Beginners Guide to Vietnamese Cooking- 8 Glorious Recipes

Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. Without a doubt, Vietnamese food is probably one of my freaking favorite foods ever. The balance of flavors, not just flavors but textures and like life in general makes it so incredible. They're all about like taking sweet and salty and crispy and crunchy and smoothie and chewy and all this stuff and you're getting like crazy because Vietnamese cooking, it's all about the yin and the yang and I went to Vietnam about two years ago and had one of the best times of my life. The food is so cheap, everything you get is like a dollar, you get the biggest bowl of amazing pho, which is their signature soup. Biggest bowl of your entire life and it's a dollar and it's the most amazing thing you'll ever taste. So I wanted to do a video on a beginner's guide to making Vietnamese food because honestly I think Vietnamese food is one of the most amazing foods, one of the most underrated foods. People love it but they know bánh mì, they know pho, they don't really know much else, maybe some rolls. So I wanted to give you guys like beginner's guide on to how to do some of those main dishes but also get a little bit deeper into it so you can make food. Everything is super simple. A lot of this stuff you're going to see here, like you make this one thing and then you can use it for a lot of dishes like this Ngoc Chom, which is basically their dipping sauce. They put on everything and get ready to take a crazy ride into Vietnamese cooking territory. Here we go. Alright, first things first, Ngoc Chom, which is their dipping sauce and you'll see this all over the place. I basically just take a cup of water, some minced up garlic, some chilies, and then a bunch of fish sauce. Maybe like a tablespoon, maybe two tablespoons. Just kind of mix it in there. The whole idea is you're creating this sort of dressing, just add sugar and that helps balance out the heat and balance out the fish sauce and then just, I use like a whole lime, just squeeze in the lime. You can kind of adjust the seasoning based on what you like but this is so good on almost everything. It just adds like the punch that you want if you're missing any kind of flavor. I ended up adding a bunch of minced ginger. They don't always use that but I just wanted to add a little extra zippity-dippity-doo-dizzle-nizzle. Do Chua, I think I pronounced that completely wrong, but the pickled veg, this is also something you see all over the place. I do a cup of water, a cup of that vinsky, just distilled white vinegar, and then sugar and salt. And I'm only bringing this, I'm not bringing it to a boil, I just want to heat it up just enough so the sugar dissolves. If you don't have a heating ability in this case, it's okay, the sugar will eventually dissolve, it just speeds up the process. And then you let that cool, and I take a peeled carrot and I just, I basically just julienne peel that. I use a julienne peeler, it's like five bucks, and then I also do the same exact thing with daikon. And listen, if you don't have the peeler, just chop it up real thin, no big deal, you can even do regular peel slices. No one is going to be upset with you. And then I just basically take the carrot and the daikon, mix it in there, and let that sit for an hour up to a day, it just gets better and better. Bum-ding-dong. So this is grilled pork and rice noodles, sorry if I completely butchered that, I don't mean no disrespect. I take some lemongrass, and I'm going to peel the lemongrass a little bit first, just that outer layer, then kind of chop it in pieces and chop it in half, and I'm going to dice it up really thin. And what this does is it allows me to get a lot of flavor into my porkage nationification of love. So I took boneless pork chops, usually they would use a pork shoulder, but I just wanted to try the pork chops, I knew it would be delicious and tender, no big deal. And then sugar goes in, sugar and fish sauce, just these two together on any meat. The first time I had a grilled chicken and grilled pork from Vietnam, I was like, what the heck is that? And I realized it was just basically the sugar and the fish sauce mixture, the lemongrass just adds a nice fragrance to it, no big dizzle dealio. And just let that marinate for about an hour. While that's going on, you also soak rice noodles in cold water for about an hour, 30 minutes to an hour, until they get soft, then you take out that pork from the fridge, it's been marinating, and you just sear it up like it is your entire life's purpose. Because if you don't sear it, you're not gonna be able to eat it. Okay, so now I take those noodles and basically just pour over boiling water, and what this is doing, I'm doing it real quick, like 15 to 30 seconds, just until they start to get soft, and then I rinse them in cold water. So now they're gonna rehydrate and