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Banana blossom salad in Vietnam

Sep08
2012 3 Comments Written by chefshane

Banana blossom or banana flower is a common ingredient in Southeast Asia.
It's at all the local markets, clean, shredded and crispy waiting to be used.
In one of my previous posts I gave a recipe for chicken and banana flower stewed with coconut milk.
That was a great dish from the North of Thailand. 

I've been living in Vietnam for a couple of years now, so I'm adding some great banana flower salad recipes too.
In Cambodia my favourite was banana flower salad with chicken and ram leaf. Incredible.
Here in Vietnam it's commonly made with local chicken, roast duck and seafood.
In Danang we're on the coast, so seafood is the most popular.
Last year we kicked off an exciting Vegan and Vegetarian menu at the resort and banana blossom / banana flower is one of the best salads on that menu.
The vegan banana blossom salad recipe is at the bottom of this post, with photo

It used to be an occasional treat but I'm eating banana flower salads at least every week now.
Some people don't like the chalky astringent texture, but that's more pronounced in raw green banana than in the blossom itself.
The shallot oil and lime juice make a great 'vinaigrette' and you can feel this salad doing you good as you eat it.

Talking about health benefits, banana blossom is beneficial for pregnant women, also very high in fibre.
They contain saponins, which lower LDL ("Bad" cholesterol) and boost immunity.
shredded banana blossom

banana blossom side dish
Banana flower is also common as part of the lively salad plates and side dishes so common in Vietnam.
Pictured above, a side salad for "Mi Quang" – the famous noodle dish from central Vietnam's Quang Nam province.

Banana blossom salad with grilled seafood

100g   Banana blossom, sliced
90g    Prawn, Tiger 30-35/kg size
70g    Squid, large, cleaned
30g    Carrots
30g    Mint, fresh
20g    Chilli, large red
10g    Fish sauce, Vietnamese
30g    Sugar, white, plain
50g    Limes, fresh
30g    Peanuts
20g    Shallot Oil

Chicken & banana blossom salad recipe

100g  Banana blossom, sliced
15g   Ram leaf / Vietnamese Mint
70g   Chicken meat, cooked, skinless, boneless
20g   Shallots, red, peeled
10g   Lime Juice, fresh
20ml  Shallot Oil
15g   Coconut, fresh, grated
3g    Salt
5g    Fish sauce, Vietnamese 

banana blossom close up

banana blossom seafood

Grilled pork & banana blossom rice paper wraps

1 ea   Rice paper (dry, for dipping in water)
30g    Banana blossom, sliced
40g    Pork Loin
7g     Hue basil
3g     Fish sauce, Vietnamese
5g     Roasted Peanuts 

See below for the rice-paper wraps photo – we serve it as a garnish for the lemongrass prawns.
The method is quite simple.
Just moisten dry rice-paper with room temperature water, then immediately pat dry
Lay out banana blossom, grilled pork, Hue basil, roasted peanuts and season with fish sauce (not much)
Roll into 'goi cuon' salad rolls. We serve these with lemongrass-skewered prawns and chilli butter.
As you see, these can also be a tidy, easily shared or handled snack if rolled up in rice paper

Banana blossom pork riepaper wrap

Last but not least, here's a vegetarian option.
We were the first hotel in central Vietnam to introduce a dedicated Vegan and Vegetarian menu.
Rather than just put things with no meat, we went to a lot of effort to put together a creative vegan & vegetarian menu with some unique local flavours. The Vegan banana flower salad was a great dish, so here's the recipe.
It presents well, and tastes great.

Vegan & Vegetarian banana blossom recipe

70g  Banana blossom, sliced
12g  Ram leaf / Vietnamese Mint
25g  Lime Juice, fresh
8g    Ginger root
5g    Chilli, large red
3g    Salt
40g  Shallot Oil
8g    Crispy Fried shallots
15g  Shallots, red, peeled
60g  Tofu, white, hard
5g    Sesame seeds, white
8g    Chillies, Dry, Red
¼ea Banh Trang – Rice Sesame Paper

vegan banana blossom salad

Posted in Asian Hawker & Street food, Fish & Seafood, Gluten free, Healthy & Low fat, Salads and light stuff, Thailand, Vietnam - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

North Thai snake recipe: Tom Yum with prickly ash & ram leaf

Apr14
2012 9 Comments Written by chefshane

Wakey wakey, hands off snakey!

