.: evil jungle prince :.

Last night we were invited to a neighbor's cocktail party. I'm notoriously ill-equipped to cope with social events like these, so I'm thankful I can at least communicate with food. To my great delight, my gỏi cuốn (Vietnamese summer rolls, sometimes called Vietnamese spring rolls) were a huge hit! Everyone gobbled them up very quickly and the praise I received was overwhelming.

Gỏi cuố are unfried wraps typically made with pork, shrimp, herbs, rice vermicelli, and other ingredients wrapped in rice paper. My version is the halal version, omitting pork completely.

They were served with a spicy peanut sauce -- sorry, I don't know the Vietnamese name for it. (If you know, please let me know.) This dipping sauce is a mixture of peanut butter, hoisin sauce, fish sauce, garlic, and chili. Believe me when I say the combination of the fresh, cool, herby summer roll dipped in this spicy, savory sauce is a match made in heaven. Honestly!

I'll frankly state here that making Vietnamese summer rolls is a royal pain in the you know what. At the same time, they are so very delicious that they are worth the effort. To prepare them, you will need some patience and practice. Also it is necessary to prepare all of your fresh ingredients in advance, as the wrapping process is a quick process. Wait too long and your rice wrappers will get soggy.

1. Start by preparing your shrimp. These are dropped into boiling salted water until they turn pink. Remove, rinse with cold water, and drain. Pull of the tails and slice in two. Set aside in the refrigerator.

2. Now prepare your fresh ingredients. In a line of bowls, prepare little piles of the following: fresh cilantro with stems removed, fresh mint with stems removed, romaine leaves with the rib removed, crushed peanuts.

3. Now it's time for the difficult part. You will need Vietnamese rice paper rolls and rice stick noodles. These can be obtained at Southeast Asian grocer and sometimes at American grocery stores in the Asian food section. Starting with the rice stick noodles, remove one sheet. Bring a large pot of water to boil. When it boils, turn off. Bend the rice noodle sheet into the pot until it's submerged and cover with a lid. After five minutes of soaking, pour out contents and strain. Rinse noodles with cold water to stop them from cooking. Drain. Place in a bowl next to your fresh ingredients.

4. And now the rice paper rolls. Everybody has their own method, but here's one the works perfectly for me. In a large pan, bring water to a boil. When it boils, turn off flame. Dip one half of the rice paper roll into the water quickly and remove. Rotate. Do the same with the second half. Now place the wet roll on a plastic cutting board. The roll is now ready to be wrapped -- what is happening while you take time to roll it is it's getting softer and softer. By the time you have stuffed it and are ready to roll, the rice paper is ready too. Fill the bottom portion of each rice wrapper with each ingredient. I like to begin with three shrimp so that they 'show' through the wrapper when wrapped. Rice wrappers are rolled just like burritos. Roll from the bottom once to cover the ingredients. Now pull in the sides and roll the bundle upwards, pulling in the sides tightly all the way up. Be sure to wrap the roll tightly or it will look sloppy.

5. Now that your rolls are done, you can refrigerate the rolls or leave them out while you prepare the peanut sauce. This is easy and can be made according to taste. The general makeup is one half peanut butter, one half hoisin sauce. Begin by frying some garlic in peanut oil, add the peanut butter and hoisin sauce, and supplement with some chili (for heat) and fish sauce (for saltiness) to taste.

What do you like to to stuff inside your gỏi cuố?

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

When I lived in Honolulu, there was a Vietnamese place down the street which specialized in rice stick dishes -- that is, various types of grilled or fried foods placed on a bed of cool rice noodles. These were such simple dishes but so elegant and refreshing with their liberal use of fresh, aromatic herbs. Channeling that incredible restaurant, I'd thought I'd try my best to recreate one of their dishes.

For a first attempt, I was fairly happy* with the result. Following is how I prepared the dish:

1. First I prepared the rice sticks by covering them in boiling water and allowing them to sit for ten minutes. (Note that I don't mean boiled for ten minutes -- I mean poured the water over the noodles and allowed them to sit without further cooking. Otherwise the noodles will fall apart.) These were then drained, rinsed with cold water, drained again, and then placed into the refrigerator to cool down.

