potonthefire
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Two days later, a little plate of Vietnamese charcuterie sits beside me as I write.Cha lua, it turns out, has the pinkish-gray color, slightly rubbery texture, and unremarkable flavor of chicken loaf, albeit chicken loaf flavored with fish sauce. I don’t dislike it, but nothing draws me to it, either. Under its foil packaging, the pork and pig’s ear loaf is wrapped in real banana leaves and has been made with the same attention to detail. It is dotted with bits of mushroom and whole peppercorns, as well as chunks of the promised pig’s ear. The latter is pleasantly chewy rather than gristly and tastes of nothing much. This is probably the headcheese-like cold cut mentioned by the Boston reviewer. It’s very good.
However, the liver pâté is far and away the best of the three, with its delicate crumbly texture and clean, fresh liver taste. And, at five dollars a pound, it’s a terrific bargain—reminding me again of how much extra we are forced to pay for anything that can be packaged in the tinsel wrappings of gourmet pretentiousness.
No surprise, then, that the Saigon Marketbanh mi was the best one yet. The shredded carrot had been “pickled” in a marinade of rice vinegar and sugar; it was crunchy, tangy, and sweet. The inside of the roll was spread on one side with that delicious liver pâté, on the other with garlickynuoc cham, the classic Vietnamese dipping sauce that also contains fresh lime juice, fish sauce, and chile paste. In the cold-cut department,cha lua was playing for the gray side and a Vietnamese version of boiled ham for the pink. There was fresh coriander aplenty. And this time I knew to put the sandwich in a low oven until the roll was warm and crusty again.
At the beginning of this adventure, my goal had been to figure out the contents of that mysterious spread and then find out something about the cold cuts: what were they made of? what were they called? where could I buy them? More or less, over the span of several months, I accomplished all this. I even believe I deciphered the secret of the spread (although I may well be corrected on this): I suspect that the makers of that first version ofbanh mi simply crumbled up some liver pâté and mixed it with mayonnaise or salad dressing to make it easier to spread (and to practice a little economizing at the same time). A nice trick, but now that I’ve eatenbanh mi with the pâté spread on straight, I’m not quite as interested anymore.
Also, although I’m glad to have tried what Vietnamese charcuterie I’ve managed to track down, it was even better to learn how little the goodness of abanh mi depends on it. Vietnamese cooking has many dishes that could happily become part of abanh mi , and often do—crunchy skewer-cooked meatballs, barbecued strips of pungently seasoned pork or beef, fried chicken morsels, and so on. Pages containing some of these recipes are already marked in my Vietnamese cookbooks.
The important thing, however, was the realization brought on by that bowl ofpho. Compared to meat-blessed noodles in broth,banh mi is carnivore heaven—which, of course, is a reflection of its Franco-Vietnamese roots. Still, there’s no denying that it is infinitely closer to a bowl ofpho than to, say, an Italian sub—the American sandwich that, in temperament and balance, it most resembles.
I know this because last night Matt and I stopped at the local natural foods store to do some shopping, and I found myself staring meditatively at a block of tofu that had been “wood-smoked in a real New England smokehouse.” This, I caught myself thinking, might be very good in abanh mi . Now, that sandwich had certainly not made me love tofu more; what it had done was allay my need to stuff a sandwich with meat, which is almost as much of a miracle.
This has come about, I think, because the feeling of amplitude in both dishes,pho andbanh mi , derives from an artful combination of flavors and textures: in the one, the limpid, delicious broth, the slippery strands of noodle, the crunchy bean sprouts, the pungent fresh herbs, the chewy bits of beef; in the other, the crusty bread, the crisp, moist cucumber and marinated carrot, the tangy dressing, the suave meatiness of the cold cuts, the nostril-clearing astringency of the hot chile, and fresh coriander. All the senses have been stimulated, hunger has been satiated, and yet, in the end, not all that much has been eaten. Enough, yes, but no real surfeit. It makes you think.