That's how the old saying went when I was a youngster, but I never used to heed it.
I'll admit (unlike most males) that I'm now a master in the art of 'handling snakey'.
Two years ago this old dog learned a few new tricks in Southeast Asia to throw in the snake-handling repertoire bag.
And I mean that in the most decent and innocent way.

It started off with a trip to the market at Baan Kiang where the family I was staying with found a few interesting things for sale. They were keen to show off some local dishes – the type of thing they ate every few months and for special occasions or family get-togethers.
We couldn't take the whole market home, so we settled for a sturdy looking snake in a wee metal cage, some live eels and a couple of 'Maang Da' water beetles for a dip.
A few mushrooms of the 'hedt xkhun' variety also got to accompany us back for the trip home.


I was in two minds as to what we could achieve with the snake, but K. Boonchuay was in no doubt as to the future of this tasty reptile. It was going to be a pot of exotic but very tasty soup. Snake Tom Yum.
First he had to be dispatched.
There was no Chinese-style display of writhing serpents squirting blood and angst here though. No monkey-brain tragedy, and no stick-poking of the hapless animal.
It was all pretty swift and painless.
Unfortunately PETA will have to wait until I get around to the Rooster larb post before dressing up as chickens and harassing me with placards outside the hotel. (Oops – Sorry PETA – lost the rooster-killing pics in a laptop theft back in Krabi. Oh well.)
Back to 'the death of a snake"…..
He was inside the burlap sack coiled up in peace when he got to 'slither along the great ground in the sky'
BOOF! on the head with a massive smack of the bag, and he was sent to wiggle on his belly in a better place.
His death came instantly. The same way he does to mice, and apparently humans, if you believe what you see on TV and at the movies. All pretty humane really.
The next step was a virtual cremation over a pyre of sticks and wood from the garden.
This wasn't about spiritual purification or some vague and archaic ritual. The skin is charred to make it easier to remove and to give the snake some taste from the wood. It also firms up the meat and semi cooks it to make the next step easier.

It looked like Salem Town Square during the witch hunts for a wee while, our charred serpent held aloft above the flames and moved around constantly for even cooking.
The charring and barbecuing took around 10 minutes all up.


After my snake had swelled and puffed up in size a bit, it was time to give it a good going over with a knife, scraping the scales off and removing them,It's a little bit like scaling a fish.

Next step: Scrape the meat clean, pull the skin back and take care of the head http://bit.ly/9vyfK6  :-) (No dirty remarks please. Especially from the British!) 
Just chop through it and discard it. You don't eat the head.
Split the skin around the neck, pull it open and split down the skin through the belly.

The insides of the snake are also very tasty – so not much gets thrown away.
The only exception; the main gut sac or intestine needs to be split open and the insides removed before cooking.
It's the long bloated thingy. Not a technical description but it's important to note that I'm a chef and a traveller, not a biologist or a vet.
At High School we dissected frogs and I found that a bit grim at the time. I couldn't see the point back then.
Look at me now. If I had listened, I could have blogged about the cooking of snake guts far more knowledgeably.


After we have Mr. Anaconda nicely dissected, it's time to cut the medium rare critter into more manageable bits and put him into the pot with some water, and then wander over to the laptop to look up a snake recipe. Oh – there's one just below..
We're making 'snake tom yum' which bears no resemblance to the 'standard tom yum' that gets wheeled out at most hotels' first crack at a Thai food promotion.
This one has no galangal root, no fresh chilli, and no strong lemony scent.


I was deeply impressed by the aroma and depth of flavour in this Northern adaptation of snake tom yum.
The flavours infused into the broth were from Vietnamese mint (pak faai in Thai, or 'rau ram' in Vietnamese) combined with garlic, darkly-toasted dry red chilli crushed into brown aromatic flakes, and toasted dried prickly ash.
The snake gets simmered gently with crushed twisted lemongrass, a knorr stock cube and a dozen double kaffir lime leaves torn and thrown in to infuse.
A little salt brings out the flavour, and the snake needs 30-45 minutes to cook through.

Tom Yum snake recipe.

