Unlike women of my mother’s generation, I’ve never killed a live chicken. However, I have cut up a lot of whole birds to hone my cooking skills, save money, and prepare extraordinary foods.

I was inspired by watching my mom who was inspired by supermarket whole chicken sales. She’d send my dad and me to buy six or so birds. She’d then go at them with her sharp knife — all of which would result in a pot of comforting chicken pho (pho ga), garlicky Maggi roasted chicken (ga ro ti), and a whole host of Vietnamese charcuterie that we’d put into banh mi and much more.

Naturally, when Rory and I started living together, I began buying on-sale whole chickens to experiment on cutting them up myself. I practiced in our tiny apartment in West Los Angeles, and our eating life became full of stocks, stews, liver pate, and roast chicken dinners. He was a poor grad student and I was a low-level university administrator but we at a diet rich in chicken-y foods. (This year marks our 30th wedding anniversary so I guess he didn’t mind my chicken obsessions.)

From cutting up whole chickens, I learned bird anatomy and became and expert carver of roasted chicken, duck, and turkey. I also became a better chicken shopper (When are bigger or smaller birds better?) and cook (What cut works better for which dish?).

Butchering chicken is a cooking lifeskill that unless you are a vegetarian, you ought to master. Unfortunately, most modern cooks do not know how to break down a chicken and make the most of it.

PTFS subscribers have expressed keen interest in learning how to break down a chicken. I’ve had it on my to-do list but something I saw last week kicked me into high gear: Whole Foods was selling boneless skinless chicken thighs for $10.99 a pound! Meanwhile, the WF whole chicken was $2.69 per pound.

A whole chicken is like manna from Heaven. A whole bird can seed many more delicious meals than a pound of deboned, skinless chicken. I bought several chickens and recruited Rory to help me make the four (4) videos in this dispatch:

• Chicken rinsing (yes or no and how?)

• How to cut up a whole chicken (+ what size and kind of bird to buy)

• Cutting and deboning chicken parts (for good flavor and cuts that you can only get at specialty markets)

• Chop chicken bones like a boss (for better broth and excellent pho, whack away!)

These videos will also help you with:

• food safety issues

• buying chicken intelligently

• getting better flavor

• specialty-style cuts

• broth/pho technique

• cooking confidence to deal with bones, boning knives, and cleavers

Feel free to share your knowledge and tips too!

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On the heels of our fish sauce 101 livestream a couple weeks ago, I reached out to cookbook author and now entrepreneur , who recently co-founded Hey Doh, a new artisanal soy sauce company. Clarissa is among my go-to experts on Taiwanese and Chinese cooking. A former Los Angeleno, she’s now based in Taipei, Taiwan.

She sent me Hey Doh products that I’m going to taste for the first time on Thursday, May 21 during a livestream! I’ve also got lots of soy sauce questions because despite using it regularly, I don’t know enough about it.

Due to our time difference, I’ve scheduled the livestream for 6pm PST / 9pm ET / 9am TPE — it’ll be happy hour or breakfast, depending on where you are. The interview will run 30 to 45 minutes.

To recap, on Thursday, May 21, at 6pm PST, you’ll get a Substack email about the livestream. Click on the link to join our chat about Hey Doh, soy sauce making, and why Taiwanese soy sauce is distinctive.

💎 Weeknight Vegetable Stir-Fry Blueprint

I’ve been adding asparagus to many recipes of late because it’s one of my favorite spring-time vegetables. Why not indulge till you’re nearly satiated? Susan M. wrote last week and reminded me of a terrific stir-fry from Ever-Green Vietnamese. It’s the Weeknight Vegetable Stir-Fry on page 195, in the sides chapter. I love that chapter because I could make a meal of sides.

I originally conceived of this stir-fry in spring, when our farmers harvest super delicious asparagus, carrots, and radishes. (Yes, you can cook radishes and they’re good. Chef David Chang got me doing it it years ago and I’ve never looked back.)

I set up the stir-fry recipe as a blueprint for you to plug and play with it. If you don’t yet have the book, I just published the recipe on my website. Make the Weeknight Vegetable Stir-Fry recipe a couple times and you’ll be riffing on it endlessly.

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💎 Asparagus with Soy and Sesame

If you want an asparagus only side dish to serve at room temp, look to my very easy asparagus dressed up with a veil of soy sauce and sesame oil. It’s a great combination of asparagus’s natural umami with that of soy sauce, all of which is made fragrant and enriched by the power of sesame.

I return to this Chinese-ish asparagus annually. I have it on my mind because of next week’s conversation with Clarissa. Get the asparagus with soy sauce and sesame recipe. (P.S. It’s naturally vegan, like the Weeknight Vegetable Stir-Fry!)

💎 Recipe recap from the last 2 months

No wonder March and April flew by. I cooked up a lot for you to play with. Here are the recipes mentioned in my dispatches to you. Below are PTFS recipes as well as those posted at the website. I’ve updated the PTFS recipe index to include them too!

• Perfect Jasmine Rice

• Vietnamese Nuoc Cham Master Recipe

• Vegan Bun Cha Hanoi-Style Grilled Veggies and Rice Noodles

• Classic Bun Cha Hanoi-style Grilled Pork and Rice Noodles

• Vietnamese Asparagus Soup (Sup Mang Tay Chay) 2 recipes with seafood or go vegan or vegetarian

• Crispy Spicy Lemongrass Tofu (Dau Hu Chien Xa Ot)

• Chinese-American Chicken and Rice Casserole (in conventional oven)

• Combi Cooker Chicken and Crispy Rice Casserole

• Fast chicken pho

• Vietnamese Coffee Tiramisu

• Chinese Walnut Cookies

• Stir-Fried Beef and Collard Greens

And, don’t forget the mega Fish Sauce FAQ and buying guide at the website. It’s not a recipe but the ingredient figures into so many recipes nowadays.

Coming up for this Sunday Special are some butchering tips I owe you.

Hey there! If you want to watch me crack jokes, discuss cooking and travel in Vietnam with , here’s the playback of our livestream. He interviewed me on a wide range of topics but it always came back to how food makes a difference in our lives.

Among the people mentioned in the interview was my mom and her recipe notebook. Moms impact our nourishment from the get go.

And with that, Happy Mother’s Day to all the brave humans who’ve birthed and shepherded new life into this world. I am in awe of you all who have loved and nurtured your flock into adulthood, despite the odds.

In the photo below my Mẹ Già (Elder Mother, a Viet term of endearment) is looking pretty 🔥. She’s in her element at a Viet grocery store! (We were at Green Farm in Garden Grove, CA, that day.)

A few notes on my mom’s new stove: Before the stove arrived, I made sure she’d be ready to cook so I ordered her a welcome present: a 5-liter jug of premium fish sauce! She usually doesn’t like gifts but that was one she couldn’t refuse.

Speaking of fish sauce, I just published a mega fish sauce guide and FAQ that includes substitutes, brand suggestions, recipes, plus the video playback of our PTFS nuoc mam livestream. Head to “Fish Sauce: What is it? Plus, how to buy, store, use, and sub for it” at the website.

After delivery of her new stovetop, Mom set out to làm bạn (literally make friends) with it. She initially reheated leftovers and found out that her steamer didn’t need to go on the power burner, unless she wanted overcooked food. Then she deep-fried a batch of tofu to perfection, she reported.

“The stove designers have researched and thought all this through for years,” Mom said. “It all makes sense and works well.”

One of the things mothers do well is to remind us the importance of trying new things for a lifetime of learning.