Meanwhile, for thebanh mi enthusiast, where next? I got a hint when Matt came across an article in an old issue ofSaveur about a return visit to Cambodia by the expatriate owners of Boston’s Elephant Walk Restaurant, Longteine and Kenthao de Monteiro, with their daughters, Launa and Nadsa. Much there had changed since their exile, and mostly for the worse. Even so,
at a Chinese-owned restaurant in the middle of Phnom Penh’s commercial district, Launa and Nadsa rediscover one of their own childhood delights: a baguette filled with liver terrine and pork pâté, cucumber slices, chiles, and pickled carrots and green papaya. It isnom pang pâté.
Gentlemen, start your engines.
BANH MI
The Bread.This can be an entire French (or Italian) light crusty roll or a wedge cut from abâtard (the next bread size up from a baguette). If it’s not fresh from the bakery, heat it for 5 minutes in a warm oven before making the sandwich.
The Spread.Choose one or more of the following: mayonnaise, hot sauce, pork or chicken liver pâté, sweet butter, Maggi seasoning, a drizzle ofnuoc cham (see recipe below). I like pâté spread on one side andnuoc cham mixed into mayonnaise on the other.
The Topping.Consider these mandatory: thinly sliced European cucumber, marinated slivers of daikon and carrot or carrot alone (see recipe below), and lots of fresh coriander. Optional extras include sliced jicama, a few basil or mint leaves, some slivers of scallion (or very thinly sliced onion), and slices of fiery hot chile pepper.
The Filling.One or more different kinds of Vietnamese cold cuts (look in the freezer section of your Asian grocery), preferably from a pork loaf (white) and a cured ham (pink). A reasonable supermarket substitute would be a few slices of chicken loaf and boiled ham. Those leery of cold cuts in general might try thin slices of roast pork, grilled mushrooms, or slices of firm tofu, drained and then marinated innuoc cham overnight. The more adventurous should seek out recipes for other options mentioned in the essay.
NUOC CHAM
(Vietnamese dipping sauce)
[makes ¾ cup]
The secret to this sauce, says Mai Pham inThe Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking,is to add plenty of lime pulp as well as lime juice, especially when—as here—it is to be used for dipping.
1 clove garlic
½ teaspoon ground chile paste
1 Thai chile pepper, seeded (optional—see note)
2 tablespoons fish sauce (see note)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice with pulp
cup hot water
2 tablespoons sugar
Put the garlic, chile paste, and optional Thai pepper into a mortar or food processor and pulverize into a paste. Combine this mixture with the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl and stir until the sugar has dissolved. This sauce can be kept in the refrigerator for one month.
Cook’s Note.Thai chile peppers are small and intensely hot. Any small fiery (or not so fiery!) chile pepper can be substituted.
Fish sauce,nuoc mam, is an essential element of Vietnamese cuisine. It is made by packing anchovies in salt and drawing off the brine; the best brands contain no other ingredients. Apply with a light hand.
CU CAI CAROT CHUA
(Carrot and Daikon in Vinegar)
[makes ¾ cup]
1 medium carrot
1 small daikon (sweet white radish)
1 cup water
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1 pinch salt
Peel the carrot and radish and cut each into 2-inch lengths. Either grate coarsely into long strands or, with a sharp knife or vegetable peeler, cut each length into paper-thin strips. Put the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl and stir until the sugar completely dissolves. Marinate the strips of carrot and radish in this mixture for at least 1 hour or as long as overnight. Remove the vegetables from the liquid before using. If marinated carrots
alone are preferred, omit the daikon and cut the marinade proportions in half.
Further Reading
I didn’t findbanh mi recipes in my Vietnamese cookbooks for the same reason that no bologna sandwich recipe appears inJoy of Cooking: most of us don’t make cold cuts at home. In Vietnam they are sold at local charcuterie shops, where large electric mortars pummel the meat into the perfect consistency. The one exception to the rule wasThe Classic Cuisine of Vietnam, by Bach Ngo and Gloria Zimmerman, written before Vietnamese charcuteries were well established in this country. It contains recipes for a few basic pork terrines, likecha lua. Look in it and the following forbanh mi fillings:Café Vietnam, by Annabel Jackson;The Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking, by Mai Pham; andThe Foods of Vietnam, by Nicole Routhier.