  • Snake – whole 1kg
  • Water – 3 litres
  • Knorr chicken stock cube
  • Lemongrass stalk, 1 each crushed and tied into a knot
  • Salt flakes – 2 dsp – 30g
  • Ajinomoto 'umami' 1/3 tsp or MSG (optional)
  • Kaffir lime leaves, – 12 double ones, torn
  • Garlic – fresh
  • Prickly ash or sichuan pepper, toastedy
  • Vietnamese mint
  • Roasted or fried garlic
  • Spring onion, chopped 2 each
  • Coriander, fresh, chopped 1/2 cup

Method

  1. Kill the snake and char over an open fire until the skin is lightly charred and the size increased by around 25% to 40%
  2. Scrape the scales off the snake with a fish scaler or the blade of a knife
  3. Cut off the head and discard it. Gut the snake, and split the intestine and discard the contents
  4. Cut the snake into lengths that are easy to cook and handle
  5. Put into a pot with the water, stock cube, lemongrass, salt, 'umami' and torn kaffir lime leaves.
  6. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for around 35 minutes.
  7. Toast the prickly ash or Sichuan pepper in a spoon over a gas flame until aromatic and starting to smoke.Grind to a fine powder.
  8. Pound the garlic to a paste. Add the Sichuan pepper or prickly ash powder.
  9. When the snake is cooked, remove it from the soup and drain it.
  10. Season the soup with toasted red chilli flakes, and the Vietnamese mint and sichuan pepper/prickly ash mix.
  11. Adjust the seasoning with salt if needed.
  12. Heat a wok with a little oil and stir fry the snake for a minute or two, tossing the fried garlic, the spring onion and the coriander through.
  13. Add back into the soup and serve.
  14. To make this into a truly awesome dish, it would be a great idea to put on a pair of fresh food handling gloves and remove the snake meat from the bones before adding it back
  15. *Truly local; Split the snakes bile sac open and stir it into the soup. This adds a bitter element to it which doesn't taste too bad.
I enjoyed mine "sans bile sac", and left only a stack of bones to show for it.
A really nice tom yum with a very different character, and if you aren't into the snake – or can't get one, then it would be fine with fish or game bird too.

Posted in Exotic meats & ingredients, Northern Thai - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chef Shane’s recipe for Vietnamese foie gras spring rolls

Apr10
2012 4 Comments Written by chefshane

 

Here's number 5 in our series of upscale spring rolls.
 
You're about to enter a fusion foie gras twilight zone.
 
This is certainly the 'sexiest' of our line up.
These foie gras spring rolls are an undeniable fusion blend of classic and exotic rolled into a tantalising tempest of temperatures, textures and tastes.
 
It came from an event we had last year, and we were looking for a summery twist on my plated foie gras & apple dish.
 
Mango was in season and we wanted to get something colourful and tropical going on.
 
The Vietnamese summer roll is a bit of an icon, and before coming here I'd only seen them in the standard pork and prawn varieties.
The Vegetarians got an occasional look in with a prawn-free variety.
 
Over the last year I've been pretty shocked and awed by the number of dishes that get wrapped, rolled, folded or tucked away in something before insertion into the mouth, so this was a pretty logical step for serving foie gras.
 
This is very elegant and presents beautifully.
Clean and easy to eat, casual, yet tidy and refined. It makes a great appetiser or a pass around, and would be great as part of a 'foie three ways' sort of thing

Foie gras spring rolls recipe

Ingredients (makes 1 roll – see photos below)
1/2 ripe mango in season
1 Foie gras medallion 60g
1 bacon rasher
4 frisee lettuce pieces
1 dry rice paper sheet (for soaking and rolling goi cuon rolls)
clear caramel sauce
balsamic vinegar – reduction
 
  1. Sear the foie gras in a non stick pan (2 minutes either side)
  2. Cook the foie until rare in the middle. Rest to medium rare
  3. Char grill the bacon until nicely marked and cooked, but not crispy
  4. Peel and cut the ripe mango flesh into long fingers.
  5. To assemble the foie gras spring rolls, moisten the rice paper, dry it off, and place foie gras (cut side down) and mango first
  6. Top with bacon, frisee, and grind black pepper freshly on top.
  7. Roll together smoothly and tightly.
  8. Trim ends and cut in half, then half again leaving 4 pieces.
  9. Serve with clear caramel sauce and reduced balsamic vinegar
 
 
 
 
 
Vietnamese foie gras spring rolls must be made freshly and each part has to do it's bit.
The foie gras must be medium rare or rare with a good sear.
The mango has to be ripe.
The hot ingredients hot, the cold ingredients cold, freshly made and quickly served. And then this dish will steal the show.
Enjoy. Comments and feedback welcome.
 