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That, along with Mom mentioning fried tofu, inspired me to "‘get acquainted’ with a Vietnamese tofu dish that I’d never made before — Spicy Braised Tofu in Coconut Water (Đậu Hũ Khìa Nước Dừa).

With chile heat and the sweet lilt of coconut water, this handsome main dish strongly reflects southern Vietnamese cooking. Though the tofu looks deep fried, a modicum of oil was involved.

This tofu features an uncommon Vietnamese braising technique using the refreshingly sweet juice from a young (green) coconut — aka coconut water. Most people think of drinking coconut water. I’ve used it for nuoc cham dipping sauce and have used it in cooking too — just not in this delightful new manner.

There’s always a moment when you’re cooking a new dish when you ask yourself how is this going to taste? How does it work? I was kind of skeptical about this braise, called dau hu khia nuoc dua. There’s a lot of gurgling as things cook because it comes together fast. But after the mildish sauce cooked down and worked its magic, the tofu and veggies were absolutely delicious.

Unlike most Viet braises featuring caramel sauce, this one is very low sugar. It’s great for diabetics and anyone looking to cut back on refined sugar. Other reasons for praising this braise:

1. One batch serves four, which in our home means that Rory packs some for lunch with rice, and I enjoy the rest with a salad or turn it into banh mi!

2. The tofu is terrific hot, warm or at room temperature.

3. You can make this recipe with ingredients from the supermarket.

4. Ready the ingredients days ahead then braise when you need an easy, quick main dish for dinner

To equip you to make this tofu recipe, I’m providing the following:

• A flexible braised tofu in coconut water recipe in full text and downloadable PDF (this tofu dish can be make vegan or not!)

• Explainer on the tofu prep technique, which differs from my normal playbook

• Vegetable swaps because we won’t be in asparagus season forever

• Ingredient tips (what’s the best coconut water?)

• Advance prep pointers

I hope you’ll get well acquainted with this Viet tofu winner!

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Several follow-ups this week to last week, unbeknownst to me, my mother was among the folks who attended my fish sauce 101 livestream last Wednesday. I didn’t catch on my screen so she was a stealthy attendee! Mom got an email notification from Substack and clicked on the button to join. “It was so easy. Congratulations on your show!” 🥰 A mother’s love. I asked if she’d ever do one with me and she demurred.

That’s all good to know for next Wednesday, May 6, at 9am PST / 12pm EST, when my friend of Milk Street Kitchen will host me for a Substack Live. We have great chats about food, cooking, and culture; the upcoming livestream will last 45 to 60 minutes. When you get the email or app notification, hop on to watch and/or ask questions.

One thing I forgot to mention in last week’s súp măng tây (Viet asparagus soup) dispatch is that the term súp is the Vietnamization of French soupe. Viet folks consider any súp dish as special, high-end, and high-class. I presented two weeknight-friendly asparagus soup recipes to you but their silky, slinky texture and umami-laden flavors are suitable for entertaining!

Another favorite way that Viet people enjoy asparagus is in a stir-fry with beef – a luxe protein in Vietnam. In the main, the cattle in Vietnam tend to be lean and pasture raised. In the early part of the twentieth century, French colonialists ‘harvested’ lots of cows for their bifteck pleasures. They left the scraps for resourceful Viet and Chinese cooks to turn into new foods, as I wrote in the History of Pho article at my website. Steak was foreigner’s food.

Even nowadays, when Vietnam is wealthier, it’s rare for Viet people to sit down to a dinner of bít tết (beefsteak, from French bifteck) in which each person gets their own slab of tender beef cooked to their specifications. Moreover, domestically raised cattle in Vietnam tend to yield firm, lean meat because they are traditionally work animals.

That said, beef consumption is rising in Vietnam; in 2022, it was shy of 9 pounds, or 4kg per person! Here in the U.S. our annual beef consumption is approximately 50lbs per person!

If there’s a steak on the Viet table, it’s likely to be sliced up for sharing. After all, beef is expensive and in general, meat is enjoyed in small amounts.

I didn’t fully realize that until a few years ago. While I was writing my plant-forward book, Ever-Green Vietnamese, my mom shared that she only used 300 grams (10 ounces) of meat to prepare main dishes for our family. Our family of seven, was well fed, mostly on vegetables and grains, not on animal protein. It wasn’t until we arrived in America in 1975 that we’d have steak dinners on a weekly basis; and even so, we served it sliced up to divvy up and easily manage with chopsticks at the table.

Wanting to stretch the asparagus season and do a twist on a Viet classic, I made a delicious beef and asparagus stir-fry recipe. You don’t have to use fancy expensive steak to yield excellent results.

The marinade and seasoning employed yields tender, super flavorful results. In the recipe and video below, I’ll share how I pull certain levers to render small pieces of beef into supple flavorful morsels packing potent flavors. There are also certain techniques I use to ensure the asparagus express their best crispness and color.

With lots of asparagus on hand, I prepared a rendition with shrimp. The flavors and texture were wowza terrific. Rory gobbled it up and said it was somewhat lobster-ish, which he never ever said about a cheffy asparagus and shrimp stir-fry I used to make.

Beef or shrimp? It was hard to decide which is better so I’m offering you both this week. Below you’ll find:

• Beef and Asparagus Stir-Fry + Shrimp and Asparagus Stir-Fry recipes in text and downloadable PDF

• A how-to video to help you craft great stir-fries

• What to look for in beef and shrimp that will stir-fry well

• Ingredient swaps galore + advance prep tips too

Stir-fry both for a surf-and-turf feast that celebrates the season.

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Well, I’d never done a livestream on Substack until yesterday morning and it was fun. It wasn’t as nervous making as live cooking demos I’ve done on Instagram. Nor was it hair raising like the time my hairdresser taught me how to trim my bangs during the pandemic!

A big hug and thank you to , , , , , and the more than 80 other folks for tuning in for the fish sauce Q&A and virtual tasting. (Your nuoc cham Viet dipping sauce recipe may never the the same again!)

As I said at the top of the session, I didn’t know who would or could attend. With everyone’s busy lives and time differences, who knows when to schedule anything anymore? And what interests you?

I plan to do more and will keep you posted. Join me for my next live video in the app. If you don’t have the app yet, here’s a handy link.

Get more from Andrea Nguyen in the Substack app

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💎 Stir-Fry your Collard Greens

Another thing I did recently that turned out better than I thought it would was stir-frying collard greens! I thought they always needed a long simmer or prolonged steam saute. Turns out, as I learned from a recipe by Ronald Hsu (the scrumptious chicken-and-rice casserole chef in Atlanta with a new Chinese American cookbook), collards work swimmingly well in stir-fries. It all depends on how you treat them.

I took Ron’s beef and collard greens stir-fry for a spin and Rory and I were sold. Springtime collards are fabulously tender. Get the stir-fried beef and collard greens recipe plus my pointers at the website.

💎 Food and Cooking in Poetic Form

Speaking of the American South, the Southern Foodways Alliance’s spring 2026 issue of Gravy is choc-a-block full of provocative poetry about what we cook and eat. If you’re an SFA member, you’ve received the recent quarterly journal. If you’re not in SFA, check out Gravy back issues here.

But right now, I’m highlighting a poem by the very talented Adrienne Su.

Coming up on Sunday are two more Viet ways to celebrate springtime asparagus. Some of you may have asparagus already and if you’re like Kate and Nate in Maine, you’re still waiting. Well, I hope last weekend’s recipes and this coming weekend’s recipes will figure into your cooking schedule sooner or later.

