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Have a hankering for Vietnamese food? We've got 6 easy recipes you can totally make at home, from a quick wok-kissed beef pho to lettuce wraps.
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Simply Recipes Team
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Simply Recipes Team
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Published May 14, 2019
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Here at Simply Recipes, we often partner with cookbook authors and recipe writers who want to share their skills, cuisines, and recipes with us. For the past few months, we've partnered with Andrea Nguyen, an award-winning recipe writer and cookbook author, most recently of Vietnamese Food Any Day: Simple Recipes for True, Fresh Flavors.
Below we've included some thoughts from Andrea on how her recipes came to be.
"Vietnamese cooks have always been resourceful and innovative, doing their best under harsh circ*mstance, foreign intrusion, and displacement. My family came to America in 1975 and in our efforts to resettle here, we mined American supermarkets to cook the flavors we missed.
Like many displaced people (my parents are northerners who’d migrated to Saigon decades earlier and raised five kids during the Vietnam War), we made do and shared new ideas with our community.
In the main, those new ideas were rooted in foundational cooking but were also forward looking. They helped people realize that they could be Vietnamese in America but more importantly, to become Vietnamese Americans.
The exciting initial years were full of discovery and learning. Just like in the motherland, people cooked with care — a notion that’s expressed in the Viet term khéo, which means “smart” and “adroit”, but when applied to cooking, it conveys food that’s been thoughtfully and skillfully prepared with intention and a grounding in the fundamentals.
Mostly based on my latest cookbook, Vietnamese Food Any Day, the recipes in this Simply Recipes collection reflect the Vietnamese notion of khéo in how it captures the essence of Vietnamese foodways. I incorporate cultural notes in the recipe write ups [you'll have to click through to the actual recipes] to explain the roots and foundations of the recipes.
For example, char siu chicken is based on a [Chinese recipe] char siu pork (thịt xá xíu); the reason for chicken is it’s faster to marinate and cook, is delicious and people cook up lots of chicken nowadays. The wok seared beef pho is a quickie take on a 1940s dish that my mother had in Hai Duong, where she grew up; if you’d like the original version, check out my book, “The Pho Cookbook.”
We encourage you to spend a little time with these recipes. Hopefully, they’ll add a few new ideas to your repertoire!
If you want to learn more about Andrea Nguyen, ingredients used in Vietnamese cooking (and other cuisines as well), cooking equipment and her approach to Vietnamese Food follow these links:
- Beginners Guide to Cooking Vietnamese Food at Home
- Ingredient Spotlight: Fish Sauce
- Kitchen Essentials for Cooking Vietnamese Food at Home
- Explore all our Vietnamese Recipes
- Andrea's website: VietWorldKitchen.com
- Beginners Guide to Cooking Vietnamese Food at Home
- Ingredient Spotlight: Fish Sauce
- Kitchen Essentials for Cooking Vietnamese Food at Home
- Explore all our Vietnamese Recipes
- Andrea's website: VietWorldKitchen.com
The only tough part is deciding which one to start with!
Easy Wok-Kissed Beef Pho
Half the battle of a good pho is the broth—but pho need not take hours to get right! This one leans on good quality supermarket broth that gets its oomph from by simmering it with spices. The beef gets a quick turn in a hot wok.
Curry-Scented Grilled Beef Lettuce Wraps
My kids devoured these. The curry flavor is well balanced, the dipping sauce is awesome, and you can even transform these little lettuce wraps into burgers if you’re feeling adventurous!
Crispy Sweet Potato Pancake Lettuce Wraps
When I made these little sweet potato and carrot fritters in order to photograph them for the post, we destroyed them in a matter of minutes. It’s a great appetizer or snack, or double the recipe and make them for dinner.
Char Siu Chicken
Vietnamese Food is heavily influenced by Chinese culture and that includes the sweet, garlicky barbecued pork called char siu. In this recipe, Andrea applies the same flavor profile to chicken for a quick weeknight dinner.
Continue to 5 of 6 below.
Chicken Curry with Sweet Potato and Lemongrass
There’s nothing like the comfort of a warm bowl of curry, and this one delivers. If you’ve never worked with lemongrass before, this recipe may convert you to the charms of this bright, zippy ingredient.
Easy Mango Lime Sorbet
I’ve always got frozen mango in my freezer. And I almost always have limes, especially in the summer. Does this sound like you? If so, that means you can make this sorbet without using any fancy equipment in just a matter of minutes. It’s delicious!
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