2. Meanwhile I prepared a sweet/sour salad. (This dish originally uses turnips instead of daikon but I was using what I had on hand. I also remembered seeing a Khmer recipe for the same dish using daikon.) First I I julienned equal parts daikon and carrot and then tossed in a little salt, allowing the mixture to sweat. I then rinsed out the salt and drained the mixture. I then added 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup rice vinegar, and 1/2 cup water to the mixture, combined, and placed into the refrigerator to cool.

3. Next I prepared the sweet/sour fish sauce by boiling 4 tsp sugar, 8 tsp water. This was allowed to cool. I then added 1.5 tsp lime juice, 1.5 tsp fish sauce, 1 clove minced garlic, and 1 minced red chili. This was then placed into the refrigerator to cool.

5. Finally, I placed some slightly salted, raw shrimp on kebabs and grilled them briefly. All the ingredients were then combined, placing the shrimp, sweet/sour salad, some chopped peanuts, and fresh basil on top of the cooled rice stick noodles. Before eating, I poured the sweet/sour fish sauce on top of the noodles.

*This pretty much turned out the way I wanted it with only two problems which I hope to remedy next time:

Problem #1: the shrimp did not blacken on the grill as I remember them at the restaurant. I was a little disappointed by this, as the slight blackening really gave the shrimp a real kick. The problem here, I assume, was my use of a grill pan as opposed to a barbeque with actual flames. Any ideas on achieving a slight blackening?

Problem #2: the few remaining rice sticks I had in my pantry went stale and some fell apart when cooked. Obviously, the answer here is to use fresh ones! And, in the future, I may experiment cooking stale rice sticks for a shorter period to see if this help sto remedy the problem.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The last time I tried making Vietnamese spring rolls, I failed miserably. I followed the rice-wrapper instructions carefully, folding each wrapper in between a damp paper towel. But when it came time to actually using the wrappers, they were so soggy that they could not even be handled. It was a great disappointment.

I think I've figured them out now, though. This time around, I took my inspiration from Iron Chef. On one of the most recent episodes, I observed one chef quickly dip his rice wrapper in and out of hot water. This method works. By the time the dipping is complete (one quick dip is sufficient) and the wrapper has been laid down, it has already begun to soften. At this time, ingredients can be placed on the roll in anticipation of complete softening. After the ingredients have been placed on top, the rice wrapper has reached medium-softness and is now ready to roll.

I didn't want to invest too much into this trial, so I did not follow a recipe; instead I just used what was on hand and what sounded good at the moment. To this end, I filled my rolls with chopped peanuts, tofu, lettuce, fresh mint, cucumber, mung bean noodles, and carrots.

Peanut sauce is by far my favorite dipping sauce for these rolls, but this time around I tried using a sweet-sour-spicy fish sauce, made by mixing sugar and water (I used honey instead), minced chili and garlic, juice from half a lime, and fish sauce. It was zesty, pungent, and light.

For improvements, next time around I think I will serve this with a curry-coconut dipping sauce, peanut sauce, or something a little more substantive. I think the addition of basil inside the roll would also be excellent.

Dessert was no-sugar mango with sweet rice. After cutting up the mango (which was perfectly fresh and delicious, by the way), I then heated up a spoonful of coconut milk and a spoonful of honey, pouring this mixture over the mango and rice. I then topped off the dish with some roasted sesame seeds.

I love this dish but lately I've been trying to cut sugar out of my diet, so this was my little low-cal experiment. Fortunately, the result was excellent and I'll definitely be making this again.

Dreamy, lazy mood tonight. Here's what I'm listening to:
Title: Heat | Play Song:
Artist: Don Tiki
Album: Skinny Dip WIth Don Tiki

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

It's been wayyy to long since I last ate kimchi. My latest batch won't be done fermenting for another week or so, so to fill the spicy void I fried up some dau hu xa ot (Vietnamese spicy lemongrass tofu) last night. This is one of my favorite dishes.

It's easy to make to. The first thing to do is mix two stalks of finely chopped lemongrass (I used fresh ones from my garden this round and wow, what a difference in taste it made), soy sauce (4-5 tbs), turmeric (1 tbs), chopped fresh chilies (4-5), chili flakes (2-3 tbs), sugar (2 tbs), and salt (1tbs) in a bowl. To this mixture add as much cubed tofu as you care to eat and let it marinade for 30 minutes. (Your rice can be cooking meanwhile.)