they're gonna feel like fresh noodles that aren't fresh. If you just like take them right out of the bag, you're gonna, and try to boil them, it's gonna get all weird and mushy. Look at that pork, are you kidding me on that? See the color? And the sugar and the fish sauce is together, of love. Now I take my pork, and I'm just gonna slice it up, I tasted it of course, because it is so freaking good. And you see all the stuff on the side that I'm gonna mix this dish with, all the rest is fresh. You got your rice noodles down, some fresh lettuce, some cucumbers for crunch and gloriousness, and I take the pork, look at that love pork bomb of gloriousness. What is going on, people? Then the pickled veg that we made earlier, some fresh mint, a little bit of those scallywags, some peanut dizzles, and then just that sauce, the nok cham that we made before, and that's the dressing for this. It's the dressing for a lot of things, but oh my god, is it good. He knows it. You like that, baby? The pickle, the noodle. The glorious pork. It's like spaghetti. This food is in a league of its own, so far, I'll tell you, oh yeah. Pho bo, so basically pho is the famous soup, and this is a beef version, so I'm using beef shank, and what's cool about this, you can use just beef bones, whatever, but the beef shank has the bone and the meat, so a lot of times they'll boil a big chunk of meat to get the shredded beef, and then they'll also have bones, but what I'm doing here is I'm using the mixture with the beef shank, but whatever you can get is cool. So fill a pot up with water, and then while that's going on, you bring that to a boil, you're just charring onions and ginger. If you don't have this ability, just put it in the oven or char it however you can, and what we're doing is we're going to be able to peel that skin off now, but you're going to have this delicious kind of roasted flavor inside that will really flavor that soup in a crazy way. So see all that scum, that's what we're boiling it, because we want to get all that weird stuff out of the meat, because we want this broth to be clear, and then I take my different things, I've got the star anise, the cardamom, cloves, coriander, and cinnamon, and these are the aromatics that are going to give us this love of experience when we smell and taste this thing. Put them in a little tea bag, if you don't, you can wrap them in some cloth, or you can wrap them together, or just let them sit, it's just this makes it easier so we can really get the stuff in there without having to pick every piece out when we're making our soup. So now, I'm basically trying to peel this ginger like an idiot, but use a spoon. Cool, and then peel the onion, you just want to get as much of the black bits as you can because you don't want them in your soup, now it looks all beautiful and clear, try to keep the onion whole, but you can cut the ginger in half, and look, if you look at this, you see all the kind of stuff in there? We're getting rid of all that, so when we re-boil the meat, we're not going to lose the flavor, but we're going to get that clear gloriousness. Then I just wash these bones off with water, because I really want to get rid of any little impurities and weird things in there. Just wash them off, no big deal, just kind of like have fun with it, you know, scrub your hands, you could use a scrubber, but the hands are the best thing I find for anything. And then back in goes some water and those bones, you add in your ginger, you add in your onion, and you add in that spice bag, because you need the bag of spice to have that aromatic, fluff flavor. I put just a little bit of sugar, like a teaspoon, some salt in there, you can always salt it after if you need to, and then just bring it to a boil and let it simmer for an hour or two, if not more. Now I've got this frozen flank steak, and the reason I froze it, I froze it a little bit so I could cut it easier, and the whole idea is you take your flank and you're cutting it super thin, because that's actually going to go in the soup raw, but you'll see about that in just a little bit, just the goal is get as thin as you humanly can, and listen, if you don't want the raw steak, that's cool, there's so many options for pho, there's no one way is right, screw that. Just skim off the scum, or whatever, it's kind of like foam, but it's kind of the impurities of the meat. Not that anything is impure, all meat is pure in its own light, but basically what this does is that it keeps a super duper clear broth, which, listen, if it doesn't, it's still going to be delicious, but there's something really special about having that really clear broth in here. If there's a little broth while you're at it, that's okay, just a tiny bit won't hurt you. I just got to take a pause to say how freaking incredible it smells in here, like the aromas from pho, and that's what it's all