Scottish Cow

From Vietnam to Germany (Bun Thit Nuong and Riesling)

*** Update: One of my flickr contacts pointed out that this can be considered nem nuong, which is usually skewered sausage-like meat, while thit nuong is flat pieces of meat.  There you go! ***

If there was one, just one cuisine, that I was forced to eat, forsaking all others for eternity, it just might be that of Vietnam.  Granted, my exposure to Vietnamese food is fairly narrow - some restaurants in Buffalo…some in Boston.  Never have I set my clumsy feet on Vietnamese soil for a spoon of Phở or some Bánh mì.  That’s not to say that I never will…

This is my attempt at one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes – I believe the name is Bun Thit Nuong – at least that’s what it was called on the menu of Pho 99 – a wonderful little place that was nestled into the heart of downtown Buffalo, until its building was razed for yet another courthouse.  Come to scenic Buffalo, the personal injury litigation capital of the Northeast.

Grrr…stepping away from the bitterness…I love the flavors of the food, the freshness of the herbs and vegetables, the heat from the chilis, the salty sour flavors of citrus and fish sauce, the smoky char of the grilled meat, the ubiquitous dipping sauces.  Vietnamese food seems to have it all, and this dish, for me, is the perfect example.

Grilled pork served over noodles and vegetables.  The pork is essentially a quick sausage, full of shallots and garlic, and formed into logs.  Pork logs, I’ve been informed, does not sound terribly appealing, and that may be true, but it’s an apt description.  The noodles are rice vermicelli (just thin noodles made from rice, cooked quickly with a soak in hot water), and the salad is shredded lettuce (some herbs mixed in), cucumbers, carrots and bean sprouts.

The most important element, however, is the sauce.  It’s a bowl of Nuoc Cham, the standard Vietnamese dipping sauce.  It’s salty, sour and sweet, and potentially spicy.  It’s one of those things that comes on strong, and once the taste leaves your mouth, you get desperate for more.  And more.  You’re willing to drink the remaining liquid straight from the bowl, much to the chagrin and disgust of some of your coworkers (those poor bastards don’t know what they are missing), and indeed, when you wake up at 2:15 A.M., still burping limey fish sauce and dreaming of pork logs, you know you’re well on your way to an addiction and may find yourself whipping up a batch for breakfast.

This is what I hear anyway.

When I get my hands on this dish, the nuoc cham is poured over the top, as a dressing, the pork is removed from its skewers, delogged, and mixed in, so the flavors can come together in the bowl.  I then disappear into a state of unawareness and bliss.

In the end, my rendition was not nearly as good or as flavorful as Pho’s.  That’s fine with me.  It was still delicious.

To go with it, I went for a German Riesling.  A white wine that can go from cloyingly sweet to dry, Riesling is known to be a food friendly wine, especially with flavorful and spicy Southeast Asian dishes, because of its sweetness and acidity.  It’s also one we were already fans of, and in fact, is a wine that flourishes in one of the few places I’ve been outside of the country.  The Mosel River valley in Germany is known for its Rieslings and the picture below was taken on a trip there back in May of 2001.  My crappy camera and I simply didn’t do justice to the land.

This Riesling was delicious on its own, with citrus and melony flavors.   It wasn’t bubbly by any means, but seemed to have a bit of a sparkle to it.  Once it met the dish, the lime flavors in both the nuoc cham and the wine exploded.  Literally, yes, our kitchen was aflame.  It was like they were destined to meet, the wine both emphasizing the flavors and cooling the spiciness.

And finally, the recipes..

Nuoc Cham

1/4-1/3 C water
1/4-1/3 C fish sauce
1/4-1/3 C lime juice (gotta be fresh)
Sugar to taste, I start with 1-2TB and work up from there
Julienned/shredded carrots
Minced garlic, to taste
Minced chilis/chili rings, to taste

Mix everything together well (might need to whisk in the sugar.)  It’s that easy.  I usually start with equal amounts of the 3 liquids and then add more of them to change the flavors once the rest of the ingredients are in.  The flavors are strong, so more water is always an option.  You don’t need alot of garlic – sometimes I just leave it out, or float a smashed glove in there.  In the pictured version, I used a bunch of green garlic.  Same with the chilis – I like using the rings, as they can be eaten or avoided and don’t completely overwhelm the rest of the sauce.

