Spicy Tofu Bánh Mì

Bánh Mì is the Vietnamese word for bread and is generally used to refer to the street-food sandwiches that you can find all over Vietnam (and now the rest of the world). I first developed a love for Vietnamese food (mainly phở ga) when I was living overseas in Asia, but it was not until I returned to the US that I ate Bánh Mì regularly. The suburban greater Seattle-area town that I grew up in had a rather large population of immigrants, mainly Korean and Vietnamese, which meant that there were a plethora of cheap restaurants to peruse (and peruse I did!). Of course I have my favorite family run restaurant and they have the absolute best spicy tofu Bánh Mì. Naturally the bar was set pretty high and this is my attempt to recreate their delicious sandwich.

The bread used to make Bánh Mì is always a french baguette. This is left over from French colonization, and though it is similar to a French style baguette they make them a little differently and usually is a little softer to eat. The Bánh Mì is a cultural fusion of classic french style (baguette, mayonnaise, and traditionally pate) and classic Vietnamese flavors like cilantro, jalapeno, cucumber and pickled carrots and daikon radish. With this formula you can make any kind of Bánh Mì, with almost any kind of meat. The most common meat fillings are sliced beef, pork belly and vietnamese meatballs. Today, I will be making my favorite, spicy tofu Bánh Mì, which is not normally something that you would find on the streets of Vietnam but they do serve them during celebrations at Buddist temples.

Ingredients:

• French Baguette
• 1 package of firm tofu
• a hand full of cilantro
• Sliced cucumber
• Sliced jalapeno
• 1 medium carrot (shredded)
• 1 medium daikon radish (shredded)

For the picked carrot and daikon:

• 1/4 a cup of sugar
• 1 cup of white vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup of warm water

For the spicy sauce:

• 2 tbsp Sriracha hot sauce
• 1 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tbsp korean gochujang
• 1 tbsp thai sambal sauce
• a tsp of agave or honey

First things first, the tofu! Preheat that oven to 400 degrees and lightly coat a baking tray with oil. Slice the tofu about 1/4 of an inch think and coat them with a little bit of corn starch (this absorbs the moisture and makes them a little crunchier).

You can drench them in sauce and then bake them but I find it doesn’t really add much more flavor in the end and I usually just drench then in sauce after they are done baking. The tofu should bake for 30 minutes and they should be flipped halfway through the baking process. When it is done it will look something like this:

While that is baking, we can start on the picked carrots and daikon. Grate the carrots and daikon by hand or by food processor. Add in the rest of the ingredients (water, vinegar, sugar, salt) and leave it to pickle. You can also do this the night before if you really want to pickle the carrots and daikon, but it still tastes pretty good either way. Let it mellow out while the tofu is baking.

Now for the sauce! Combine all of the ingredients into a small bowl.

All of these sauces can be found at your local asian grocery store, or online. Obviously you can add more spice if that’s what you like, I always like it super spicy.

Slice up the Baguette and toast if desired.

Now it is time to build our sandwich. Generally a Bánh Mì sandwich has mayo in it, but since I hate mayo I just decided to forgo it. If you like mayo there are plenty of mayo sriracha recipes that go great with Bánh Mì online! Slather on some sauce to the bun, then add the tofu when it is ready. Pile on some sliced cucumbers, picked carrot and daikon and stuff in some cilantro and sliced jalapenos (optional).

There is no wrong way to build a sandwich! Sit back with a cold beer (or in my case a glass of red wine) and enjoy.

What is your favorite kind of Bánh Mì?

Sri Lankan Chicken Curry

So, as I have stated in some previous posts, I used to live in the wonderful country of Sri Lanka. Besides all of the friendly people, tropical rain-forests and beautiful beaches, Sri Lanka has some of the best food I have encountered. My family only spent about two years there, but we tried to eat as much of the local food as we could. Our helper and cook wrote down some of our favorite dinner dishes and I treasure these recipes.

Today I am going to show you how to make some delicious Sri Lankan coconut chicken curry. In Sri Lanka, they often like to make curry dishes with coconut milk, instead of cow milk or tomato based curried that are popular up north in India. Many of the dishes are similar to the ones from Southern India, but Sri Lanka definitely has a distinct cuisine that should not be confused with Indian cuisine.