about, pho, pho, whatever, pho, pho, pha, so the aromas from the pho just get in your face, they get in your nose, and they make you feel so at peace. Today I've been just chilling, I'm very excited, I'm going to be eating a lot of food, and I'm excited to share it with y'all munchers. Cool, so we're doing the same thing with those rice noodles like we did with the dish before, just kind of cooking them. Coolio, so I basically just get everything out now, and I've got all this meat, and this meat can be shredded up and added to my soup, you kind of have whatever option you want. I've got my spice bag that gets to go in the trash, or you could save it for another one, because it's probably still got a lot of flavor. What I am going to do though is just kind of wash these bones off, just kind of get them to stop cooking, chilling out, they're nice and tender now. Okay, so we've got the flank right here, which is nice and raw, and that's basically, I know it seems weird that it's raw going in the soup, but the soup's going to be hot, so it's going to just gently cook it. Then I've got all of that beef shank, it's been cooked up, delicious, and even though it might seem like it's going to be flavorless, when it gets in the soup, it's going to rehydrate and get a lot of flavor. This is actually the onion, usually they use raw onion, but I didn't have any, so I'm using that cooked onion. There's still some flavor in there, which is cool. And then these are my acultural mung, basil, jalapenos, sprouts, and you can use either bean sprouts, mung bean sprouts, soybean, whatever, and then lime. And this just creates a delicious pho, here we go. So here's kind of the deal for a pho, it's basically this super flavorful, aromatic broth. You can get chicken, you can get veggie, but typically, traditionally I would say is beef, and there's in the north and the south, they vary differently. This is a little bit more of a south, like Ho Chi Minh kind of style, Saigon, Ho Chi Minh, whatever you want to call it, because they add a lot of stuff, and actually you go there for one dollar, you get this huge bowl of incredibly delicious, aromatic broth, and then on the side you get all these fresh herbs. This is like a little bit more of an Americanized version, still very authentic, but like the sides are a little more American, whereas in Ho Chi Minh, there were so many herbs you couldn't even get in the states, like the craziest things you could imagine. But basically you get this big bowl of soup, it's got your noodles, it's got your beef, usually the onions, and the broth, and that's it. Then you have the stuff on the side, and then you get to flavor it as you want, so if you want it spicy, you add jalapenos, if you want a little more boom, zinga, zinga, citrusy, you add some lime, you can add the basil, and as you sit there and as you eat this thing, you're kind of like cooking it yourself and changing the flavor as you wish. Okay, you ready? So first things first, a bunch of noodskies go in, like, and you don't have to pack it this much, but I just love the noodskies, and then I'll do some onion as well here. And then here's the thing with the meat, when you go to a store, usually you'll get like one type of meat, but in this case I'm going to do that slow cooked meat that's been cooking in the broth, and I'm also going to do the, what do you call this, flank steak, just kind of nice on top, and that's going to slowly cook in the delicious broth. But when you go, like, you can get anywhere from just, you know, even a rib eye slice or flank steak to like tripe and tendon and stomach, like all kinds, well tripe is stomach, but all kinds of craziness. So the Vietnamese people, they like to push it, but in America we tend to stick with the meat, so you decide what you like, but don't put anything in there. Most importantly, the delicious stock we've been cooking all day, and just watch how that meat just quickly starts to change color. Oh yes, this is the best soup in the world. Just that alone, what I'll do is I'll add some jalapenos in there, boom, for spice, some sprouts, a little basil, the basil is cool because it kind of like steeps in there, so you get like this really dope ass flavor, squeeze some lime, and now look at that, now that's a sexy soup. And I'm telling you, this is my personal favorite soup because it plays with so many textures, you've got the chewy, you've got the crunchy, you've got all these different flavors going on, soothing, oh man. Also, there's a little salt in there already, but if you want to add a little fish sauce to really Vietnamese it up, you can. But man, this is so freaking good. It's just so soothing and delicious. When you have your first good bowl of pho, holy pho, you understand. It's better every freaking bite. I remember the first time I was really learning about Vietnamese food, and they talked about the yin and the yang and the