It happens every year. Asparagus appears at the farmer’s market and supermarket and I overbuy. My family loves asparagus, which was introduced to Vietnam by the French. Because asparagus spears shoot out from the soil like bamboo, Viet people called the vegetable măng tây (French bamboo). The disyllabic word is much easier to pronounce than ‘asparagus’.

Because asparagus requires particular conditions to thrive, it wasn’t widely grown in Vietnam. My mom didn’t see fresh asparagus in Saigon until the years close to when we fled in 1975. It was grown in Da Lat along with other Western crops like artichokes, she said. She recalls fat white asparagus that were delicious. For most people, if they could afford asparagus in Vietnam, it came from a can imported from far away.

Asparagus was a foreign ingredient for much of the 20th century. Given that, Viet asparagus recipes in the 1940s leaned mostly toward French-inspired dishes. One asparagus salad recipe called for reheating an unopened can of asparagus (to preserve its shape and texture, I suppose) and then tossing the spears with a simple vinaigrette. That doesn’t sound tasty.

An elegant delicate icon

The better tasting asparagus dish that became a fixture in the Vietnamese repertoire was súp măng tây cua — an elegant soup loaded with asparagus and crab. It was and still is considered special-occasion fare because asparagus is a luxe, pricey ingredient.

People traditionally prepared the soup with canned asparagus. Resourceful cooks maximized the asparagus flavor by adding both the spears and their canning liquid to the soup. I know it sounds gross but it tasted good to us.

After we fled Vietnam and resettled in America in the 1975 where there’s fresh asparagus, my mom still made the soup with canned asparagus. She also used canned crab for convenience. We had it as our go-to soup for fancy parties but after indulging in fresh asparagus, I found the canned asparagus soup to be monochromatic in flavor. Over time, my mom just stopped making the soup.

Fresh asparagus is the better way to go for the soup and I’ve turned to making it with fresh spears for years. I’ve also converted my mother.

I thought my approach went against Vietnamese conventions but noticed that Vietnam has recently been growing asparagus to export to Taiwan, China, Japan and South Korea. Cultivating asparagus, a pricey vegetable, is building economic opportunities for impoverished parts of Vietnam. It’s been dubbed as the “king of vegetables” and “green gold”.

Exports are one thing but more cooks in Vietnam are experimenting with fresh asparagus recipes. Asparagus is healthful, which Viet people (like everyone else) dig. It’s low-cal, high-fiber, and antioxidant rich. Its high folate content is good for fighting cancer. I just eat the spears for flavor but heck, I’ll take the health boost too.

All of that cheered me to no end. It’s one thing for me as a recipe developer to adapt and evolve ingredients for my expatriate situation, but knowing that people in Vietnam are using similar ingredients means that my ideas jive with what’s going on in the motherland.

This past week, I experimented with my favorite asparagus soup recipe to make it super weeknight friendly. I had a lot of asparagus on hand and ended up devising two super flavorful recipes that you can take in many directions. You’ll be well covered by the contents of this dispatch, which includes:

• 2 flexible asparagus recipes to please omnivores, pescatarians, vegetarians, or vegans

• A how-to video to walk you through the trickiest part of the recipe

• No-waste cooking tips because asparagus and seafood are expensive

• Explainer on how this umami-laden soup’s flavor comes together (so you can apply those ideas elsewhere)

• Advance prep pointers that enable you to easily slide this recipe into your rotation

If you love the springtime vegetable as much as I do, now is our moment to fully enjoy their unique flavor, texture, and healthful benefits.

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Hi there!

Among my 2026 goals is to try Substack’s live streaming function. Let’s do it next week:

• When: Thursday, 4/30, 11-11:30am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm UK

• What: Ask Me Anything (AMA) about Fish Sauce + uncommon fish sauce (I have some unusual fish sauce that I’ve never tasted before so why not register my opinion to you on the spot?!)

• How to attend: You’ll get an email ping when I go live. I will also schedule it in Substack’s Notes app. Attend to ask your questions in the chat function. If you can’t attend and have a question, leave a comment in this dispatch. After the livestream, I’ll share the video so everyone will get the recording.

Now, as for my mom’s stove . . .

When you cook a lot, your stove is your BF (best friend). My parents bought a new tract house in the late 1980s and it came with an ok cooktop. By the early 2000s, my mom had put that cooktop through its paces and it was crapped out. She soldiered on because the first house she and my dad bought in the late 1970s still had had its original stove from the early 1960s. So anything was an improvement! Mom learned to cook using rice straw (really!) and can bake cakes using indirect coal heat and a flimsy metal box. My how times have changed!

Around 2010, a lady in the neighborhood was doing a kitchen renovation project and set her old cooktop out on the sidewalk with a “For Sale $100” sign.

That neighbor owned a swank home appliance shop, my mom said. The shop’s appliances were nice so my mom figured that the stove was good. After the cooktop languished for a few days with no takers, the sign changed to “Free”.

My dad promptly went over and brought the cooktop home. A handyman happened to be working for my parents that day, so within an hour, my mom had a “new” stove — a fancy-ish 36-inch, five-burner GE Profile.

The stove was well used before Mom got it but was reliable. She’s cooked on it for big family feeds, to prepare my dad’s last meals, and now, to cook for herself and her children whenever we’re around.

A couple weekends ago, we visited my mom and after we came back from a walk, Rory and I both smelled gas in the house. My mom was watching Viet shows on YouTube. I marched over to the stove and turned all the nobs to check. Sure enough, one of them was not fully turned off.

Thankfully, the smell dissipated right away.

“I smelled something and went to the stove to check but could not figure out how to stop it,” my mom said. “The same thing happened not long ago.”

The next morning, to my surprise mom said, “If you’re not busy today, would you take me shopping for a new stove?” Heck yes. I had lots of experiencing going back to when I selected my dream stove.

I’ll look online first to research, I told her. Her major caveat is that she wanted to touch the stove before deciding, she said.

Mom, Rory and I drove to Lowe’s where we considered the arrangement of the burners. Why were some curved and others straight? Thinking about how we cook and the pots and pans we have, my mom and I realized this: a curved arrangement of the burners means you can fit bigger pans along with smaller ones on the cooktop.

Additionally, the grates vary in weight and height. My mom lifted the grates of various cooktops and some were very heavy — even for 30-inch models. She had to get a 36-inch cooktop so she knew the grates would weigh more. “I will manage them,” she said.

The burners on her old stove were wimpy (none were more than 9,000 BTU but the cast iron grates heated up fast. The stove that Mom chose . . . a GE Profile was the priciest of the lot but she decided based on function and design. After 51 years of scrimping and saving, she bought herself a fancy new stove! I was so happy and excited for her.

She and my niece dealt with the installer who arrived a few days later. The grates sit up pretty high, as you can see. The flatness of the grates allow her to drag heavy pots across the stove easily, if she wants.

HOWEVER, once she started “making friends with the stove” my mom said that the burners were taking longer to heat up the pans than her old stove. The new stove’s flames heat up the grates so it takes longer to conduct heat to the pans. But after everything heats up, things stay very hot for a long time.

Moreover, when the knobs are on, there’s a blue backlight. That’s a fabulous reminder to turn off the stove.

“Your sisters wanted me to replace the toilets in the house so we did. But this stove is a more important purchase for me,” she said.

My mom is in the autumnal season of her life. Decades ago we talked about beginnings and nowadays, discussions lean toward endings. This stove, however, energizes my mom. She’s excited about learning to use it well for her cooking needs.

I told her, “Well, you better stick around longer to teach me how to cook more dishes!”

Remember our discussion about aging and maintaining the Japanese notion of ikigai (生き甲斐) — a life purpose? Turns out, ikigai can come in the form of a new stove.