This particular curry we like to enjoy with Sri Lankan Daal, deviled potatoes and green beans (recipe coming soon), Coconut Sambol and Basmati rice.

Lets get started!

Ingredients:

• 1 kg of chicken (2-3 breasts, 4 small wings or drumsticks)
• 1 Tbsp Chili Powder
• 1 Tbsp Roasted Curry Powder
• 1 Tsp Turmeric Powder
• 1/2 Tsp Fenugreek Seeds
• 2 Onions (chopped)
• 4 Garlic cloves (minced)
• A square inch of fresh ginger (minced)
• 2-3 Cinnamon sticks (in 1 inch pieces)
• 1/2 cup Curry leaves
• 3 Tbsp oil (preferably Grapeseed oil, but olive oil will do)
• 1 cup coconut cream (or the top creamy layer in a can of coconut milk plus some of the juice). Most of the time I just use a whole can, because I like it extra coconut-y.
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Many of these ingredients you might have to search for in an Indian or Asian food market. If nothing like that exists in your neighborhood the internet is a beautiful place and you can get almost anything through amazon.

Cut the chicken into 2.5 cm sized bites. Place the chicken in a bowl and mix with the chili, curry powder, turmeric and salt and pepper to create a dry rub marinade. You can do this the night before if you want to add extra flavor. I generally just marinate it for about 20 mins before I cook it and there is still plenty of flavor to go around. You should definitely do the dry run though because this seriously how you lock in the amazing flavor. I have found it’s so much more effective then adding the spices into the chicken after you have browned it.

Heat the oil in a sauce pan and fry the onion, garlic, ginger, curry leaves and cinnamon sticks until the onions start to look slightly cooked and translucent. Add in marinated chicken and cook until the chicken is browned. When you think the chicken is decently cooked through add the coconut cream and simmer for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve it over some Basmati rice and Enjoy!

(More pictures to come!)

To all the Sri Lankan viewers out there, how do you do your chicken curry?

Sri Lankan Coconut Sambol (Pol Sambol)

Coconut Sambol is typically a side dish you would serve with Sri Lankan curry. There are many different types of Sambol, the ones I liked the most were the coconut Sambol and Seeni Sambol, which consists of mainly chili, maldive fish and onions. Sambol in general is a chili based condiment; just about every country in Asia has a version of Sambol/Sambal. Coconut Sambol was especially delicious with curry because the freshness of the coconut almost cleanses the palate from the spicy curry dishes. In just about any restaurant or street vendor you go to in Sri Lanka that sells curry it will come with some kind of Sambol on the side. Some people argue that the coconut Sambol is the most popular “dish” in Sri Lanka because it is served with pretty much everything. I think it is a deliciously underrated element in Sri Lankan cuisine.

One of the ingredients in the Sambol is Maldive fish, which can be pretty hard to come by outside of Sri Lanka. Maldive fish is dried and cured tuna made in the Maldives and is a stable to Maldivian cuisine as well as Sri Lankan. It is often pounded into splinter pieces and sold in packets as a flavoring to dishes. In this recipe I was lucky enough to still have some Maldive fish packets from when I used to live in Sri Lanka. If you can find any you can easily replace it with another high quality dried fish flake or shrimp paste, or you can just go without it, but it wont taste exactly the same.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. Seeni Sambol mix (cloves, chili, maldive fish, curry leaf, screw pine, cardamom, cinnamon)
• The flesh of one fresh coconut or a half packet of unsweetened coconut flakes
• One lime
• One purple onion diced
• One small jalapeno diced

I know the Seeni Sambol mix might be super hard to come by. Here is a link to the website of the stuff I got in Sri Lanka, maybe you can find something similar in your local Indian market. I got really excited in the super market about the fresh coconut but shelling and grating fresh coconut is no easy task and I think from now on ill just try to find unsweetened shredded coconut instead.