balance of it all, and this dish really represents that, where you're getting everything you could ever want. But it's so soothing, it's like you sit there, you smell it, and you get the freshness as you add different things, you get more and more herb taste and freshness, and it just keeps going and going and going. It's like you're creating this masterpiece in front of your eyes, where you, as the eater, get to be the final cooker. More to come. Here we go. All right, bánh xèo, probably of all the dishes I'm making, the least well known, but also still well known in terms of Vietnamese food, because a lot of Vietnamese food in America is just completely undiscovered. There's lots of different batters. Some you can buy a pre-made batter in some places, some use starches, but I learned this from an amazing woman in Vietnam, and this is the way she showed me, so I'm going to show you guys. In this instance, you either want to use a nonstick pan or a pan with a shit ton of oil. I'm kind of doing a blend of both. In Vietnam, they will fry the crap out of these. It's insane how much oil. But I put in some shrimp and some minced up pork that I have. You can use ground pork, too. Wow, that is a flatter nation. Whoa, baby. Basically just fry this up. It's only going to take a few seconds. It's kind of like making an omelet, except that instead of eggs, you're using this rice mixture or turmeric, so it kind of looks like an egg omelet, which is pretty dope, and that's what I thought it was at first, and then I was amazed to find out there was no eggs. Very excited at the time. Okay, and then the shrimp cook pretty much instantly. They'll cook a little bit more in there, so it can be a little bit under, but you get that. That's looking sexified. All right, and then you take your batter, and you just mix it as though it's like an egg. You kind of coat it around, make sure the temperature is nice and high, and you kind of just let that chill for a little bit, and that's going to fry up. It's going to get crispy, and it's going to be like this delicious rice crepe. Oh, it's already starting to form, I think. Yeah, nice. It's going to be sticky, so just let it get super crispy before you really try to screw with it. It'll ruin the whole damn thing. Okay, so the panseo, it's eaten in a really cool way. They actually take lettuce, make this beautiful, crispy crepe. Mine's a little thick. It could probably go thinner, but listen, there's so many ways to do it. Like I said, the lady I stayed with, she just rocked it this way, and I thought there's the whole issue. So, you get like the crispiness, but the lettuce is always keeping it fresh. The Vietnamese, they know about always keeping it fresh, and I dip it in my sauce. I feel like I haven't had this since Vietnam. It's so good. And if you thought that was fun, check out this way. There's another way they do it. Panseo, I think it's called banh bot instead of panseo, and I'm going to show you right now. Okay, so technically, if you don't have this pan, you can't do this. Sorry to hear that for you, for those that can't, but if you do, cool. If not, you can just watch and enjoy. So, they actually add a pretty good amount of oil in there. See, like almost kind of deep-fries in there. And the oil won't all stick. A lot of the oil will, you know, leave, but it kind of just helps it cook. So, they usually use that much oil. And then, they put either some pieces or, usually like a whole shrimp, but I'm just going to do some little pieces of shrimp. And that's pretty much it. You can add whatever you want in there. I've done like quail eggs, just kind of cool. Just pop in like a little quail egg. Not authentic necessarily, maybe in some places. So, typically what they do is they add this chive or like scallion sort of oil on top. But I'm going to just add it now because there is oil, so it's going to sort of create, I realize, kind of create that oil just by cooking it in the oil. And these things, you really want to make sure that they're fully cooked before. And what they do is they actually, we'll just give it a cover. And look, I frickin' burnt my goddamn cutting board. Oh, bro, I melted it literally on there. Idiot. Wow. Come on. That's a true sexification right there. They should be, yeah, look, see. You let them fry long enough, they're very easy to basically just pop out. If you don't, they'll get all sticky. So, make sure you let them sit for long enough to the point where they are able to go like that. No big deal. Come to daddy, but I can only figure out how to get you out. Look at that beauty. Tilt guy, why not? Look sexy. This is actually one of the first things that I ate when I got to Vietnam. I saw it and I was like, give me that. I went to this market by myself in the morning and I just couldn't resist. It just seemed too cool. And, you know, it will have a different, a bit of a different texture. Taste