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💎 Hu Tieu Noodle Soup

Even though my mom is northern Vietnamese to the core, she does appreciate a good bowl of hu tieu, the iconic southern Vietnamese noodle soup. There are many renditions but the one our family enjoys most it hu tieu Nam Vang — Phnom Penh-style hu tieu. It’s a Chinese-Cambodian-Southern Vietnamese surf and turf combo.

I don’t make it often but thinking about what I’d like to make for my mom on her new stove, I made hu tieu this past week from a recipe that my family has relied on for many years. Unlike pho, it’s very versatile. I updated the recipe to offer tips and pointers so you can plan ahead and tweak it as you like. Get the Hu Tieu Noodle Soup recipe at the website!

💎 Stress-testing lemongrass tofu

As a recipe tester, I leave food in the fridge to determine how long it stays fresh. That’s to say, I stress test my recipes. I’m happy to report that the crispy lemongrass tofu and its crispy lemongrass-y topping can be kept refrigerated for five days. I kept the stuffed tofu in one container and the topping in another. I finished the tofu in the pan and served it up for dinner on Wednesday. So, it’s extra handy for meal planning or even just to top a salad. Head to the PTFS Crispy Lemongrass Tofu recipe!

Coming up for this Sunday Special are recipes and ideas to celebrate a precious springtime vegetable.

My toe is healing up well and thankfully I wasn’t limping at last weekend’s Viet Book Fest in Orange County’s Little Saigon. Alas, I’m still not quite up for my usual long daily walks.

Not being as active as I’d like to, I’ve been trying to eat a bit lighter. I’ve been air-frying lots of tofu in the Ninja Combi oven, which excels at air-frying without leaving foods desiccated and chewy awful.

First up was a batch of salt and pepper tofu, a recipe on my website that’s been a long time favorite.

Lemongrass tofu, an excellent bar snack

Feeling lucky, I reworked my Vietnamese chili-lemongrass tofu (đậu hủ chiên xả ớt) recipe so it’s prepped in the air-fryer. I love this dish, which I first ate as a deep-fried bar snack (món nhậu) in Ho Chi Minh City years ago. At the brewpub near our hotel, everyone sipped beer from utilitarian bowls. My travel buddy Karen and I joined in on the fun and ordered a bunch of snacks to make a dinner. This lemongrass tofu was the evening’s standout.

Even though I developed a recipe for this tofu several years ago, this past week, I retooled it to air-fry the tofu and make it easier and crispier! Shazam, it was even better. ⚡️

This fried lemongrass tofu tofu is so good that I made a lot, actually too much. In the process, I realized that it can be totally prepped in advance for easy meals during the week. Trot it out to enjoy with jasmine rice as a main dish, or feature it in a bun rice noodle bowl or grain bowls. Add Viet daikon and carrot pickle for refreshing crunch.

Like Rory, you probably worry about my crush on the Ninja Combi oven. I was skeptical about the steam oven but it’s does do a lot for your for $200. As I’ve played with it, I’ve discovered that one of its most outstanding functions is air-frying. In particular, it outperforms by trusty Cuisinart to air-fry tofu to a golden crisp.

The Ninja combi doesn’t just blow hot wind on food. It smartly air-fries food to circulate the heat and bit of oil that you put on the food. The result is wonderful crispiness. And, with no wiry air-fry baking tray to deal with, food doesn’t stick and clean up is so much easier.

Here’s the Ninja Combi air-frying tofu for today’s recipe:

Don’t have the Ninja Combi or an air-fryer yet? You can still make this terrific lemongrass tofu recipe. Use your regular air-fryer or use the conventional instructions in the recipe to cook the tofu on the stove! The crispness won’t be quite the same as with the Ninja oven. But either way, I’ve got you covered.

Lemongrass tofu for lemongrass 💘 and crispy tofu lovers

In this dispatch, expect the following:

• Lemongrass tofu recipe in full text and downloadable PDF with air-frying and pan-frying instructions

• Two (2) videos on tofu butchering and potentially tricky steps

• Make-ahead pointers so you can add this tofu into your rotation or make it for your next party

• Ingredient sourcing tips

If you love lemongrass, this recipe highlights its citrusy flavor super well. It’s naturally vegan and appeals to omnivores like my mother who ate seconds and then guarded the leftovers!

Let’s make it.

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Last Sunday I had a gardening accident. A large rock fell on my big toe as Rory and I were trying to maneuver a heavy pot. There was blood and pain and I also fainted from the shock of it all. Rory woke me with a gentle slap to my face.

X-rays showed I luckily had no broken bones or fractures. The kind Urgent Care folks sent me home with instructions for “wound care” and to take it easy.

The accident was caused by a very, very stoopid move, one that even a professional gardener would not do. We were rushing because that’s what we do nowadays – try to rush to squeeze everything in during our waking hours. Does that rush yield a better life? My toe and the rock reminded me to take time to unwind, learn new and fun things, but still focus on fundamentals.

That’s how I got to playing with rice. First, I experimented with adapting chef Ron Hsu’s chicken and rice casserole for the Ninja Combi oven. I was curious about its Sear/Saute function plus something called “Combi Crisp.” The little machine has its beeping quirks but surprisingly, it produced a casserole with an incredible rice crust at the bottom. The chicken skin was delicately crisp too.

What the Ninja Combi produced was was an excellent reason to indulge in lots of white rice! Instead of using the stove and oven to make the dish, I prepped and organized the ingredients, turned on the combi, and played with its various functions. It’s pretty amazing for a countertop appliance. Head to the website to grab the recipe and watch my video of how the dish comes together. (Ron’s conventional recipe for the casserole is also at the website.)

Rory asked me how I dialed in cooking the rice so well in the combi, an appliance that cooks fast and furious and sometimes seems to be out of control. The machine is forgiving but also, I know how to cook rice in a pot on the stove as well as in the microwave.

Why cook rice in a pot if a rice cooker is around?

When I’m in a hurry, I cook rice in my Cuckoo rice cooker. It’s a good machine but to be honest, the cooked, while good, is shy of great. When I take time to cook rice on the stove, I can coax the grains into tender-chewy, fluffy perfection. I don’t consider it a feat of daring do.

Cooking rice the old fashioned way is not only a survival skill (someday, you may lack electricity for that cooker!) but also an opportunity to practice the craft of making good food. What you learn from cooking rice on the stovetop is portable knowledge to apply elsewhere — for a paella, risotto, and sushi rice, for instance. No matter how fancy the rice dish is, cooking rice is simply hydrating and heating up grains. You just need confidence in manipulating the cooking process to meet your needs.

Every person has a cooked rice ideal based upon their cuisine, culture, and personal preference.

For my everyday eating, I like chewy tender grains of Thai jasmine rice that stick together ever so slightly. They’ll hold together as a mass when you’re dishing up the rice from the pot but when you look at them, you can clearly distinguish their shape. Such grains are more receptive to sauces and other flavors that hit them on the plate or in a bowl. (When I’m cooking Japanese, Korean, or South Asian dishes, I use different kinds of rice.)

In this dispatch, you’ll find:

• Rice cooking myth busting to help you confidently cook rice

• Pointers on rice and pan selection

• A scalable chart for you to make as much as you need

• My perfect jasmine rice recipe in full text and downloadable PDF

• Troubleshooting tips for you to craft your ideal pot of rice

Let’s bust 3 myths about cooking rice

My mom first taught me how to make long-grain rice in a basic National rice cooker. When I asked her about cooking rice on the stove, she told me about her unplugged another, which I followed before eventually developing my own recipe. When I’ve made rice with friends, they’re often surprised that I break the golden rules of cooking rice.

