Vietnamese food & Vietnam Cuisine

Vietnamese Meal

When Vietnamese people speak of “eating rice” they mean they are eating the foods served in a main meal with all the nourishing dishes meant in the word “rice”: consuming all the dishes accompanying rice served in a meal.
Rice: unhusked paddy ( of ordinary variety of rice ) is put in a pot containing already boilded water; it will be heated until all the water has evaporated, then the temperature of the fire will be lowered, a pot-lid will shut hermetically the pot for the rice to be ready for consumption. Rice well cooked is palatable, somewhat plastic, and has the flavour of the unhusked paddy.
Dry dishes : meat, fish, shrimp, soya curd, various “ browned in fat” vegetables, vegetable pickles, egg-plant pickles…
Soups : vegetable soups cooked with pig-ribs, soar crab soups, fish soups.

Sweet and sour grated salads( nom/goi / vietnamese salad)

This is a dish made of fresh vegetables with great nourishment value, much like the sald dish in a European meal, but the composition and cooking is somewhat different. You takea kohlrabi or a young papaya , grate them into matchsticks, then a cucumber, cut into slices ( seed removed). If a carrot is available, you grate it and add some red chilli to give it a red color to enhance the attractiveness of the dish. Lean pork is cooked ,sliced. Roasted nuts ( peanuts, cashewnuts…) is ground into small pits. All is mixed altogether in a regular way, with addition of vietnamese salad dressing ( nuoc tron goi/ nuoc mam goi ). The “nom /goi” is then put on a dish, and a scented herb is sprinkled on the surface. To eat “nom/goi” is to appreciate at the same time all the tastes: acid, pepper hot, salty and the dizzy flavour of roasted ground-nuts. The vietnamese salad dish turns a simple meal into a very appetizing one. In a banquet with a lot of dishes, the vietnamese salad dish can’t all the more be absent. ( vietnamese shrimp salad recipe )

Pho –Vietnamese noodles soup

 It is current dish, familiar with all people. The vietnamese people eat pho – vietnamese noodles soup from their infancy. In the old age, the pho – vietnamese noodles soup dish becomes most suitable, above all other dishes. The vietnamese noodles soup is taken in particular in the morning, but there are people who take it at noon as a lunch. For those who must work late at night, a hot pho – vietnamese noodles soup bowl is a dish for recovering the hungry stomach. The pho – vietnamese noodle soup must be prepared so that when the bowl of pho – vietnamese noodles soup is placed on the table with its vapor whirling up, the eater can appreciate at the moment all the tastes and scents of this “integrated” dish, there lies the secret of the pho – vietnamese noodles soup profesion. The paste of the pho, a glossy kind of flattened paste cut into strips is prepared from ordinary rice. If it is a pho bo – vietnamese beef noodles soup, the soup must be prepared from ox-bones or pig-bones. The slender loin is reserved for the pho tai – pho with slender loin cooked very quickly in boiled soup, which is always accompanied by a small slices of scented ginger. Vietnamese beef noodles soup recipe

Cha lua

 wrapped in banana leaves before cooking, this pork pate is served as a snack and on French bread for lunch.

Chao tom – shrimp paste on sugar cane

A Hanoi specialty, this unusual appetiser is ground shrimp baked on sugar cane. The shrimp is removed from the sugar cane and rolled in rice paper with lettuce, cucumber and mint, and dipped in fish sauce ( vietnamese dipping fish sauce recipe )

Goi ga – Vietnamese chicken salad

 it is shredded chicken marinated in onion, vinegar, mint , peanuts.

Ga xao sa ot

Sauteed chicken cooked with lemon grass, fish sauce, garlic, onion and chillis. Sometimes peanuts are added.

Bun bo hue : vietnamese spicy beef noodles soup Hue style

A kind of beef noodle soup, Bun Bo Hue is not difficult to make, but it is extremely difficult to make well. Soup for Bun Bo Hue is cooked from boiling bones and meat. Most of the flavour comes from the meat and spices cooked in the soup, but the real key to the dish is a slightly salty broth added during cooking. The noodles used in the dish are soft, sweet, complementing the tender, chewy, spice-soaked beef.( vietnamese spicy beef noodles soup Hue style  recipe )

You don’t have to go all the way to Hue to get Bun Bo Hue, but purveyors of the real thing are much moreparticular about the noodles or beef they are use. However, no matter where it’s served, Bun Bo Hue still has a unique taste. If you’re in Hue, you can just buy it off the street, while in HaNoi, you can head to Hoa Ma. In Ho Chi Minh City, try the restaurant at 70 Ngo Duc Ke, D1.

 

Hu tieu – Saigon noodles soup

 

also called Saigon soup, hu tieu is chicken, beef, pork and shrimp served with a broth over rice noodles, with crab meat, peanuts, onion and fried garlic.

Banh cuon

 A steamed rice pancake rolled around minced pork

Canh chua- vietnamese sour soup

 A sour soup by which vietnamese cooks are judged. Often served with shrimp or fish head, the soup is a fragrant blend of sweet and tangy flavours, using tomato, pineapple, star fruit, bean sprouts, fried onion, bamboo shoots, coriander, fish sauce.

Banh khoai – Vietnamese mini pancake 

called Hue pancake, it is a specialty of that area and is something of an omelet . A batter of rice flour and cornstarch is fried with egg to make a pancake that is wrapped around pork or shrimp, onion, bean sprouts and mushrooms. ( vietnamese pancake recipe)

Vietnam Travel

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