The Pork (Logs)

1 lb ground pork
Handful of minced shallots
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks lemongrass, peeled to the core, minced
2 TB fish sauce
1 TB oil
Salt/pepper
Small handful of bread crumbs (enough to bind the pork)

Mix all the ingredients together – if you want to grind the pork from scratch and get more pork fat in there, go for it.  Fry a small piece to test the flavors and adjust if necessary.  Refrigerate the mixture, squeeze onto wooden skewers using the palm of your hand, and grill/broil until cooked through.

The Salad

Lettuce
Carrots
Cucumber
Bean Sprouts
Mint & Cilantro

The Assembly

Cook some rice vermicelli according to the directions on the package.  Rinse with cool water when done and set aside to drain.  Shred some lettuce (in this case, iceberg works great), add some chopped mint and cilantro, and julienne some carrots and cucumbers.  Put some of the noodles at the bottom of the bowl.  Top with lettuce, carrots, cukes, and bean sprouts.  Lay a couple skewers on the top, sprinkle on some crushed peanuts and cilantro and serve with a big, overflowing bowl of nuoc cham.

A Delicious Dinner, Drink Too

This dinner is a few weeks old, but I've been excited to post about it.  It's still bouncing around in my head (and tastebuds) for a few reasons*:

First, it came out really well.  It was in the first batch of grilled meals for the season, which is always exciting.  It had just a few, great, simple tasty ingredients.  Nothing complicated.  If every meal tasted like this, I'd be really happy.

Second, it was the first meal in my new wine & food initiative**.  Let me explain... I really like wine - drinking it, enjoying it with dinner, cooking with it.  I mentioned somewhere in an earlier post about growing up in a wine-loving family.  It was always part of our meals.  I don't remember ever not liking it.  The problem now is that I just never give it a lot of thought.  I will grab a bottle from the store out of convenience and similarly grab it from our cellar out with the same sense of convenience, without enough regard for what we're drinking it with. 

So the purpose of this initiative is two-fold:  First to try some new varieties to get a broader sense and appreciation of what's out there, increasing my experience and enjoyment, and second, to try out some of the classic and some of the unconventional wine and food pairings out there and really think about how the two are impacting each other.  A great blog I've been reading lately is Good Wine Under $20, which is informational, well-written, and well, in my price range.  A fantastic book to go along with it (discovered on the blog of course) has a rather long title that starts with What to Drink with What You Eat.  It's absolutely chock-full of information.  There are 3 sections - The first talks about all the experience, practice and enjoyment of pairing food and beverage (make no mistake, wine is the focus, but it touches on liquids from water to beer as well).  The second is a two-way dictionary where you can look up foods or beverages and find suggested pairings with different levels from "Ew, don't do that again" to "These two, consumed together, will ignite your socks."  The third section has favorite tasting/drinking menus from notable food folks.

Whew - so that's the plan.  You can expect some posts along this same vein - wine and a meal (with recipe, ideally) paired together, either shooting for the potential of a perfect combination, or in the effort to try a previously-unenjoyed variety.  Learning is fun after all.  Don't tell my 5th grade teacher.

So back to dinner, it was grilled hanger steak, grilled asparagus, and rice.

First, the hanger steak.  This cut has been all the rage for the past several years.  In fact, it's probably on the downside of the rage-curve now, but that doesn't detract from it's tastiness at all.  It's a piece of meat that my parents introduced me to after finding it at one of the ridiculously good food sources around Northampton, MA.  Initially, I couldn't find it around Buffalo.  I went to a local chain butcher and was informed that they didn't think it existed.  I walked home, printed out a picture and some information about it.  "Oh, ok." was the response.

The asparagus was grilled along with the steak.  I got lazy on the asparagus, and in an unfortunate bit of positive reinforcement, it turned out alright in the end.  There were some bigger stalks in the bunch, and I didn't peel them.  I also accidentally burned some of them.  Instead of having to deal with a bunch of charred, stringy, indedible stalks, it had the same effect as roasting peppers.  The burnt skins came right off and left the soft, creamy interiors ready...for something. The texture wasn't great for eating just as asparagus, but they disappeared wonderfully into the leftovers (photo below).

Then the rice...oh man, the rice.  I had heard of the whole rice-cooked-like-pasta technique before, but didn't really get the bug to try it out until reading this post on Angry Chicken, one of the craft blogs Tina follows.  We've done the rice a few times like this now, and it really is nothing short of life-changing, if you're a rice lover and don't have a rice cooker (that's us).  It's worked on regular ol' white rice, basmati, jasmine and brown rice.  You basically cook the rice just like pasta.  Take it out when it's just about done.  It seems to be completely foolproof unless you don't use enough water.  Yes, I'm a dork - I do think a new rice cooking method is life changing.  Get over it.