1. Wash the rice until the water runs clear. Washing the grains rids them of some starch so they taste fresh and clean. I wash and rinse white rice about three times and these photos show the progression. The water is never fully clear when you’re washing white rice. Just get close to it then move on to cook the rice!

2. Measure water by your knuckle. There is no universal knuckle and universal pot for all people who cook rice. The water level depends on the pot, the amount of rice you’re cooking, and your personal knuckle! Cook the same amount of rice in the same pot for a month or so to gauge the water level that works for you. Then try eyeballing the water level. Only you and your personal knuckle can truly know your equipment, ingredients, and taste preference.

3. Don’t lift the lid before the rice is done. Rice cooks by gentle steam action so a heavy pot with a secure lid helps. If you cook rice in a not-so-good pot with a loosey goosey lid, you’ll have a hard time retaining the heat if you open the pot up during cooking. With good modern pots, you can open and close the lid often without ruining the rice. Go ahead and peek!

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Rice and pot selection

My default rice for everyday eating is white or brown jasmine rice grown in Thailand. Usually, the rice is Three Ladies brand. Regardless of brand, look for handsome grains with a slight polished sheen, very few broken grains, and a good flavor, aroma, and texture. Private label supermarket jasmine rice is great too, so long as it’s from Thailand.

Jasmine rice grown in the United States is unfortunately not as aromatic or flavorful as Thai-grown rice. That said, cook up Lundberg jasmine or Jazzmen rice, if you like. When my family first came to America, we cooked Texas long-grain rice.

As for the pot, use a heavy one with a lid that will sit tightly on top. You want good heat circulation to cook the grains evenly. Choose your pot to be about twice as big as the yield. That ensures you have space to easily stir, fluff and cook the grains.

My 10-10-10 Rice cooking method

Some people boil and drain rice like pasta, but that rids too much of the sweet starches that define the grains’ comforting texture and flavor. I prefer an approach that involves a heavy pan and a gradual lowering of the heat.

To easily remember the method’s cooking and resting times, one of my friends and long-time recipe testers, Alex Ciepley, dubbed them the “10-10-10”. Use the mnemonic to cook rice in the same pot and eventually you’ll just eyeball the water level. And, after practicing this method and recipe, you’ll confidently apply it to cooking rice in claypot and donabe ceramic vessels.

Jasmine rice and water ratio

To yield grains that aren’t too firm or too soft, opt for a 4-to-5 ratio of rice to water. In the Asian kitchen, salt isn’t typically added to plain rice because other dishes will season it at the table. Use this chart for an easy rice cooking life!

When you wash rice, the grains absorb some water. That’s why my rice-to-water ratio may differ from that of people who do not wash their rice before cooking.

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Rice remedy pointers

Hold on. When you fluff the finished rice, there may be a Goldilocks moment to manage. For instance:

• If the grains are too firm and dryish, sprinkle on water, fluff to incorporate, then cover. Set the pot over low heat for 10 minutes to hydrate; let it rest about 5 minutes, then re-fluff.

• If the rice is mushy, eat it up and tweak your next batch by decreasing the water by 1 tablespoon per 1 cup of raw rice.

• If the rice smells burnt, you had the heat on way too high. I’ve accidentally done that a few times while trying to get a crusty bottom. If the rice smells and tastes acrid and burned throughout, I’m sorry. Start a new pot in a heavier pan and/or lower the heat.

Tinker to find the best rice-to-water ratio for your tastes. Jot down your ratio for future batches.

After reading all that, you’re definitely ready to cook a perfect pot of rice! There are extra pointers below so don’t scroll too fast.

RECIPE

10-10-10 Perfect Jasmine Rice

✅ Managing leftovers: Refrigerate leftover rice for up to 5 days, or freeze for a good month and thaw to eat. To reheat, sprinkle the rice with a little water, cover with a microwave splatter guard (or loosely cover with a silicone lid or parchment or wax paper), then microwave on high at 30 to 60 second blasts. If the grains compress, let briefly cool and fluff to serve. Always re-fluff before serving!

✅ Making rice for fried rice: When specifically making rice for fried rice, turn the cooked rice onto a rimmed baking sheet, spreading it out to allow the grains to dry quickly so they will fry up nicely. Let cool completely, uncovered, 1 to 2 hours at room temp (or freeze for about 20 minutes), before frying. Or, cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

✅ Cooking Thai-grown brown jasmine rice: Use a 2-to-3 ratio of rice to water. Wash and rinse the rice once, drain and return the grains to the pan. (The bran is intact, so one rinse is enough; no starch release.) Add 1 1/2 cups (360ml) water for every 1 cup (190g) of raw rice. Bring to a boil, and then lower the heat to medium. Simmer briskly, partially covered, for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is opaque light beige and slightly thick. Turn the heat to low, completely cover, and cook for 20 minutes. The rest remains the same, with resting and fluffing.

10-10-10 Perfect Jasmine Rice

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A master keeper recipe for your adventures in rice!

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10-10-10 Perfect Jasmine Rice

Makes about 3 cups, to serve 2 or 3

Ingredients

• 1 cup | 190g white jasmine rice or similar type of long-grain rice

• 1 1/4 cups |300ml water

Instructions

Wash the rice: Put the rice in a small (1 ½ to 2-quart | 1.5 to 2L) heavy pot and add water to cover by about 1 inch (2.5cm). Vigorously stir with your fingers to loosen surface starch then pour off the water (I save it to water our garden). Repeat two or three times, or until the water is nearly clear -- it will never be crystal clear. Dump the rice into a mesh strainer, shake to expel excess water, and return the rice to the pan.

Cook for 10: Add the 1 1/4 cups (300ml) water to the pan. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring now and then with a silicone spatula or chopsticks to prevent clumping. Lower the heat slightly to maintain a brisk simmer for 1 to 3 minutes, stirring often to scrape bottom and circulate the grains, until glossy on top. (It’s normal for a few craters to form.) Decrease the heat to low, cover the pan, and cook for 10 minutes.

Rest for 10, fluff, rest for 10: Turn off the heat. Leave the rice to gently cook on the burner’s residual heat or 10 minutes. Uncover, fluff with chopstick, a fork, or spatula to circulate the grains. Re-cover and let rest again for 10 minutes to firm up the grains and finish cooking. Keep covered and cozy warm for up to 30 minutes. Re-fluff before serving.

Happy Easter, Passover, and Spring! May the renewed hope of these moments bring joy and peace to you and your loved ones.

Two follow-ups to Midweek Gems #60. Maia reported that sliders made from the hot rolls with char siu pork steaks were fabulous! But I’m glad she pointed out a typo I’d made (and have already fixed). Here’s the link to the hot rolls recipe without the error.

While working on our taxes I needed a fun, easy dinner and landed on chef Ron Hsu’s uncommonly good chicken and rice casserole.

His recipe in Down South + East cleverly layers gingery, garlicky, umami notes into a one-pan dish that’s doable on a weeknight. He’s also loaded the keeper recipe with great pro-chef ideas. Get Ron’s recipe for chicken and rice casserole.

Ron’s casserole recipe got me thinking about dishes that get assembled in a deep dish. Although tiramisu doesn’t require baking, it’s traditionally put together in a casserole dish. It’s made of layers of coffee soaked savoirdi biscuits (crisp ladyfinger cookies, not the soft ones) bound together by a heavenly, slightly sweet cream; it’s finished with a dusting of cocoa powder and maybe chocolate too. Tiramisu needs to sit overnight to age into excellence, making it an utterly easy and impressive make-ahead sweet.

