Gỏi Mực (Cuttlefish Salad)

I am not the only one who is spoiled by my mother. My sister is also spoiled. My mom spoils us equally! So when my sister mentioned that she could really go for gỏi mực (cuttlefish salad), my mom was happy to make it. My sister and I have always referred to this salad as squid salad. I only realized that my mom was using cuttlefish when I read the description on the frozen package.



I wikipedia-ed to realize the difference between cuttlefish and squid. The body of the cuttlefish is round and thicker, making it conducive for this salad; the squid has a tubular shape. While reading Wikipedia, it states that cuttlefish is considered among the most intelligent invertebrate species. This reminded me that I had seen a TV show on cuttlefish. They were cute and very smart! When I mentioned this to my mother, she said they also make great gỏi's (salads)...!


Frozen cuttlefish being thawed.

Gỏi Mực (Cuttlefish Salad) - Serves 4-6
Traditionally, this salad is only made with cuttlefish. However, my mom adds red peppers for colour and to act as a filler - cuttlefish are expensive. This salad is served at room temperature.

Pickled onion

The onion should be lightly pickled so the raw onion flavour is not too strong.

* 1 onion, sliced thinly

* ½ cup vinegar (or lime juice)

* ¼ tsp salt

* 1 tbsp sugar

Soak onion in vinegar, salt and sugar, for about 15 minutes.

Adjust to taste - if it's too sour, add some sugar.

Squeeze the liquid out and set the onion aside.

Dressing

* 5 tsp fish sauce
* 2 tsp sugar
* juice of ½ lime
* 1 tsp chili garlic sauce (like samba oelek), or to taste

Mix all of the ingredients.
Adjust to taste.

Putting the salad together
* water
* 1 cuttlefish (about 750 g)
* 4-5 pieces of ginger
* salt
* pickled onion
* 1 red pepper, sliced thinly
* roasted peanuts, crushed
* Thai basil, sliced thinly

Boil water, enough so the cuttlefish is submerged.
Add some salt and the pieces of ginger.
Cook the cuttlefish for about 4-5 minutes - overcooking will make it chewy.
Let cool until it can be manipulated.
Slice thinly.
Add the dressing to the cuttlefish slices.
Add the onion and red pepper, and mix.
Adjust seasoning to taste.
Top the salad with Thai basil and peanuts.
Serve with bánh tráng (toasted sesame rice paper).
Tada!


Cooking and slicing the cuttlefish.

Mixing the cuttlefish slices with the vinaigrette.

Topped with Thai basil and crushed peanuts.

Enjoy on top of a piece of bánh tráng.

Miến Gà (Vietnamese Chicken Bean Thread Noodle Soup)

As I was making gỏi gà (Vietnamese chicken salad), it made me think about miến gà (Vietnamese chicken bean thread noodle soup) and asked my mom to make me some while I am in Montréal. Actually, I believe it's a Chinese influenced soup, since I refer to it as "phan su cay" - "phan su" meaning bean thread noodle in Cantonese and "cay" means chicken. Pardon my poor phonetics' spelling skills...

Bean thread noodles are also know as cellophane noodles, glass noodles or mung bean noodles. As all these names indicate, they are clear and are made from the starch of mung beans. Actually, when I wikipedia-ed it, I learned there are bean thread noodles made from other types of starch but I'm only familiar with the mung bean ones.

Miến Gà (Vietnamese Chicken Bean Thread Noodle Soup) - 2 servings
My mom states that the secret to giving this soup or cháo gà (chicken rice porridge) a superior taste is the addition of lòng gà (giblets). I only really like liver so my mom bought some liver to flavour the soup.

* oil

* ½ small onion, sliced thinly

* 100 g chicken liver, chopped roughly (optional)

* salt and pepper, to taste

* 6 cups Vietnamese flavoured chicken broth

* 100 g cooked chicken, shredded

* 2 handfuls of bean thread noodles

* green onion, thinly sliced

* coriander, thinly sliced

Stir fry the onion in a bit of oil.

Add the liver and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Once the liver is cooked through, add the chicken broth.

Bring broth to a boil.

Add the chicken to the broth.

Meanwhile, rinse the bean thread quickly.

Add the bean thread noodles and lower the heat.

Turn the heat off when the noodles have expanded and are clear.

Serve with green onion and coriander.

Tada!

