Good morning DFO!

Welcome welcome. Good to have you back.

Today we will be taking an international tour during our food making efforts and I will be bringing you cuisine from one of my very favorite ethnic cultures, Vietnam.

I will be getting into my discovery of the Vietnamese culture and it’s food and I will also be giving out a small bit of history which will, in turn, explain the origin of this incredibly tasty meal today.

One other thing: I’m making bread from scratch motherfuckers!

Check this shit out!

Hell yes!

Let’s start with a quick question. How many Asian cultures or cuisines have you encountered that use bread?

Anybody?

Real bread, like with flour and yeast and shit?

As far as my experience goes it is strictly the Vietnamese.

Now, do you know how this came to be?

Yes, you in the back.

That’s right! Because of the French influence left over from French colonial rule. You’re a smart motherfucker!

From the 1880’s until just after WWII Vietnam was governed by France and was known as French Indochina. This won’t come as a surprise if you’ve seen the “Redux” version of “Apocalypse Now.” The scenes edited from the original movie include encountering some French settlers on a plantation in Vietnam and a little explanation of the French rule. French influence still shows in Vietnam both with the food and the architecture.

This explains why a delicious Vietnamese staple is a sandwich served on French bread. Although traditional Vietnamese baking uses rice flour instead of wheat which creates a lighter and less dense loaf of bread.

My first encounter with Vietnamese culture and food came after I moved to L.A. in 1991 from San Diego. I transferred my job up here. Let’s just say it was quite a cultural change for me. My coworkers in San Diego were named Steve, John, Chuck, Ray, Nick etc.

My new coworkers were not named the same. My job had employees from Iran, Iraq, India, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Armenia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam. It was a mini fucking United Nations working there.

There was a Vietnamese family, and I mean almost the entire family worked there. Dad was a delivery driver, two of his sons were in “operations” and the daughter handled billing. I was the boss for all of them. I am still very close with this family to this day. Over the course of time my employees started sharing their various cuisines with me and I became a big fan of Vietnamese food. I’ve attended a bunch of parties at the house of my adopted Vietnamese family and it’s always a blast. These folks love to drink and cook. Mom was always in the kitchen and she made the most amazing spring rolls and noodles and lettuce wraps and pho and she always had a big pot of “ragout” simmering. A nice rich tomato based stew with meat and potatoes and carrots and onion. Very French influenced.

I love going to their house parties.

Alright. There’s the origin and the explanation of today’s meal now we better get with the fucking program because we got shit to do!

The banh mi is a Vietnamese sandwich served on a crusty roll with some meat items and some crunchy pickled veggies. There is always a spicy element and a slightly sweet element to it and holy fucking shit is it delicious. The original used pate as the meat item. Is that French enough for you? They can also be made with pork or chicken or rare beef or damn near anything.

As I’ve mentioned in the past we don’t exactly have great bread here in L.A. In fact most of it is shit, so when deciding to make this meal I only had one real option for the bread.

Make it my damn self!

Let’s do this damn thing.

Banh mi Bun Cha!

Bun cha is a style of pork meatballs also found in pho and lettuce wraps.

For the meatballs:

1 pound of ground pork

3 scallions finely minced

4 cloves of garlic minced

A couple of leaves of fresh basil (yes from the garden again) minced

1 tablespoon of chili sauce like sriracha or sambal

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tablespoon of fish sauce

2 teaspoons of corn starch

1/2 teaspoon of salt. There will be salt from the fish sauce so add accordingly.

Some grinds of black pepper and if you have it some grinds of Szechuan pepper (my own little trick)

Sesame oil for cooking, about a tablespoon.

This is going to be another 2 day recipe but you could do it in one. I figured I would be spending so much time dealing with fresh bread that I wanted to do some prep work the day before.

Throw all of the ingredients in a bowl.

And mix together using your freshly washed hands.

Cover with some plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator to let the flavors mingle overnight.

Sriracha Mayo!

Couple of big spoons of real mayonnaise, maybe 1/2 cup?

1 tablespoon of sriracha.

Stir.

This will be slathered on the fresh bread to give a little spice and a little creaminess to the sandwich.

Also cover this and let it refrigerate overnight.

That’s some quick and easy prep work out of the way because the bread will occupy most of the next day.

French Bread!

A quick note here; your life will be a whole shitload easier if you have the proper kitchen tools for this but it can indeed be made by hand if you don’t have the toys.

2 cups of warm water

1 package (or tablespoon) of active or “live” yeast

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 teaspoons of salt plus more for dusting the loaves of bread

5 cups of bread flour. Yes, use bread flour for consistency.

Egg wash – I’ll get to that.

First thing we are going to do is “bloom” the yeast. You see that first ingredient up there? The 2 cups of warm water shit? We want this water to be exactly 110 degrees. Exactly. Use a damn thermometer for this. Any hotter and you kill the yeast. Any cooler and the yeast doesn’t activate properly.

Put the tablespoon of sugar in a bowl and add in the warm water. Give a quick mix. Next add in the yeast and let it proof, or get kind of foamy for about 10 minutes. This is a close-up of the yeasty process.

You will notice that I’m using the mixing bowl of my badass Kitchenaid mixer for this.