Traditional tiramisu involves whipping egg yolks and sugar to a thick consistency much like you’d do for Vietnamese egg coffee. Thinking about casseroles and egg coffee led me to buy a large (400g) package of savoirdi biscuits at Eataly. (Note that there are gluten-free biscuits made with rice flour nowadays, too!)

When Rory saw me holding the savoirdi, he sweetly said, “Maybe you’ll make tiramisu for me?”

Spousal mind meld moment. However, I’d give my tiramisu a Viet touch!

In Vietnam, there are mousse cakes called bánh Tiramisu but I wanted to devise a Viet take on the Italian icon, which has a fuzzy history.

Tiramisu may have originated in the 1800s at a brothel in Treviso, Italy, as an aphrodisiac; if that’s true, it gives new meaning to the name’s literal meaning as a ‘pick me up’. Or perhaps someone invented it in the 1930s. No one really knows, but what is clear is tiramisu’s incredible popularity, which started in the 1980s. It’s now known internationally, with endless iterations.

By the end of the week, I had gone three rounds with tiramisu.

What I learned was this: Tiramisu is elastic and foolproof. All of the trials tasted very good, though they have their pluses and minuses, which I detail below.

It was hard to decide which to present to you so this tiramisu recipe allows you to choose for yourself. Shape your Vietnamese coffee tiramisu for your needs and interests! Regardless, the result will be a delicious Italian-Viet dessert. (Rory is very happy and so are our neighbors with all three versions.)

This dispatch fully equips you to make a killer good tiramisu. You’ll find the following:

• Vietnamese Coffee Tiramisu recipe in full text and as a downloadable PDF

• Three ways to craft tiramisu (old school, low sugar, or high protein)

• Ideas for making vegan tiramisu

• Pointers for building Vietnamese coffee flavor, scaling up this small-batch recipe, and how to serve tiramisu gracefully

• Ingredient swaps and advance prep ideas to save time

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Paula Wolfert, the cookbook author and expert on Mediterranean cuisines, once told me that she didn’t like marginalia in cookbooks. The notes and scribbles soiled the book, she said. I didn’t respond because I was thinking of the countless times I’d jotted down notes in cookbooks. I didn’t want to forget my tweaks and preferences.

For me, handwritten notes and scribbles signal that a cookbook had value for the cook. I like finding marginalia in used cookbooks too because they feel more like artifacts. For those reasons, Pat’s email tickled my fancy.

It’s a cookbook author’s dream to know that their recipes are part of other people’s rotation. Feel free to email me your marginalia!

💎 PTFS in Parade Magazine!

A PTFS recipe got into Parade magazine last week! It was the one for Vietnamese egg coffee, which I wrote up alongside Vietnamese salt coffee in this dispatch.

Jessica Wrubel reached out to interview me for the story. Unknown to me, egg coffee has been making the trendy caffeinated rounds in the States. I’m totally stoked because ca phe trung (egg coffee) is a fun, different way to experience Vietnamese coffee culture. Read Jessica’s story and get the recipe.

Egg coffee is enjoyed in smallish amounts so you can have it in moderation while still adhering to a healthy diet, which brings us to . . .

💎 American Heart Association’s Dietary Guidelines

The Trump Administration’s dietary guidelines under RFK, Jr is full of holes for many reasons. The American Heart Association (AHA) recently weigh in. When I read about it in a Wall Street Journal article this week, I had to mark up the salient points.

If you can’t read the article by enlarging the image, here’s a gift link to the full story (click to close the subscription window so you’ll get to the story). The AHA aligns with the government’s definition of a healthy diet BUT pushes for less red meat and less full-fat dairy. The heart association’s guidelines make better sense for human and environmental health reasons and is more affordable and accessible to more people. Tallow and grass-fed beef are pricey!

Below is the AHA’s guidelines which showcases tofu as a healthy protein!

💎 Hot [Cross] Buns made healthier

Early last year I realized that DOH! — “enriched” flour had to had stuff added to it because wheat’s original nutrition had been removed during the modern milling process. I began playing with baking with whole grain flours.

One of the experiments was with a fluffy roll, which I adore making from Chris Tan’s hot rolls recipe. It’s lofty, tender and rich. When I substituted half of the regular flour with 50 percent whole wheat flour, the texture remained the same as usual but the flavor was much more complex. The rolls had bigger personality.

I’ve used the rolls as a side with ham or turkey. They’re also killer good with char siu pork steak or char siu chicken from Vietnamese Food Any Day (if the book is handy in your kitchen).

The rolls keep well for days and you can freeze them too. Decorate them with crosses to make hot cross buns for Easter. But I would make the rolls anytime, not just to celebrate a Catholic holiday or bunnies. Get the hot rolls recipe at the website. Play with the recipe!

💎 Down South + East Asian cooking

Recently, I wrote about Chinamaxxing, why I learned Mandarin, and how Chinese and Vietnamese cultures have rubbed shoulders and commingled for eons. Chinese chefs usually don’t discuss Vietnamese food unless they are Vietnamese Chinese. But then Chef Ron Hsu’s new cookbook arrived. Written with Hugh Amano, Down South + East offers Ron’s unique life experiences through recipes.

When I first opened the book, it fell open Ron’s take on Vietnamese caramel pork (pictured below); his version is somewhat like mine but he’s added his imprint by using sorghum syrup (a southern staple) plus makrut lime leaves and lemongrass. And he says it’s great with rice or grits. How is that?

His Malaysian-Chinese parents owned multiple beloved Chinese restaurants in the Atlanta area and Ron began peeling onions for those kitchens at a very young age. He got hooked, went to culinary school, cooked at Le Colonial, a Vietnamese restaurant in Manhattan, and then rose to be creative director for chef Eric Ripert at Le Bernardin, one of the best restaurants in America.

But Ron’s roots are in Atlanta, Georgia, where he now runs his Michelin-starred Lazy Betty. I’ve dined there and figured that Ron would showcase his cheffy chops in his debut book.

I was wrong. Down South + East is thoughtfully written for home cooks. It aims to simply present America’s cross-cultural flavors through the palate of a talented Asian American chef.

The book’s riffs on classics thoughtfully and matter-of-factly combine southern and East and Southeast Asian flavors and techniques. Tweaks are intentional — his mother’s take on Southern fried chicken includes lots of cornstarch, an Asian secret for crunchy coating. There are more great pro-chef tips tucked into the book.

Coming this Sunday, I’ll share something I’ve cooked from Down South + East plus a sweet treat that Rory requested.

The weather in Santa Cruz swung back to being chilly, which is why if you see me, I may be wearing this super soft and cozy cashmere ascot. It’s designed by Kitty Nguyen of Semifinalist.

We’ve had a spate of hot weather here in California and it instantly turned my attention to lighter eating. In Vietnam, people enjoy noodle soup year round because it comforts and satisfies without weighing you down. Chicken pho is tonic like and speaks to spring more than beef pho. You can make it from a whole chicken using my Instant Pot chicken pho recipe to feed four, or brew a more traditional pho ga in a big stockpot to serve eight.

But if you just want a quick pho for one or two, use my recipe for fast chicken pho (phở gà nhanh). I made it this week it’s splendid — chickeny, fresh tasting, and soulful in less than 45 minutes. It’s so much better than the “instant pho” sold at supermarkets, which you have to doctor up big time for it to be meaningful.