After the first 30 minutes are up, saute chopped white onion, shallots, and garlic in a wok with peanut oil for about a minute or two. Add the lemongrass tofu mixture and stir fry gently for 2-3 minutes together with a handful of chopped, roasted peanuts. Just before the 2-3 minutes is up, add a handful of Asian basil leaves. (The original recipe calls for la lot leaves but I have yet to find any in the area.) Top the finished dish with more chopped peanuts and serve.

Substitition notes:

The first time I made this dish I was out of onion and used green onion instead. Now, I can't imagine this dish without green onion. So, this is my own genetically altered version of this dish.

Likewise, I don't have la lot leaves at my disposal, so I used Italian basil. This week's garden obligation is therefore locating la lot seeds and growing some in my garden. Anybody have any? :-)

P.S. I leave for New Orleans in a week. Does anybody have any restaurant and/or entertainment suggestions? Besides lifting one's skirt up for beads?

"Chunky Macapuno Coconut Ice Cream" -- the perfect ending to a spicy meal. There certainly must be a higher power for providing the world with the coconut. It's my all time favorite taste and smell. And god bless Aj Liquor & Oriental Mart for being the conduit that would provide me such a delicious thing. Amen.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My personal challenge last night was to come up with an Asian dessert that could pass as having a Halloween theme. I ended up with this green-colored seven layer pandan cake...

As with my bibim bap, this was my second attempt after failing miserably the first time around. This cake is also a little laborious... each layer of the cake is steamed independently by adding a layer at a time. It requires at least 70 minutes of standing attentively at the stovetop. Another challenge for me was trying to cut it neatly into squares, being so terribly sticky and gelatinous. I ended up heating the knife under hot water prior to each pass and this seemed to work decently, but I was left wondering if there isn't a better way of going about it.

This cake is a mixture of tapioca flour, coconut milk, mung beans, pandan concentrate, and a little green food coloring. I believe it is common to a lot of countries in the Asian region -- what's it called in your language?

1. Mix 3 c. tapioca/casava flour, 1 2/3 c. sugar, 3 1/4 c. coconut milk, and 1/2 tsp salt until it becomes a smooth paste. Divide in two.

2. To one batch of the mixture, add 1/4 tsp pandan flavor and green food coloring. To the white batch, add 1/4 c. steamed, peeled, and mashed mung beans.

3. Divide green batch into four equal portions. Divide white batch into three equal portions.

4. Boil water in large pot for steaming. Place a second pan inside pot atop boiling water. Add first green layer to pan and steam for 10 mins. Add first white layer and steam for 10 mins, etc until all seven layers are done. After steaming, let cool, pry loose and cut into portions.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

We live in a country of temptation when it comes to sugary and fatty goods -- a virtual Candy Land. At every turn, another plate is seemingly being pushed in our direction. Taken together with our national tendency towards overindulgence, this inevitably spells bad news for the waistline. This reality was my reasoning behind craving something lean and simple today.

What's cooking here? It's Vietnamese style fish steamed in a banana leaf. I ran across this recipe while thumbing through my Wei-Chuan cookbook last night and though I'd try it out today for lunch.

1. Pat dry the fish and rub it with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Let sit for 20 minutes.

2. Place the fish on a banana leaf and spread the following over the fish: tomato, mushroom, green onion slices, fresh ginger, lemongrass slices, and a dab of oil.

3. Fold the banana leaf over the fish and secure with toothpicks. Place in a bamboo steamer and steam for 20 mins.

This was easy, delicious, and healthy and I'll definitely make it again. By the way, I finished mine off by squeezing fresh lime over it once I was ready to eat, although this was not called for in the recipe.

My cookbook notes that "banana trees flourish in Vietnam, therefore, banana leaves are often incorporated into Vienamese cooking." This comment makes me grin a bit, because for me, obtaining banana leaves is the opposite of convenient. To cook such a dish, I must purchase frozen banana leaves long in advance from the one place in town which sells them in a freezer-packets. What a world apart!

For dessert, just a little low-calorie eye candy. I took this photo yesterday in the mountains that tower over the desert where I live. On the desert floor, it is dry and warm. And yet at the summit of the mountains, it is a snowy pine forest. Amazing juxtaposition, isn't it?

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)