More Vietnamese Food from Le Phi

We were craving for some Vietnamese and Singaporean food, so we decided to drop by last Saturday's Salcedo Market Food Fair. To our disappointemnt, the Singaporean chicken stall was not there, so my parents and I ended up buying some chicken inasal and some Vietnamese goodies.

The Vietnamese lady not only had the usual fresh spring rolls and rice cake, but some salads as well. The shrimp salad on the left is really very tasty. The shrimp were stir-fried in garlic and lemon grass, then laid on a bed of chewy rice noodles, crisp lettuce and lots of fragrant Asian basil. It was an explosion of flavors and textures. Of course, the nuoc cham dressing, made of sugar, garlic, fish sauce and chillies rounded the whole thing up!



It seems as if business is really booming for this lady - she used to sit on her chair rolling up spring rolls herself, but this time she had two slaves (pictured here) doing that for her. Also, she is now selling dried rice noodles and salads (previously, these had to be ordered in advance). [I took this picture by the way with the intention of getting the face of the lady whose elbow could be seen on the right. Quite an annoying Chinese lady - she elbowed me and my mom out of the front without even excusing herself! Hmp!]


Of course, we had to buy several boxes of the fresh Vietnamese spring rolls and the green Vietnamese 'rice cake' (a green and yellow kutsinta/ sapin-sapin made out of rice and yellow mung beans).

Satay Kangkong

We ate at a Chiu Chow restaurant in Hong Kong and we were served a plateful of beef and broccoli leaves sauteed in satay sauce. The combination worked. I mean, how could you go wrong with broccoli and beef? But I never liked satay that much - perhaps because it tasted as if they toned down the strong flavors of satay with something that resembled oyster sauce or fisch sauce.





Anyway, I bought a bottle of satay while in HKG and brought it home to use. I made my own version, but this time using a bundle of Chinese kangkong (grown on land instead of water - making them more tender).



On a very hot pan, saute a handful of sukiyaki-cut beef that has been marinated in one teaspoon each of soy sauce and cornstarch. Cook until seared but still rare. Set aside.



On the same hot pan, saute a tablespoon each of chopped garlic, ginger and onions. Add one stalk of sliced celery (believe me, the sweetness and fragrance of the celery really complements the spiciness of the satay). Add the kangkong stalks and cook until bright green in color. Add the leaves and the beef.



Add one tablespoon each of satay sauce and oyster sauce. Dilute with water and simmer until kangkong is of desired tenderness.

Taro Cake

Everybody likes dim sum! And what dim sum meal would be complete without the fried turnip/ radish cake? As Chinese New Year was just around the corner when i visited HKG, almost all the food shops were selling their own version of radish cake.

It is common to find them here, so I decided to buy Taro cake instead. I am not a fan of taro as it is "heavy" and rich. But I do eat it once in a while especially when cooked a special way. So I bought one tub of taro cake from Wing Wah for my parents.

Surprisingly, it was quite "light" and soft. It was also very flavorful. It tasted almost like the normal radish cake except it had the perfumy-ness of taro. Yum!

Daing na Pusit (dried squid)

Comparative Anatomy: Imported vs Local
(the ones i get from HK are much "sweeter" in flavor - it does not have any of that bitterness.)

Though I am crazy for everything squid, I have never liked “daing na pusit” – dried squid fried in boiling-hot oil. It is too salty and slightly bitter. Perhaps because it cooks and toasts quickly, the adherent skin always ends up slightly burned. Then it is eaten dipped in vinegar – my arch enemy! (but I do eat paksiw! And cook with it to come up with sweet and sour stir-frys!)

One December morning, while on a hunt for dried shrimp and preserved pigeon legs at Des Voeux Road, Central, Hong Kong we chanced upon a stash of so-called “premium” dried squid. I was told it is special because of the extra cost of labor of having to skin them individually prior to drying. I bought one catty to bring home to Manila. That began my love affair with this dried seafood.

When raw, it has an ivory-beige color. Fried, it has a golden color (not brown) and sweeter taste compared to what we get locally. Crisp, but not as salty or burnt-flavored as the local variety. And it does NOT curl up on cooking!

It is also good cut up finely or otherwise (I use kitchen shears) to flavor seafood broths. The local type simply will not work as it will only impart a fishy bitter flavor.

I am still dumbfounded why no one has thought of making this locally. Skinning the squid takes it to a level of its own in the dried seafood world!

I bought a kilo of this goodie and ran out of it in less than a month!

(the local version is always dried with its skin on, making it slightly bitter when fried.)

Taiwanese X.O. Sauce?

VSOP

I have heard of X.O. sauce, which is a spicy blend of dried flaked Chinese ham and scallops. It has a very strong “Chinese-y” flavor, and also very spicy and oily. I have, on occasion ordered dishes flavored with X.O. sauce from several Chinese restaurants but failed to appreciate any flavor other than the soy sauce or garlic! Apparently, local chefs have been instructed to use the said sauce sparingly as it is very strong and at the same time expensive.

Lately at Unimart, I came across a Taiwanese product labeled “VSOP.” It seemed like their version of the Chinese XO sauce. With my limited knowledge of kanji, I know the individual meanings of the first three characters: five – star – up. I take that to mean superior quality. The ingredients listed chili, buccaneer anchovy, shrimp, blackbean, garlic ginger, sugar, rice wine, and soybean oil. I bought a small bottle to try on some stir-fry.

On opening, the bottle contained whole pieces of dried anchovies, dried shrimp and fermented black beans. There were also chili seeds. It wasn’t a paste at all, but a misture of different dried stuff. It was extremely spicy! It wasn’t as salty as I expected, or perhaps the heat numbed my tongue!

For the stir fry, I added some of the VSOP oil onto a non-stick pan. I sautéed some julienned scallions then added some leftover tofu. I added the VSOP “paste” then the handful of bean sprouts. I tossed them for less than a minute before adding a final touch of light soy sauce (around one tablespoon).



I enjoyed this side-dish with some fried stuff! But my mom could not stop coughing because of the chili!