I originally published the recipe in The Pho Cookbook and this week, shared it at my website with lots of bonus tips. Go pho the fast chicken pho recipe and you won’t regret it! 😆

I adore last week’s classic bún chả for how the pork develops a smoky umami and lends those savors to the nuoc cham sauce. That’s the brilliance of the classic Hanoi rice noodle dish. But after spending a week thinking about and developing the recipe for the newsletter, I realized that the meat was simply a conveyor for the distinctive marinade. How could I make a plant-based version that tastes đặc biệt (special)? How could I craft a version that rivaled the meaty original? Do you need meat to make great bún chả?

Substituting an alt-meat such as Impossible Meat for the pork is not good enough. It has a strong flavor that’s not copacetic with bún chả flavors.

For an exciting, wholesome bún chả chay (“chay” means vegetarian in Vietnamese), I turned to tofu and springtime vegetables. I also rejiggered the marinade formula to be naturally vegan and to make the vegetables taste extra good and look very sexy.

At the end of a week of ruminating and recipe testing, I have a great recipe for you! Rory remarked how it perfumes the kitchen with wonderful aromas of caramelization, just like the meaty bún chả does. When we ate the tofu and grilled veggies, they had an uncanny meaty quality. A big veggie win!

Full of sensory razzmatazz, my bún chả chay is remarkably tasty and satisfying without being heavy. Meat does not have to define the dish’s appeal.

It’s also fun to eat because the various vegetables offered distinctive flavors and textures; go ahead and fish around the sauce bowl for different things! The best plant-based dishes fire on all cylinders to hit all your food pleasure points.

I’m so happy to present you with this recipe and all the accompanying elements so you can craft your own head-turning bún chả chay. This successful vegetarian riff underscores a culinary truth: Foundational Viet cooking lends itself to creativity so long as you understand the parameters of a dish.

For instance, with the recipe and insights below, you can:

• Vary the vegetables, depending on what’s on sale or growing in your garden and what you enjoy grilling!

• Serve this version alongside traditional pork bún chả to create an extra special, festive low-meat meal. You’ll thrill vegetarians and vegans while impressing jaded omnivores.

• If you’re calling the classic pork version the “Obama Special”, then nickname this one the “Michelle Obama Special” as an ode to the former First Lady’s health initiative for kids and White House vegetable garden.

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Supermarket ingredients go into this bún chả chay (pronounced “boon chahh chay”) to make it very accessible. If you want to use Asian market ingredients, by all means do. Here’s all you need for your vegetarian bún chả adventure:

• Bún Chả Chay recipe in full text and as a downloadable PDF

• Scalable Vegan Bún Chả Marinade formula and recipe for you to serve 2 or 10!

• Pointers on prep and vegetable butchering to help you succeed

• The same noodle prep video that’s in the meat version so you don’t have to click back (you’re welcome!)

• Ingredient swaps and advance prep ideas to save time

Make bún chả to enjoy Vietnam in your own kitchen, on your own terms!

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Vietnamese food doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the greatest dishes are ones that taste fantastic but feature minimal ingredients. There’s technique involved but not too much as to make the dish undoable by mere mortal cooks. Bún chả, the Hanoi-style rice noodle dish served with grilled pork that’s cooked two ways, to be among those great dishes. It’s simple and brilliant.

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve eaten Vietnamese grilled pork rice noodles bowls labeled “bún thịt nướng” on restaurant menus. You’ve doused it with plenty of nuoc cham. Maybe you’ve also made the salad-y rice noodle dish at home. What’s different about bún chả?

Compared to southern-Vietnamese (Saigon) bún thịt nướng, bún chả uses similar but fewer ingredients but it tastes more luxe and extra umami. Two cuts of pork are used – sliced fatty pork and pork patties, for you to experience different textures and flavors. The meat is juicy and seasoned by a savory sweet marinade, reflecting northern (Hanoi) flavor preferences. Sweet-savory flavors are what you typically taste in southern-style bún bowls.

Northern cooks cleverly craft bún chả’s sauce as an extra umami, delicious veil of flavor on everything that it touches. Despite similar ingredients as a southern bowl of bún thịt nướng, a meal of northern bún chả offers more nuance and depth.

Bún chả also has class. It’s eaten in a languid manner. When traditionally served, the components are served separately for diners to compose smallish bowls of greens, noodles, and grilled pork. Because there’s a certain formality involved, bún chả can be a celebratory one-dish meal or main feature of a complex party menu. In contrast, Saigon-style bún bowls are considered a casual one-and-done dish that you can eat on the run.

A bún chả meal invites lingering and coaxes conversation too. It’s the dish that Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain shared in Hanoi in 2016.

If you venture to Bún Chả Hương Liên in Hanoi where they ate, you can’t sit at their table because it’s enshrined in plexiglass, I hear. However, you can order the “Obama Special”.

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But to be honest, the version Obama and Bourdain ate doesn’t look fabulous: the meat hasn’t gotten the caramelized bits of char that comes from careful cooking and a good marinade. And, in Hanoi there’s a modern convenient method of eating bún chả in a big bowl with lots of soupy sauce (there are fewer dishes to set and wash for the restaurant operator!) However, the sauce is diluted and strangely bland. It’s not what I grew up with or read about in old Vietnamese cookbooks. You can do better!

In fact, you can make bún chả (pronounced “boon chahh”) with supermarket ingredients, if you want! Today’s dispatch equips you with the following for a most excellent bún chả adventure:

• Explainer on how to achieve brilliant bún chả

• Bún chả recipe in full text and as a downloadable PDF

• Scalable marinade chart and recipe for you to serve 2 or 10!

• Swaps and advance prep suggestions to fit bún chả into your life

• Lots of prep tips and ingredient pointers

• Video for noodle prep that you can (and should) use elsewhere to make solid Viet food!

Time to get bún chả-ing.

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I’ve yet to fully acclimate to daylight savings time. Have you? If anyone has tips for how to adjust smoothly, please share them! I haven’t gotten a decent good night’s sleep since the time change. I initially blamed it on post-menopause but Rory said that he also had not slept well since we had to move our clocks forward. We know it will pass.

Meantime, Vietnam does not adhere to daylight savings time. My brother, Dan, is vacationing there right now and this morning (his late night), he sent this video of a Hanoi bánh cuốn rice roll vendor:

That is the old school method. It’s tricky and you have to make the rice batter just right and have a special pot rigged up for steaming the batter. The egg is a novelty filling from northeastern Vietnam. Typically, the filling is pork and mushroom, or veggie. My workaround is a much easier rice paper hack published in my book, Ever-Green Vietnamese (see page 77); my mom hailed that bánh cuốn recipe as a game changer.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted Midweek Gems and I’ve been collecting some fun things for your consideration.

💎 Meet me at Viet Book Fest!

Twenty years ago when I wrote my first book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, no one organized Vietnamese American authors. That’s drastically changed, thanks to a younger crop of authors and events like the annual Viet Book Fest in Santa Ana, California. I’ll be speaking on this afternoon panel:

Knowing my fellow authors, it will be a spicy conversation. Join us if you’re nearby.

Check the Viet Book Fest’s full schedule for the full day’s run of show. Organized by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA), Viet Book Fest is FREE but please reserve a ticket through Eventbrite.

💎 Eng’s, a 2026 Beard Award Classic

Speaking of Asian American heritage, many of us were introduced to Chinese food through mom-and-pop restaurants serving up Cantonese dishes. Those spots fed us quickly, affordably, and deliciously yet they often are unnoticed and under appreciated.

This year, the James Beard Foundation announced that it is awarding an American Classic award to Eng’s, a 99-year-old Chinese American restaurant in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York.

What is a Beard Classic award about? It is given to longstanding, beloved restaurants that have enhanced their communities. The restaurant business is hard and longevity is rare. If you last for decades, you deserve a medal, at the least.