And, last, a grateful tip of the hat to R. W. Lucky, who generously searched his files and queried his informants for information onbanh mi . Bob is the editor ofThe Asian Foodbookery, and his witty, knowledgeable reflections on recently published Asian food books—and his insightful annotations to the sample recipes he selects from them—are, in our opinion, essential reading for anyone interested in the many fascinating cuisines of that continent. At the time of writing, subscriptions are $16 a year (four issues) fromThe Asian Foodbookery; P.O. Box 15947; Seattle, WA 98115-0947; lucky8rice@aol.com.
DESPERATELY RESISTING RISOTTO
There are certain dishes that can quietly haunt your life. They are the ones that seem at once gloriously appealing and somehow—for no apparent reason—perpetually out of reach. For me, one such dish isosso buco. The phrase is Italian for “marrowbone” (literally, “bone hole”) and in this instance refers to veal shanks cut about two inches thick. These bones are quite meaty, but the essence of the dish lies in what they contain, a generous portion of meltingly delicate marrow. Prepared in the classic Milanese manner, the shanks are browned in a mixture of butter and olive oil, then simmered for hours with minced aromatics in stock, white wine, and, controversially, tomatoes until the meat is falling off the bone. Finally, the dish is sprinkled with agremolata of lemon rind, garlic, and parsley, and served forth.
Osso buco.draws me enormously, and yet … and yet … I don’t go to restaurants that prepare it, I don’t shop at markets where veal shanks are sold. Of course, with some effort on my part, these obstacles could be overcome. However, when the subject is denial, there is usually something darker and more tenacious at work. Perhapsosso buco is just a little too imperious for me to be comfortable with it. In any case, there it is—a dish I may go to my grave still desiring and never having tasted.
Because the traditional accompaniment toosso buco isrisotto alla milanese —which when I started cooking was pretty much the only risotto in town—it looked for a long while like I might never make a risotto either. There was no way I was going to leapfrog the entrée for the side dish, especially whenit seemed haughtier still. Saffron-flavored, stock-enriched, marrow-and-butter-freighted,risotto alla milanese demanded expensive and exotic ingredients, and a facility at what was by all reports not only a mysterious and daunting cooking technique but a test of character as well.9
As time passed, such cooking became more within the reach of my talents and my wallet. However, I had also become less inclined to master complex dishes that wouldn’t be making a regular appearance at our table. If I were the sort who cooks for company, I suspectosso buco andrisotto milanese would now be part of my repertoire. But I cook to give each day a little sweetness of expectation and to treat myself to the mind-calming focus that comes from working with familiar foods. The dishes we prepare most often are old friends, or new ones in the making—enjoyable company, still capable of the occasional surprise, but with ways that are in some kind of keeping with our own.
I also came to know that there were many risottos other thanalla milanese, some quite similar in kind to dishes I already happily made. Even so, the whole risotto family seemed to share one off-putting trait: turn to the risotto section of most Italian cookbooks and you’ll hear the intake of a deep breath—preface to a flood of advice, instruction, caution, and critique, and not always from the author, as Loyd Grossman recalls in hisItalian Journey:
Many years ago, an Italian friend pulled me aside and whispered conspiratorially that he had seen one of our more well-known Italian chefs stirring a risotto with a metal spoon rather than a wooden one. “How could he do such a thing?” he asked me in horror and despair.
The prospect of opening my kitchen to the scrutiny of a gaggle of Italian cooks …grazie—ma no. So, while I had long ago learned to make, say, the Venetian specialtyrisi e bisi —a tasty stew of rice and green peas, made in a related but more relaxed way—and had even managed to collect a few cookbooks devoted solely to risotto, I found myself still tiptoeing around it … the way you treat someone everybody says you’ll really like, but toward whom you’re afraid to make a move until they give some indication of wanting to knowyou.