The wine.  I decided to have this Malbec above with it.  Why?  It was already in the cellar (purchased last year sometime).  It was also a variety I hadn't had yet.  Finally, by all accounts it's a great wine for beef.  Makes sense, if you follow the idea of pairing wines and foods that prosper in the same region.  Argentina is the place to go for Malbec, and it's also the place for some of the world's best beef.  So this felt right.  The wine was used for a marinade, a sauce and to accompany the meal, and it was perfect.  Very fruity, berry aromas.  A little leathery too. And enough body to go with the steak after it was grilled.  Don't recall the exact price but I can tell you it wasn't more than $20.

It was certainly a consistent experience - the wine seemed to bring out the flavor in the beef (especially, I'm assuming, given the marinade and the sauce) and vice-versa.  The wine, tasted after a bite of the steak, was bolder and took on an additional edge.  Definitely a winning combination.

So the complete plan for the meal:

1) Take your steak (any grillable cut), place in ziplock bag, fill with enough red wine to coat, add a bunch of black pepper, a pinch of salt and a swig of balsamic vinegar.  Squish it around, and leave overnight.

2) Take it out of the fridge long enough before grilling to get it close to room temperature.  Remove from marinade.

3)  Preheat the grill and get a big pot of water boiling.

4) If the asparagus are big, peel the stalks :)  Toss them with some oil and salt.

5) Cook steak on your grill to desired doneness.  I don't know your steak, so I can't tell you how long.  I've been trying to do it by touch and avoid the thermometer.  Elise has a good illustrated post on that if you need some help or haven't tried it.  This steak took probably 4-5 minutes per side (ended up a little more done than I'd like).

6) Get the asparagus on the grill too, and don't burn them like I did

7) Back in the kitchen get your rice into the boiling water.  I added some salt as well, just like pasta. Once it's done, drain and put back in the pot with the lid on.  Stir in butter or oil if desired (I did butter and chives).  It will stay warm for a bit.

8)  Since this wasn't cooked in a pan, there were no good bits to make a sauce out of.  You can fake it.  Saute some minced shallots/onions/garlic (I used shallots).  Add a big splash of chicken stock and boil it down.  Add a big splash of the wine and boil it down until the sauce thickens up.  Take off the heat, add some butter.

9)  Get everything off the grill, let steak rest for a few minutes.   Pour any juices into the sauce.  Eat and enjoy!

Leftovers - fried rice with garlic and onion, diced left over steak and asparagus, egg over easy, topped with the leftover sauce and more chives.  Pretty tasty.

Next up in adventures with food and wine is my attempt at a Vietnamese rice noodle salad with bbq pork (Bun Thit Nuong, I believe is the name), paired with a German Riesling.

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* Tina accuses me of making verbal lists for everything.  Maybe I do.  It seems like I'm always saying "First off...Secondly..."  Oh well.  Must be how my disorganized mind is trying to impose some order.

** Apologies for the use of "Initiative."  This might be called an Initiative or maybe a Strategic Program at my day job.  Maybe part of the critical path to a successful engagement.  Sorry, I'll stop now.  Sometimes I wish I was a park ranger and not a software developer.

Beer, Wine and the Kids

So the piece in Wednesday's Times food section (Michael Ruhlman already blogged about it), about introducing your kids to wine - when I read that the first thing that came to mind was the offhand comment a couple of posts ago about Molly having a sip of beer.

I instantly thought that it probably sounded incredibly cavalier and irresponsible, and want to explain a bit. If you read the piece from the Times, a lot of the same thinking applies. As far back as I can remember in my childhood, beer or wine was usually part of dinner. I was never explicitly told, "this is part of the meal and not to be abused," but that was understood. Sometimes I got a little sip and that was it. It was for Mom and Dad, and I don't recall liking it a whole lot anyway. Do you remember when you learned that snow was cold? Probably not - you grew up with that understanding because it was all around you. At least if you grew up in the Northeast.

By the time I was in high school, I could have a small glass of wine with dinner if I wanted. It was part of the meal and it was also a culinary learning experience. It was also starting to taste good, and I appreciated that as well. Along with the food on the plates, it was part of our dinner together as a family.

Just to be clear - Molly is 4 and a half. She's not having alcohol with dinner. Every now and then she gets a sip (for beer she'd rather dip her finger in the foam anyway). She understands that it's something for adults. My hope is by the time she's older, and when we're comfortable letting her have a small glass of wine at dinner (way older), she'll already have some appreciation of what alcohol should be - something to compliment and enjoy with your meal, something to share with family - and what it shouldn't.