughts!

11/28/07 Update: Turns out I was wrong. "Bass leaves" aren't morning glory vines. Read the comment thread to find out what they really are!

Peanuts: Home Toasted vs. Store Roasted

When my family first came to the United States, we did many things the old-fashioned way. Dried mung beans are one of the most-often used legumes in Vietnamese cooking so we bought unhulled mung beans (the green ones with the skin on), soaked them, boiled them, and then laboriously rubbed off the green skins. Green papaya salad was a family favorite and my mother once made my oldest sister hand cut enough papaya to feed thirty people. We roasted raw peanuts in a dry skillet for garnishing a multitude of Vietnamese foods. We thought that such labors were common in America. After noticing the tiny bay shrimp at a local grocery store, we pondered the repetitive work involved for those whose sole occupation was to remove the shells from those shrimp. "I pity the poor people who have to do that job," my mother said.

It wasn't long before we realized that America was much more developed than our little Vietnam. Yep, we figured out that there was some sort of mechanized process for shelling bay shrimp, just like we discovered the convenience of buying hulled split mung beans, using the food processor of a shredded for green papaya, and shopping at health food stores for roasted, unsalted peanuts.

While I'll never go back to rubbing skins off of teeny mung beans and have written off hand-cutting green papaya after trying it just once, I found myself this evening pan-roasting raw peanuts. Tomorrow night, I'm cooking dinner for my dear friend James Oseland, editor in chief of Saveur magazine and author of Cradle of Flavor (a fantastic work on Indonesian, Singaporean and Malaysian home cooking), and his mother. Our main course is a turmeric catfish with dill and scallion noodle dish from Hanoi. One of the essential garnishes is whole roasted peanut.

I'd bought a half pound of raw peanuts at the Chinese market for simmering with squash and coconut milk, and the bag sat on the counter near the stove. While prepping the ingredients, I remembered my mother's description of roasting peanuts in sand to evenly cook them and I wondered if they'd taste better in the catfish dish. Surely James would appreciate/understand the effort. What the hell, I threw the peanuts into a heavy-bottomed skillet, turn the gas to medium, and went about my cooking.

When roasting nuts you want to do it slowly to ensure that the entire nut is cooked through and none of it remains raw. I remember the times when we ended up with unevenly roasted peanuts that were partially burnt because someone wasn't watching the skillet or rushed things. Out of angst, I adjusted the heat periodically and shook the skillet frequently. I was on the phone with my girlfriend Maki who asked, "What's that you're doing? Spinning plates on a stick?"

"No, I'm pan-roasting peanuts," I responded and held up the skillet close to phone so she could get an extra earful.

The peanuts were large and seemed to take forever. I'm used to toasting sesame seeds, which take no time by comparison. I kept testing the peanuts for doneness by eating them. For the most part, they were unpleasantly raw tasting. Finally, after a good 50 minutes (Maki had hung up to make dinner for her family), I turned off the heat and let them continue cooking as they cooled. They started making little cracking noises and darkened just a tad.

Once completely cooled, I did a taste test between the home roasted peanuts and the Trader Joe's stash that I kept in the freezer. The pan-roasted ones were aromatic, peanutty, but slightly bitter whereas the purchased peanuts were rich and peanutty throughout, without the bitterness. The former was more complex but the latter more pleasant on the palate.

They were two different varieties of peanuts - Trader Joe's is smaller than the Chinese market's. Vietnamese cooks don't normally fry peanuts like the Chinese and other Southeast Asian cooks do. We basically dry-roast the peanuts and frankly, they're just not that great. If you roast peanuts at home and have some kind of trick, please share it!

My conclusion? I'm sticking with store-bought and put my Vietnamese cooking efforts elsewhere. Certain modern conveniences are wonderful time savers and tasty too.