Then a set of propitious coincidences broke the ice. As it happened, we had on hand some good Parmesan, some first-rate chicken broth, and, most important (thanks to the generosity of our favorite spice merchants, Bill and Ruth Penzey), some superlative saffron. So, strangely enough—as these things happen in life—my initial encounter turned out to be with the grande dame herself,risotto alla milanese. Osso buco was one thing. But rice dishes—dirty rice, kedgeree, rice and beans—figure largely in our way of eating, and it seemed time to give risotto a try. We consulted the proper authorities, got ahold of some marrowbones, and set to.
But the Italian is more abstinent than the Frenchman, and often lives in the simplest fashion…. He delights in made dishes, in his own macaroni, and in stews of many orders—above all, the many forms ofrisotto, a preparation of rice, in which the grains are first browned in butter and then boiled so perfectly that each grain holds its shape…. Often this makes the second breakfast, with a flask of wine and a bit of cheese.
— Helen Campbell,In Foreign Kitchens (1892)
For those who are not already way ahead of us in familiarity with risotto making, here is a brief but lucid description of what it involves, extracted from Anna Del Conte’s entry on the subject in herGastronomy of Italy:
The basic method of making a plain risotto, calledrisotto in bianco orrisotto alla parmigiana, is as follows. The rice must first be sautéed in butter or butter and oil, usually with onion. This has to be a gentle operation, or the grains will harden. The simmering liquid must be added a little at a time—about [half a cup]—and the next addition made only when the rice has absorbed the liquid that was added previously…. At the end, more butter and some Parmesan are always added. The risotto is left for two or three minutes, then stirred vigorously, transferred to a dish, and served. It should be eaten as soon as it is ready. Risotto needs a good amount of butter and cannot be left to cook by itself; it must be watched and stirred very frequently.
Although rice has been grown in Italy for centuries, the earliest printed recipes for risotto appeared around the beginning of the nineteenth century. Two of these, quoted at length in Waverley Root’sThe Food of Italy, while both completely recognizable as direct ancestors of the current dish, are also different in the same distinctive way. Neither calls for what is now the dish’s signature technique: the addition, ladleful by ladleful, of the cooking liquid. Instead, after the rice receives its initial turn in the hot butter, the broth is poured in all at once and the rice cooked in the ordinary way (simmered until done).
This isn’t surprising. Risotto began as a home-style dish, and it’s hard to imagine that many cooks had the time to spend just before the family meal was served, when everything was at its busiest, standing over a risotto and giving it her undivided attention. Risotto as we know it now was most likely developed by restaurant chefs at a time when kitchen labor was plentiful and cheap: “Here, kid, stir this until I say stop—and if you look away for a second, I’ll box your ears!”
Whether this is true or not, a foodstuff with
the ability to both retain its inherent character and give substance to a delicate, flavorful sauce is—for a cuisine in which sauces play so central a role—a stupendous gift. Italian cooks, high and low, were quick to make the most of it—as any casual perusal of Italian cookbooks will reveal—if also, perhaps, a bit trapped by it. Lidia Bastianich, in herLa Cucina di Lidia, after pointing out that what makes risotto rice unique is its abundance of soluble starch, which “coats each grain of rice with a light, savory sauce of its own cooking liquids and fats,” goes on to insist (wrongly, as will be revealed elsewhere in these pages, in the chapter onriso in bianco ) that
For this reason, risotto [rice], unlike long-grain rice,never [emphasis mine] is cooked in plain water, but always with gradual increments of broth or stock.
Italian cooks are so adamant that stock is a necessary component of risotto that if none is on hand, they turn without hesitation to bouillon cubes—and some, in fact, turn to them as a further enhancement even if stockis on hand. (For more on the mysterious relationship between Italians and their belovedbrodo di dadi, see pages 70–73.)
I balk at this. In truth, I balk at it so entirely that if it hadn’t been for the series of coincidences related above, risotto might forever have remained a stranger to our kitchen. And this would have been too bad, for several reasons—not least among them my slowly growing realization that the Italian way is not the only way to think about the matter.
Meanwhile, there I was makingrisotto alla milanese. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be a pretty delicious dish, but my memories of eating it have been obscured by the adventure of producing it. You know that kid I just mentioned—the one dragooned into stirring the pot? Well, at least for the first few months, he’s going to have a ball.