Reduced Balsamic
Simmer 250ml of balsamic vinegar down to 80ml until it becomes rich and thick and glossy
 
Clear caramel sauce
Add 100ml water to 100g plain white sugar
Boil down without stirring until deep gold in colour
Add half it's volume in water, swirl over heat to mix, and set aside.
It will set to a smooth caramel sauce with the consistency of liquid honey
 
 
 
Posted in Fusion & Contemporary, Gluten free, Quick & easy, Salads and light stuff, Vietnam, Western Food - Tagged , , , , , ,

Spring Roll 4.0 Vietnamese pork spring roll recipe

Mar30
2012 3 Comments Written by chefshane

Last week I said that I'd have a bit of a run on spring rolls.
Here's the fourth rolled or wrapped item to play with. Your good old, standard, garden variety crispy spring roll.

This can be done as a pork roll, a prawn roll, or a vegetarian roll, as you prefer.

Unlike the Chinese and Thai varieties, these spring rolls are made from a raw filling. The texture is really nice..
Avoid making the mix too wet so the paper does not split.

This is a GLUTEN FREE spring roll – depending on how you seal it shut, and what the skins are.
In Vietnam we use rice paper, not wheat pastry, so the wrappers are fine.

The spring rolls can be sealed with either beaten egg (Gluten free) or corn starch paste made with boiling water (Perhaps not gluten free as some manufacturers do not use 100% corn in their corn starch. But it is vegetarian)

Here's the recipe.

Vietnamese pork spring roll recipe (makes 15 each. All units in grams, but will scale)

 

15 Rice Paper for spring rolls
80 Pork mince, lean
60 Taro
15 Mushrooms, Jelly /Ear / Black Fungus DRY
10 Glass noodles / Vermicelli
  5 Coriander, fresh
10 Carrots
20 Tofu, white, hard
10 Spring onion
10 Garlic, crushed fresh
10 Shallot, red, freshly chopped or minced
  5 Pork powder/granules – Knorr, Maggi, Ajinomoto etc
  5 Salt  
  2 pepper, black, freshly ground

As you can see, everything is fresh!
Freshly shredded, mixed together, seasoned with salt, pepper, pork powder, and then an egg is beaten through.
If adding shrimp/prawns, mince or chop them well.
For pork, use lean mince, not fatty.
For vegetarian fillings, swap the pork for some cooked mung beans or yellow beans. It's the local style, and very nice.
After all of the main ingredients are in, and the mix seasoned, crack an egg in and beat it through.
Not too wet!

After the mix is done, start rolling the spring rolls in rice paper.
You'll be looking for the soft, pliable, edible rice paper for rolling spring rolls.
These are different from the thick inflexible round dry sheets used for rice paper wraps. Those require soaking, and do not fry well.

First fold up the bottom about 2.5cm/1 inch, so the filling rests on a double thickness of rice paper.
Don't overfill or under fill. This is critical.

The best tip is to keep the sides absolutely straight, and use the fold inwards to measure the length of the spring roll.
Fold each one with the same overlap, and all the spring rolls will come out of even length!

When you're almost at the end of the roll and have 1cm left, brush it with cornstarch paste or beaten egg.
This will stick the rice paper together.
This can be made by stirring boiling water into a small bowl of corn starch / cornflour.

To finish, simply fry the spring rolls in clean oil at around 170 – 180 degrees C until golden and crispy on the outside, and cooked through.
Serve with your choice of:

  • Plum sauce
  • Sweet chilli,
  • Fish sauce with chilli and garlic
  • Water, sugar, chilli and fish sauce
  • Soy & chopped chilli
  • Mayonnaise and local chilli sauce

Posted in Gluten free, Quick & easy, Vietnam - Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
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