I just saw a post from Kenji on Serious Eats about grilling (or bbqing as we say in Vancouver) cabbage, so I’m thinking of doing that and adding a Vietnamese cabbage salad dressing.
Gonna use the cool pyramidal Caraflex cabbage I got from these guys: http://www.glenvalleyartichokes.com/ Here’s a photo of it on the left: https://twitter.com/bcartichokes/status/891748234191716352
Eat local but sauce internationally 
You inspired me to copy your recipe, sort of, which I did with Angler fish (?) (Seeteufel, Baudroie, Coda di Rospo). It was delicious. I had some tomatoes that were not especially tasty for salad, so this was a brilliant way to use them.
Cool! I also made it with “too ripe” tomatoes. You could use the same tomato sauce for prawns, squid and tofu.
Or make Chinese scrambled eggs with ripe tomatoes. Another version is soup with the same ingredients (plus dried prawns). For these Chinese egg and tomato dishes always use soya sauce.
Seeteufel is usually known as monkfish but I’ve also heard angler fish.
I have got ingredients for a few Vietnamese recipes. Next to try is “Ca Ri Ga”, or Vietnamese style chicken curry. It’s not like Thai or Indian curry. Going to use SV chicken thighs because it’s already done. I have a few Vietnamese cookery books but there are many recipes for this curry online.
PS: in my previous reply (with photos) I meant to say start the tomato sauce first because it takes longer than searing the fish.
Fish sauce, pinch of sugar, mushroom shreds in the mince. Stuff the bitter gourd rounds and steam until tender.
Spicy soya sauce for dipping.
This is another variation without the mince. Note that bitter gourd is called bitter for a reason. If you don’t like bitter vegs it could be unpleasant for you.
A typical southern VN fish dish. There are several variations and this one calls for coconut water, my personal favourite.
One can eat this with pickled cabbage as a side.
Stuffed tofu in tomato sauce.
This one has no mince. The sauce is the same as in the fish dish I posted last week.
Cut open the tofu puffs and stuff them with mince which has fish sauce, a pinch of sugar, pepper. Go easy on the fish sauce.
Make a (spicy) soya sauce for dipping.
Interesting to read, although not sure I can find any of these in the shops here.
3 dinner with several dishes.
Pork and Mushroom Omelette - Chả Trứng Chiên
The mixture before adding the egg mixture: minced pork, dried wood ear mushrooms, dried shiitake mushrooms, shallots all chopped. Add salt black pepper oil, fish sauce.
Dipping sauce either nuoc mam or soy sauce. (I preferred nuoc mam) I like it, and with make it again. Husband prefer the Spanish omelette more.
Fish Salad - Gỏi cá trích
Inspired in our trip from Phu Quoc, we have fallen in love with this dish. They have used herring while I use mackerel, in the original dish, they used a lot of roasted peanut, sprinkled on the fish preparation, and in the sauce. Since I just have my dental problem, it wasn’t the time to mess with peanut, I just left that out.
Roll the lettuce, fish, herbs etc. with the rice paper, dip with the sauce and eat.
Our fish salad we had in Phu Quoc a month ago. Yum!
I used bonito flakes on the fish marinated shortly with lime juice
Rice paper
The recipe I used:
Fresh prawn spring rolls
Braised pork ribs - marinated pork ribs, cook with it the sauce for 1.5 hours in oven.
Very delicious. Highly recommended.
Recipe on the NYT site: (if you need it and have no NYT account, let me know)
Rice soup with pork - Cháo Thịt
Rice cooked with a large volume of chicken soup, ginger, salt and pepper for 1 hour, add pork, vegetables and herbs, I got the basic rice soup recipe from Andrea Nguyen’s book, can easily replace pork with beef or fish or chicken. Since it want a easy to digest meal, this is ideal. Similar rice soup/congee is found in Chinese cooking.
They all look delicious. I hope your dental problems will be resolved soon.
looks amazing, thanks for the link!
hope teefs are better!
Your spring rolls are so perfect. All the dishes look lovely.
“Bo Tai Chanh”
The limes were sad and mangled 
“Pho Ap Chao”
Pea Sprouts with Garlic
I love snow pea shoots sautéed in EVOO with lots of garlic, cider vinegar .
I purchased some on Wednesday when I was in Va, ready to cook but my son left to visit friends.
So, am not cooking but save it till tomorrow.
