migrant|roo

Vietnam was undoubtedly my favourite country when we went around the world. A big reason for this was the food; I fell in love.

All this made the fact that I couldn't find a good Vietnamese cookbook even more disappointing, until now:

The Secrets of the Red Lantern is now my favourite cookbook. Ever! It's not just a cookbook, it's a beautifully presented story of one family's escape from the Vietnam war, leading eventually (I won't spoil the story) to The Red Lantern, a revered Vietnamese restaurent in Sydney.

We'd invited Flo, Tracy and Monkey over for dinner on Saturday night, so I thought "Hey! Why not cook 4 dishes from this fantastic new book?".

Lesson #1

Vietnamese food, although quick to cook, is not simple. There is an elegant simplicity to the approach of each dish; fresh herbs, fresh vegetables, fresh seafood - do you see the pattern? However, there is a lot of preparation involved, and I spent 4 hours in the kitchen frantically chopping, soaking, folding, tearing, picking, slicing, coating, marinading.. phew!

Lesson #2

I'm not going to cook four dishes I've never cooked before when hosting a dinner party. Thankfully, Tracy and Flo were 45 minutes late, but even so, I was shattered and the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it!

Lesson #3

Don't skimp on quality of ingredients. I know this might seem obvious, and it's something I try to do myself but it's worth mentioned here, if only because I'm feeling a bit smug. We made a huge effort on Saturday afternoon legging it around the city trying to find everything we needed totally fresh (not frozen or jarred if we could help it) and I think it played the most crucial part in the quality of the meal.

So, lessons over, how did it go? Well, at 5pm you I wouldn't have believed it, but by 7pm we were eating a really, really delicious, authentic tasting meal complete with home-made dipping sauces.

There's a downshot though - I was so stressed, snowed under with cooking that I didn't take many good photos. In fact, I didn't even get any photos of some of the dishes :(

Vietnamese Summer Rolls

A favourite of mine from when I was in Vietnam, these ended up being 10 out of 10 on the authenticity-scale, but it didn't come free; 15 rolls took me over an hour to make.

Deep-fried squid with salt, pepper and chilli

NO PHOTO

I've never deep fried anything before, so I was really worried about this. Luckily, we got some freshly caught squid which I sliced into thin strips so they'd cook quickly, then coat in egg-white and work in potato starch (heh, that was easy to find..). They cooked in hot oil in about a minute, whereupon I tossed them in sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper, red chillies and 4 slices, fried spring onions.

It's hard to explain the disbelief at how good they tasted when I tried them!

Rare steak and glass noodle salad

This dish had about 30 ingredients! Even the marinade had 10+ ingedients, but it was all worth it. I cooked the rump steak on a really hot griddle for 3 minutes each side and sliced it ultra thin. The salad was essentially a herb salad (basil, thai basil, corriander, perilla and mint) with glass noodles, red onions and cucumber, dressed (a mix of soy, garlic, corrainder, sugar and fish sauce blended together) and finally garnished with roasted peanuts.

The result was so fresh tasting, an absolute explosion of flavours.

Chicken with chilli and lemongrass

Another favourite of ours from Vietnam, I learnt the secret to cooking this one (aside from chopping the lemongrass really, really fine) was to let it cook longer than you think. It's not a stir-fry, it needs time for the sauce to really come together (I deglazed the wok in the middle, too) and for the onions and garlic to caramelize.

I'm so pleased, I feel like I've finally got a crack at mastering Vietnamese, one of my favourite cuisines. I learnt a few lessons, but I'm not put off at all - just totally exhilerated by that most fantastic cookbook.