Chicken liver stir fried with onion.

Bean thread noodles are white and become transparent once cooked.

Canh Hến (Baby Clam Soup)

I am back in Montréal for a visit at my mother's. This means more frequent food posts! Whenever I arrive from my 6 hour drive, my mom always has something cooked up, just in case I am hungry. This time, she made canh hến (baby clam soup). Actually, I refer to this soup simply as giong or don; my mom is not sure of the spelling and I was not able to google it because it's a regional term that is not used throughout Vietnam.

The more common term for baby clam is hến. However, according to my mother, giong is a different type of clam. It's more yellow while hến is black-ish. Hến is often used in Huế cuisine. Huế and Quảng Ngãi are both in Miền Trung (Central Vietnam). I also remember my landlady from Northern Vietnam making this soup with dill. I had never seen dill used in Vietnamese food before, other than in chả cá.

Canh Hến (Baby Clam Soup)

Here in North America, my mom buys canned baby clams for this soup. It takes 10 minutes to make and you only need 2 other ingredients: green onion and chili peppers. I like this soup spicy but you can tone it down to your taste.

* 1 can baby clams

* oil

* 2-3 green onion, sliced thinly

* 1 jalapeño pepper (or any type of chili pepper), sliced thinly - optional

* water

Drain the baby clams and save the clam juice (this is key for the soup!).

Stir fry the drained green onion, pepper and baby clams in oil.

Season with salt.

When the green onion and pepper look cooked, add the reserved clam juice and the same amount of water (about a can full).

Bring to a boil and turn the heat down.

Taste the soup and season with salt to taste.

Serve with bánh tráng (toasted sesame rice paper).

Tada!

My mom believes these are actually giong since they are yellow clams.

My mom's bánh tráng seems to have more sesame seeds than mine!

You have to eat the pieces of bánh tráng before they get soggy!

Gỏi Gà (Vietnamese Chicken Salad)

If you ever go to a Vietnamese get-together, chances are there will be some type of gỏi, Vietnamese for salad. One of my favourites is gỏi gà, very similar to a coleslaw with chicken. It is also a perfect accompaniment to cháo gà (chicken rice porridge).



I had bought some chicken bones to make some Vietnamese chicken broth. I am not sure if it is my immigrant economical upbringing but I don't like waste. So after I cook the bones, I spend the time to pick any meat that is left. Usually, I throw it in the broth for soup. This time, I thought I could really go for gỏi gà.

Gỏi Gà (Vietnamese Chicken Salad) - Serves 6-8
This salad is slightly sweet so don't be surprised by the amount of sugar. All quantities are approximate and can be changed. Wandering Chopsticks also has a recipe for gỏi gà.

* 1 cup cooked chicken, shredded
* salt and pepper, to taste
* 2-3 cups small cabbage, sliced thinly
* 2-3 small carrots, grated
* 1 small onion, sliced thinly
* 1 cup vinegar
* 3-4 tbsp sugar
* ½ tsp salt, or to taste

Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and set aside.
Mix the cabbage, carrots and onion.
Dissolve sugar in the vinegar and add to the cabbage mixture.
Let sit for an hour, mixing so all the vegetables absorb the vinaigrette.
Adjust the seasoning with sugar and salt.
The vegetables are ready, once the cabbage tastes less raw and are not as white.
Take a handful of vegetables and squeeze out the vinegar.
Place in a separate bowl and repeat with the remaining cabbage mixture.
Add the chicken and mix.
Garnish with fried onion and fresh mint, and serve with bánh tráng (sesame rice paper) or bánh phồng tôm (shrimp crackers).
Tada!


Chicken bones, picked for gỏi gà.

Sliced cabbage and onion.

Cabbage and carrot mixture, "marinating" in vinegar.

After squeezing out the vinegar, add chicken.

Bánh tráng is a special type of rice paper that is to be toasted. When I was in Quảng Ngãi, the town where my mother grew up in Vietnam, it was served before a meal as snack food. You would just dip it in fish sauce. It is perfect for scooping gỏi, by breaking it into pieces. It is also perfect for adding into specific soups, like bún bò Huế. It is usually toasted over a fire, or my mom does it over the burner. We found out that you can do it in the microwave, making sure to turn it, about 30 seconds on each side. I have a stash of bánh tráng from my grandmother. Lately, my grandmother has been disatisfied with her supplier from California and so actually gets family to bring some back from Vietnam.