I made this and it turned out great. So good that we had it the next day on pork shoulder for tacos - for that dish i added sliced jalapenos to the sauce and let it simmer to add heat. it’s a wonderful, very simple sauce.
first pic is of the melting palm sugar (the microwave trick did not work for me at all - stayed hard as a rock!)
Lovely meals! I love a lot pea or bean sprouts.
Wow, you growed your own pea sprouts! Was it difficulty? Which variety of peas did you use?
I have tried growing peas last spring, the rate that it turned into a plant wasn’t high. I didn’t try growing indoors though.
Thanks for posting your result of @thimes chicken. I have some chicken thighs, I think I will go for it too.
Gosh, I read the recipe on the blog, actually I have the Slant Door book. I didn’t remember at all buying it a few months back when it was on sale! Thanks everybody for the reminder!
Reading it now…
hello naf, remember sometime ago, you wrote about Oh Chien? I believe it was sometime in June
I answered and gave my 6 cents recipe for handed down Oh Chien recipe from my mother?
Well, we do eat a lot of oysters now, all from our owns tock but my son is only fond of raw oysters as they are really big fresh and won’t even think about my using the oysters in my oh chien
recipe, so I do not cook oh chien nowadays with my hubby gone.
When I used to make them, I hat buying and picking bean sprouts as they are often not fresh.
Here is a recipe for making fresh bean sprouts. I use the big yellow mung bean, never tried sprouting other beans.
Since it is easy enough to sprout, I make just enough for my Oh chien and left overs, I use them in fried rice or drop them in my soup
This is how I sprout my beans . I use the big yellow mung bean in a bag from the Asian store.
Grow mung bean sprouts in the dark - light causes bitterness.
SOAK- Cover the bottom of the sprouting tray with one single layer of seed. Place the tray and seeds in a dish of warm water and soak for 4 to 8 hours. …
RINSE - 2-4 times a day, rinse the seeds. …
ENJOY - Ready to eat in 4-6 days.
Alternatively, here is another technique which may even be better.
Good Luck
Thanks a lot ccj for sharing the sprouts growing!
It was what I was doing this whole week, picking beans, so much time lost and so boring!
The Oh Chien link is here (if anybody is interested). The Chinese, the Vietnamese, and Malaysian Chinese, the Philippines Chinese have their own versions, but they are quite similar.
One of my favourites: chicken curry. Vietnamese curry is mild and delicious. It’s not like Indian or Thai curries. Coconut water is used a lot in Vietnamese cookery, also in curries.
I always add extra minced lemongrass. Can’t get enough of it. Eat with baguette for breakfast, with round rice noodles or rice at other times.
Grilled pork (I used shoulder, SV) with lemongrass.
Grilled fresh corn brushed with chive oil. A street snack in Vietnam. You are supposed to use scallions but I have a strong aversion to scallions and spring onions so I used chives here.
This is a similar meal I ate in Vietnam.
There’s usually shredded pork rinds but I totally forgot about them. Next time.
Presunto, that is how I love my corn , slowly cooked over corn then rolled over butter. Reminds me walking home from school and the street vendors grilling corn, plantan bananas rolled in brown sugar over coal in a BBQ stick which they call banana que.
I do not know if you would like to try this on your chicken curry., a tip from a Vietnamese chef in Monaco back in 1972. I was enroute to the French Riviera in the erupt train, stopped at Monaco , wanted to visit casinos. My husband was sick then and so, I had gone to this nearby restaurant to order food. It was a very small restaurant, with only a couple waitresses. However, they were not enthused with my bringing food with dinnerware back to the hotel as they were not used to carry out ( There was no disposable carry out square lunch box t ) She finally agreed to let me bring all the dinnerware etc back to the hotel . When I returned the plates and dinnerware, we struck up a conversation. She told me that she is of Chinese descent, born in Vietnam but has been living in Monaco, has a son who plans to study medicine in the US. She finally decided to close her shop and took me to tour casinos as I told her I did not want to go to the casinos alone. One tip from her, is that they add a little vanilla yogurt to offer the bitter taste of curry which I do when I make chicken curry. I think just a bit towards the end. Hope u try it next time… It was a great tip for me,. I gave her my address for her son to visit if he is in my part of the world but never did. What a nice lady.
sorry about typos, too late to edit
I used regular garden peas. It was not difficult at all. I soaked a layer of them between paper towels in the tray. Once they started sprouting, I removed the top layer and sprinkled soil to cover them. When they get tall enough, it’s time to harvest.