Okay so firstly, if you are feeling adventurous and want to try shelling the flesh of a fresh coconut you have to first drain it of its juice. I like to save the juice, strain it and make a cocktail out of it with pomegranate juice and vodka, but that’s just me being an alcoholic who doesn’t like to throw good food away.

Cracking the coconut in half also proved difficult, I ended up just throwing it on my concrete patio in the backyard.

Once you get them halved you can use a knife to pry out all of the flesh. In Sri Lanka they had these nifty coconut shredders that would do all of the work for you. Sadly white people don’t know shit about coconuts.

Alrighty, so once you have de-fleshed the coconuts add the flesh to a food processor with the diced jalapeno.

Grind those baby’s to pulp! Well not quite… but get them pretty well chopped. Once thats done get those diced onions on a frying pan with some EVOO on a high heat and cook until they start to get a little translucent. Add in the Seeni Sambol mix and cook to release the flavors.

Add in the coconut and jalapeno mix and stir until well mix and heated. Cook for another few minutes to make sure all of the flavors are really melting together. Place is a bowl to cool before serving.

Add a few spoonfuls to any curry dish to add an intense amount of delicious flavor. I usually make this as a companion to my Sri Lankan Coconut Curry (recipe coming soon) and Sri Lankan Daal.

Definitely explore more Sri Lankan food if you haven’t before, its really good stuff and can be very different than Indian food.

I can eat these left overs for like a week after I made a whole Sri Lankan meal.

Let me know if you guys have any questions or submit your own version of these meals!

Enjoy 🙂

Sri Lankan Daal

My family moved to Sri Lanka when I was fifteen. We spent two years there and it was the most interesting experience of my life! While I lived in the Philippines for about 12 years and would spend my Summers in Washington, this was the first time I moved somewhere culturally different.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country, with gorgeous beaches and luscious rain forests. My favorite thing about Sri Lanka, though, had to be the delicious food. We were lucky enough to have a house cleaner/cook who would make our dinners during the week. She would make us the most amazing dinners, of all kinds, but my favorites were always her Sri Lankan meals. When we left the country, she offered to write down her recipes. Although I have tried many many times to recreate the wonderful flavors of her meals, there always seems to be something missing. Ashoka, this one is for you.

Today I want to share her Daal recipe with you all. Daal is a lentil, and a staple in most of South East Asia. (Can be spelled as Dahl, Dal, Dhal). Some of the ingredients are hard to come by, depending on where you live. Here in Washington we have a huge immigrant population and you can find almost anything in the small specialty stores. It you can’t find it, Amazon.com can usually mail some ingredients to you. Sri Lankan Daal is generally made with coconut milk, so it is slightly different than how it is prepared in the Indian subcontinent.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of Daal (lentils)
• 1 can coconut milk
• 3/4 cup of water
• 1 tbsp Curry powder
• 1/2 tsp Turmeric
• 1/4 tsp Fenugreek seeds
• 2 Cloves of garlic (minced)
• 4 small red onions (or 2 large ones) chopped
• 2 Green chilies (less if you are not a spicy food person)
• 2 Cinnamon sticks (in 1 inch pieces)
• 1/4 cup of Curry leaves
• 1 tsp salt

Okay, so first thing, if you are using dried lentils, you want to make sure the lentils have been soaking for at least 4 hours. I like to soak them overnight, or in the morning before work.

When you are ready to cook, drain the lentils then add them into a medium sized sauce pan. Add the water. Separate the coconut cream (the thick top layer) from the coconut juice in the can. Add the coconut juice. Add in all of the spices and onions and cook daal until soft, should be about 30 mins, or until most of the liquid has cooked and the lentils have thickened.

Don’t worry if you can’t find the cinnamon sticks, curry leaves or fenugreek seeds, it takes just as good without them. You can just use ground cinnamon (1 tsp) and more curry powder.

Add more water if needed. When the daal is soft add the remaining coconut cream and cook uncovered for about 2 mins. Eat with some Basmati Rice!

I usually make daal as a side dish with my Sri Lankan coconut curry and coconut Sambal. These recipes are coming soon!

Enjoy 🙂

Let me know what you guys think? How do you make your lentils?