Next add in the salt, oil and the first 3 cups of the bread flour. Put this bastard on the mixer and attach the paddle attachment first. Give it a whirl for about 2 minutes.

Action shot!

After 2 minutes, remove the paddle attachment and attach the bread hook attachment. If you purchase a stand mixer both of those attachments SHOULD come along with it. Add in the remaining 2 cups of flour and get this back on the mixer and let it whirl for 10 minutes. This will be the “kneading” portion of our show.

If you don’t have a stand mixer these steps can be done by hand. You can also cancel your gym membership because doing this shit by hand will be a fierce fucking forearm workout. It can, however be done that way.

The hook attachment is so fucking efficient that when the ten minutes were up I barely needed to wash the inside of the bowl it was so clean. That is some efficient kneading shit right there.

When the ten minutes are up, lightly lube down a large bowl and place the dough inside for it’s first “rise”. Roll the dough around in the oiled bowl to coat all sides.

Cover this with a clean dish towel and place in a warm, not hot, part of the kitchen to rise until doubled in size. The amount of time will vary based on the heat of the kitchen, time of year etc. Mine took a little over an hour to double in size.

After it has risen, punch the dough down. No, not like it owes you some fucking money just gently punch it down.

Get out your bread pans or if you’re like me and haven’t made a loaf of bread in a long goddamn time just use an oiled baking sheet. Put a light dusting of cornmeal on the oiled pan to act as little ball bearings for the bread.

Depending on the finished loaf size you are looking for you can divide this in 2, 3 or even four loaves. Shape the loaves with your hands and then using a pair of kitchen shears snip a few cuts across the tops of the loaves. Spread out evenly on the baking sheet, cover and let’s get ready for the 2nd and final rise.

This will again vary in time. You want the loaves to just about double in size again. This time it took about an hour and a half. Use this final rise time to do the prep with the making of the pickled veggies that I will get to in a minute but description wise let’s just finish the bread.

Preheat your oven to 375.

On the bottom rack place a pan that has about a cup of water in it. This will, as odd as it may seem, help the bread to have crustier crust by increasing the humidity of the oven.

When the bread has proofed again let’s baste it with a quick egg wash.

That’s a beaten egg and some water or oil or milk depending on the application. I used about 2 tablespoons of milk for a nice brown finish on the bread. Brush the loaves with the wash and give them a light sprinkling of some salt for a bit of a salt crust on the finished loaves.

Get these into the preheated oven and let them cook for about 30 minutes. Again the finished product.

This shit was delicious and since we used the bread flour it had a perfect bread consistency rather than being too dense. Awesome!

Oh fuck we’re getting up in word count so let’s get with the lightning round!

Pickled veggie garnish.

2 carrots peeled and julienned

1 cucumber peeled and julienned. Some people use daikon but I prefer cucumber

1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar

1/4 cup of sugar

teaspoon of salt.

Additional garnishes include:

Jalapenos, pickled or fresh

Cilantro. How much is up to you

Julienne up the carrot and cucumber. Slice the cucumber lengthwise down the middle and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds in the middle of the cucumber.

Yo, check out my badass motherfucking knife skills!

That’s right! The only kitchen tool used for this was the knife you see in the picture. I’m kind of proud of my knife skills. I guess that I could also be referred to as a “kitchen tool.”

Put the veggies in a bowl along with the salt, sugar and vinegar and let sit for about an hour. If we want to keep a proper crunch it should be just an hour or two. This explains why I didn’t make these the previous day. Again, do this part of the prep during the second rise of the bread.

While the bread is in the oven, it’s time to cook the meatballs.

First shape the meatballs into, well, meatball shape.

Grab a skillet and add in the sesame oil to cook the meatballs. I know, right?

These will take about 15 minutes to cook and brown properly. The best idea here is cook the meatballs right as the bread is finished cooking. This will allow time for the bread to cool and will keep the meatballs hot.

Cook the meatballs until nice and browned on all sides.

Let’s get that sandwich assembled!

Cut off a good sandwich sized piece of bread and “canoe out” some of it to make room for the ingredients.

Slather on that sriracha mayo.

Next add on the jalapenos. I used pickled since I already had some on hand but a fresh fire-roasted jalapeno would be pretty fucking delightful too.

Next put on the meatballs and top with some cilantro, hey, I know about the cilantro thing. You don’t have to but it really works here. Also top with the drained and dried pickled veggies and serve this fucker up.

So. Fucking. Delicious.

The fresh yeasty bread, which smells goddamn amazing while cooking by the way, the spice from the mayo and the jalapeno. The bright acidity of the pickled carrot and cucumber, the fresh floral brightness of the cilantro and then the meatballs.

Oh fuck me those meatballs! Porky, deliciousness with the herbal notes from the scallion and the basil. Garlicky notes and the funk of the sesame oil and fish sauce. I could eat the FUCK out of these meatballs in any application. Bun Cha is actually a serving technique where the pork meatballs are served with rice noodles but the meatballs themselves are also called Bun Cha.

TOUCHDOWN!

Oh yes, there will be more fresh bread in the future too.

There you go. My salute to the incredible, warm and wonderful people of Vietnam and their fantastic cuisine.

Cảm ơn bạn đã đọc!

That means thank you for reading.
PEACE!