Bánh tráng, before and after toasting. They come in large 14" circles.

Close up of the gỏi gà, topped with fried onion, that can be purchased at Asian stores. Oops, it's lacking the fresh green herbs.

A piece of bánh tráng topped with gỏi gà.

Oja Noodle House

689 Yonge Street
Toront, Ontario
416.944.8371

I met up with my friend C in Toronto while I was in town for a round of interviews. I was lucky that she lives only a few blocks from the hotel where the interview was taking place. For lunch, we agreed on going to a Korean/Japanese on Yonge Street. (the longest street in the world). We were temporarily swayed by Spring Rolls next door, but decided to stick to Oja.



Oja offered many lunch specials, spanning from Korean fare to sushi to various bento boxes. C & I both decided on a tempura bento box (who can resist deep fried goodness?) for $9.95, hers with bulgogi and mine with spicy chicken. The special came with a hot and sour soup that I thought was quite hot, and I think my heat tolerance is above average. Yowser!


Very spicy hot and sour soup.

Supposedly, C is the perfect person to order tempura with because she does not love seafood. I thus inherited her two shrimp tempura, with my share totalling four! She even joked that I should mention in my post that the bento box does not come with 4 tempura shrimp. We did not want to create false expectations.

My bento box, stacked with four shrimp tempura.

Other than the shrimp tempura, there were also zucchini, acorn squash yam tempura. It was hot and crunchy. I do love tempura. The bento box also included yam rolls that I quite enjoyed and a little salad that was average.

Tempura close-up.

Yam rolls.


Boring salad.

My spicy chicken was sweet rather than spicy. I actually thought the artificial red sauce was overly sweet and I did not finish the chicken. What I did enjoy were the glass noodles, with a soy and sesame oil dressing. I have had this before at Korean/Japanese restaurants and have tried to replicate it with poor results. Does anyone have a good recipe?

Spicy (Sweet) Chicken.

Lovely glass noodles.

As we left the restaurant, we encountered a march to mark the 50th anniversary of Tibet's uprising against China. They must have felt passionate about the cause, having to march in a cold drizzle. According to C, there are protests regularly on Yonge Street.

Protest for 50 year Tibet.

I had a great time seeing C again. I had last seen her over a year ago. Who knew that neither of us would be working at the same company?! Hopefully, we get to enjoy food in Toronto again!

Grilled Vegetable and Chicken Panini

Most of the time I take my time when I make a purchase. Be it clothing or an accessory for my house, I have to ponder it, determine whether it's just right and wait for the right price. Most of the time... Sometimes though, I make an impulsive purchase. Usually, it's something I see and feel that I need, that I must have, right here, right now, regardless of the price. Sometimes it's a coat from Banana Republic; other times it's shiny and promises to make perfect paninis. That's what happened when I bought my panini maker about 4 years ago at Williams-Sonoma.



I wish I could say I have been eating paninis daily, or at least weekly, ever since I purchased it. I wish I could say it's really convenient. The truth is, it stays in my cabinet because it's kind of big. It's a bit of a pain to clean because I cannot remove the grill. And I have to really wipe it down to make it shiny again. This doesn't make me love it less. The rare times I do make paninis, it makes me happy. Especially when I make chocolate paninis. It makes perfect grill marks.

Grilled Vegetable and Chickend Panini
Paninis are actually really easy to make. They require assembly rather than cooking. You just have to figure out what ingredients you want. There is a multitude of combinations. I also made Monte Cristo sandwiches in the panini maker.

* any bread - I used rosemary foccacia

* pesto - basil or sun dried tomato

* chicken - I bought a roast chicken and sliced the breast
* grilled vegetables - I used a red pepper and zucchini

* cheese - I used Swiss the first time and mozzarella the second time

Slice your bread in individual portions.

Slice horizontally.

Spread pesto on one side.

Top with the chicken, the vegetables and then the cheese.

Place the other piece of bread on top.

Place in the panini maker and press until the cheese is melted.

Tada!

Buy a rotisserie chickend and slice.

Grilling vegetables in the panini maker.

Spreading pesto on focaccia.


Topping with chicken slices and grilled vegetables.

Press in panini maker.

Ready to be enjoyed - I did not take a picture on a plate...