will be similar, but it's still like, kind of do your own thing. Oh, God. Crunchy gooeyness. That's like, pretty damn different, I'd say. It's the same batter. That's really good. I love Vietnamese food. Cannot get me enough of that Vietnamese. Some raw ingredients. Plus, you got your rice papaya right here. Which basically comes in a pack. You get a bunch of these things. Some people say to soak them in warm water for a while. But, I find that actually makes them almost impossible to work with. So, what I do is I just barely dust them in some... Well, you can't really dust in water. But, just barely put them in water for a second. And, slowly they will get softer and softer. Then, you wrap all this gloriousness. So, yeah. I just put a little bit of cold water on there. And, kind of just like, sort of rub it in. And, this way you have more control. Because, as it starts to suck in that water, it will start to get pliable. But, not too much. I used to do these jobs all the time. I had to make hundreds of these. And, I always thought soaking them in warm water was a pain in the ass. Because, they get all flimsy. So, basically by the time that we put our fillings on, the rice paper should be nice and soft. Take some of this rice vermicelli. Which, I basically soaked it for a while. You can do like half an hour. I did an hour. Actually, maybe I did even longer than that. But, it doesn't really matter at that point. Rice vermicelli. Then, I put it in boiling water just for like two minutes. Cucumber. Mince. And, I mean, you've seen some rolls before. This is a little bit more traditional in the Vietnamese sense. Although, I'm going to add some cilantro. But, you can ultimately put in whatever the frick you want. I mean, you could do barbecue, chicken, and bacon for all I care. And, the coolest part is you put these shrimp. Just like that. Like they're banging each other. And, then. It's like a 69. 69 shrimp party. And, then. What you want to do is you wrap over, over. This one's a little broken. But, it's not a big deal. And, then. You go fully over. Kind of like you're rolling a burrito. Or, a blunt. Or, whatever. And. Try to get it as tight as possible. And, then. You end up with that. And, I like to do it where you can actually see the shrimp. Kind of screwed that up. It doesn't matter for taste wise. But, you know. Some people like the appearance. See if I care. Alright. And, then. You just simply take this beautiful bodacious bizzle. Dip in the sauce. Which is that fish sauce with ginger, garlic, chilies, sugar. Alright. Let's do the Humpty Hump. You know what I'm saying? Let's do the Humpty Hump. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Let's do the Humpty Hump. Mmm. So. I'm going to say no reaction from your voice is going to be better than the reaction from your body. Oh my god. It's so fresh. This is the simplest of all the dishes. But, the freshness just can't be beat. The best part of Vietnamese food is that everything is delicious. Extremely balanced. Very fresh. It's not the kind of food, for the most part, where you feel like, oh yeah, they ate way too much. Make some cuisine. It's really balanced. You kind of make it your way. Two years ago, my now wife and I went to Ha Long Bay. And, it's probably the most touristy thing we did in Vietnam. But, it's a beautiful spot. And, the only option you have is to rent this boat. And, on the boat, you go to different islands. And, you have fun. You eat food. And, they did this cooking class. And, I was kind of like, yeah, cooking class. Summer rolls. I've made them before. It was actually a very different style of how I've ever seen summer rolls before. And, they fried them, too. Usually, summer rolls, like the ones I showed you before, are fresh. So, I just wanted to show you how to do this recipe. It's really cool. It's simple. I've got a couple of ingredients here. We basically took, so these are those vermicelli noodles. You can use rice or the bean ones. I have the bean thread noodles. This is a mixture. I actually took the pork chop and the shrimp. And, I just diced the crap out of it. These scallion boys here. And, then some shrimp. Some shrimp. Is that shrimp? Am I crazy? No. Some carrot. And, we're just going to add all that in. Shrimp. Carrot. Scallions. Noodles. Add a little bit of salt. A little bit of sugar. Because, just like in Thai food, the sugar really helps balance things out. You don't add much. But, you just add like a little sprinkle of sugar. Oops. A little. Add a little bit much. And, then add some egg. I'll probably do maybe. Let's try like about a half beaten egg. Just to start. See what we do. And, the whole idea is the egg kind of keeps this mixture together. And, then what we're doing is we're going to wrap these in the rice paper again. Except, this time we're going to fry them. So, it's not going to be quite as fresh. But, it's still going to be quite as delicious. They would also add. There will be other things. Actually, I saw a recipe that said black pepper. Which is interesting. Because, we haven't used any black pepper today. And, I don't really see that much of Vietnamese cooking. But, I'm going to omit it. If you want to try adding black pepper. By all means, I'm not going to be the black pepper police in Syria. Just kind of get it a little bit wet. And, kind of rub that in. Make sure it gets wet on both sides. And, these are probably a little bit big. Typically, like you'll see when they fry them up. They're usually small. I'm just going to do maybe one or two big ones. Although, I wonder if I could. You know, let's see what happens if I cut it in half. I should probably let it get. I should probably either do it when it's not wet. Or, when it's very wet. But, anyhow, that works. So, get this guy nice and wet here. And, it's raw meat. But, it's going to cook in the guy very quickly. It's almost like a dumpling. It's kind of like a dumpling mixture, sort of. I figured out, if you just add just enough. Fold the sides over. You can really make these tight little joint ski dumplings. Well, not dumplings. But, summer rolls. So, if it looks better like this one. That one I just crushed. So, I'm frying it in oil. Just like, I'm using safflower. I like it. But, any kind of neutral oil. Canola, vegetables. It's all good. Just don't do olive oil, for Christ's sake. Don't do olive oil. If you have it, you can. But, it will taste like olive. And, these are really interesting. They don't take too long to fry. But, you're probably not used to frying the rice paper. It gets super crispy and glorious. Kind of start to flip them when they seem like they're getting crispy. This is great for anyone that's gluten free, too. Cooking these really actually reminds me of that trip on Ha Long Bay. Because, the dudes there. Oh, my God. They were screwing with me so much. Like, I was playing around doing some karate. And, we started having this fake kind of Bruce Lee karate fight. Me and the Vietnamese guy running the ship. And, then they started playing these games with me. Where I was like, can I knock over a card with my nose from a certain position. And, they were just screwing with me. It was fun. But, they were like, they're pranksters. Okay. Pretty much done. This one's like way open. I'm going to take that one off so it doesn't explode. Let it kind of oil drain off a little bit. They look now like egg rolls. But, I assure you. Even though they have egg in them. They're not the same. And, while there are a bunch of different ways to serve this. Like, you'll see it. You know that pork dish we made. You'll see it. Like, the rice noodles with the pork. And, these little guys cut up. That's one of my favorite little dishes to get. But, I think they would just kind of serve it like that. Just the rice noodles. Of course, the lettuce. Because, you're always getting that crispy. But, you want to have the freshness. Because, if you just have the crispiness. It might seem a little too heavy. But, the freshness balances it out. The sexiest looking one. More lettuce. If you don't like lettuce. No big deal. But, I just think it makes everything delicious. I'm going to do the lettuce. The little summer roll guy. A little bit of my. That sauce we made earlier. And, that will be a perfect bite. Hot. That was good. But, so hot. Let it cool for a second. Anything that's like pouched up. And, closed up like that. Probably has a chance of burning your tongue off. So, be careful. I've gotten pretty good at not burning my tongue. Probably because it's the worst thing in the world. Nothing worse than when you have a big meal. And, the first bite you burn your tongue. You're just screwed. I'm going to try it on its own. But, that's amazing. Munchers, thank you guys so much for sticking around. Please subscribe to us if you haven't yet. Brothers Green Eats. We have a really cool Facebook page. Brothers Green Eats. We've got www.brothersgreen.com www.brothersgreen.com Instagram. Snapchat. All that good stuff. But, at the end of the day. We just want to inspire people to get in the kitchen. And, just fall in love with food. And, we're trying to explore all things. Whether it's budget meals. Different cuisines. How to prep for the week. How to eat cheap, quick food. How to impress dates. Whatever it might be. We're here to help you guys. All of our food is super simple. But, also like mastered. If you learn the food that we learn to make. People are blown away by the food that I make. I'm like, listen. I got news for you. This food is not hard to make. It just takes a little bit of time. And, a little bit of love. And, a little bit of patience. If you got that. Even if you got five minutes of patience. You can make a banging amazing meal. So, thank you guys for watching. Keep rocking it. More to come. I love Vietnamese food.