Operating since 1927, Eng’s was Kingtson’s first Chinese restaurant. Over the years, it has moved and expanded locations and is currently owned and operated by Tom and Faye Sit. They are the parents of a friend of mine, Jennifer Sit.

Jennifer is one of the best cookbook editors around. But she still has time now and then to put in a shift at Eng’s to help with the dinner rush for dine-in and takeout orders. Her parents are aged but they remain engaged with the business, she’s told me.

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What makes a Chinese American classic menu? So many things. For instance, Eng’s menu includes a pu pu platter and tropical chicken on skewers. There are also Cantonese sub gum stir-fries, which feature a main protein supported by a colorful melange of other ingredients. “Sub gum” is similar to the Vietnamese notion of thập cẩm (a well-curated assortment of flavors, textures and color). On modern Chinese restaurants menus, subgum has been replaced by phrasing like “chicken and mixed vegetable stir-fry'“ which lacks pizzazz.

Seeing Eng’s get the national spotlight warmed my heart so much. There are countless restaurants like it all over the country. They make a difference in their communities by keeping flavors and traditions alive.

Read more about Tom Sit from the Beard Foundation’s awards page and check out Eng’s Restaurant if you’re in the area!

💎 What is a combi oven?

Many of you have expressed interest in multi-use compact kitchen appliances. I’ve been thinking about combi ovens because some of my chef friends adore how they cook with steam (wet) and conventional (dry) heat, or both. Professional combis are expensive but Ninja makes a good, affordable unit for home use. Last week, I purchased one and have been playing with it. There are fourteen (14!) functions so my evaluations will take time.

This combi oven is quirky but it shows promise. I’m impressed after a week, though Rory is on the fence. I like the baking and air-frying functions, thus far. I just wrote up my preliminary experiences and made a couple short videos to show you how the combi oven works. Learn more about the combi oven and weigh in at the website.

I hope you’ve been thinking about nước chấm since last weekend. Coming this Sunday is something to enjoy with your Viet dipping sauce!

Phew! We sent Cooking Thai to print this week. Like I usually do, I kissed the last review copy and hit “send”; this time I was wearing red lipstick. It’ll be fabulous to soon have chef Pim’s brilliant recipes and techniques out for you all to use. The release date is August 25, 2026.

So, after what do I do after a lengthy stretch of nearly non-stop work? I spent time in my garden, then cooked and played in my kitchen to spark my brain to be extra curious and creative. I bought a new toy — the Ninja combi steam oven, and have been test driving it. The small appliance has 16 different functions! Yeah, it steams up when it cooks but for good reasons. As I progress in trying it out, I’ll report my experiences via the website.

I also made bún rice noodle salad bowls with grilled pork skewers and shrimp. It’s the cover recipe from Vietnamese Food Any Day (see page 197). It’s healthy, fresh, and versatile. I let the skewered meat marinate overnight and it got more tender. The shrimp were grilled shell-on for flavor; we peeled them at the table before diving in. Yes, those are Trader Joe’s fried shallots and roasted peanuts on top, excellent time savers.

Making the bún bowls got me thinking and then rethinking how to make nước chấm well. I’ve been making it for nearly forty-five years, since about the time I was in junior high school. Out of the blue one day my mom assigned me to do it. She likely said something like, “Mẹ cần con pha nước chấm,” which roughly means “I need you to make the dipping sauce”.

I knew the ingredients but there was little guidance. I don’t know if it was a rite of passage for a Viet girl or a test. But seeing as how my mom was put in charge of overseeing her family’s cooks when she was a tween, she likely looked at me and figured that the least that I could do is make rice and the dipping sauce — two fundamental Vietnamese foods that can make or break a meal. She’d already taught me to use the rice cooker so it was my time to pha nước chấm.

In Vietnamese, the word pha means to formulate, mix, prepare, or to make. I messed up so much at first because I was just randomly mixing stuff together — lime juice, sugar, water, and fish sauce. It did not always taste good but my family always kindly gave me a pass.

Nước chấm (pronounced “nook chahm”) defines the final flavors of countless Vietnamese snacks, salads, lettuce and rice paper wraps, noodle bowls, and rice plates. Even when the table sauce wasn’t officially part of dish, it’s an unspoken truth in Vietnamese cooking that the amber sauce is magical. It can transform mundane ingredients, making them say, “I’m Vietnamese!”

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Drizzle, dunk or toss simply fried, grilled, steamed, boiled, or raw foods in nước chấm and they instantly taste special in a Viet-ish way.

If nước chấm is so tricky to make, can’t you just buy it? It’s silly to buy bottled premade sauce, labeled as “nước mắm pha sẵn”, sold at hardcore Viet markets. Who knows how old that stuff is? Who knows what kind of ingredients were used? And, what if you want to make it low sugar, low sodium, or vegan? What if you don’t have citrus around? What if you wanted to keep it for days? Why let someone else determine how your food tastes? The bottle is likely worth more than its contents. Seriously.

A word on words — nước chấm vs. nước mắm

Though the official name of the sauce is nước chấm (literally dipping sauce), Viet speakers often use the shorthand, “nước mắm” to mean nước chấm. Nước mắm on its own means fish sauce but in the context of “nước mắm pha” or “pha nước mắm”, the phrase signals that fish sauce has been diluted, seasoned, and formulated to serve as a table sauce to accentuate other foods.

You’re safest to say nước chấm to a Viet speaker so they are clear that you’re talking about the dipping sauce; reserve nước mắm for discussing fish sauce. However, if you hear someone talking about nước mắm, they may be talking about the pure condiment or the dipping sauce.

Over the years, I’ve made nuoc cham (let’s omit diacritics from here on in so I can type faster 😄) many ways and talked to others how they finesse theirs. I’ve futzed and finessed it to make it on a whim and have written recipes for it. I’ve got tricks and tips to share with you in this dispatch, which includes:

• Three recipes in text plus downloadable PDF for:

  • Classic nuoc cham

  • Make-ahead nuoc cham

  • Vegan nuoc cham hack

• A thorough break down of ingredients so you understand how each functions, how to choose them wisely, how to troubleshoot, plus how to get creative!

To borrow from the Home Depot’s slogan: You can do it. I can help.

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It’s been a brutal work week because we’re sending Cooking Thai to print very, very soon. This weekend, chef Pim and I are reviewing the book for the final time. Authors work with a team of folks to produce cookbooks, and given that there are countless moving parts (ingredient measurements, instructions, photos, page number references), mistakes may be made. At this stage, we scrub and polish and then practice the art of letting go.

It’s always an exhaustive process at the end but this time, I feel extra energized. That’s because now more than ever, there is incredible openness and interest in Asian cultures. I credit that to phenomena like Korean pop stars and Japanese anime.

Recently, there’s “Chinamaxxing” — a social media trend that has young American TikTokers wanting to ‘become Chinese’ by getting into things like practicing qigong, cooking congee, stocking up on groceries at Asian markets, and wearing slippers around the house. They want to be their “Chinese baddie” best because this is their “Chinese time of life”. (Remember the 1980 hit song, Turning Japanese by the Vapors? It did not result in women running out to buy kimonos.)

The rise of Chinese soft power, mostly among Generation Z, is an unexpected 180-degree turn. It’s uplifting but also ironic, given that there’s been a certain level of suspicion of Chinese goods and services for a long time.

Here at PTFS, we’ve discussed things like the fervent Prop 65 warnings on Asian ingredient labels. A few years back, shared his insights on people’s concerns over French made-in China cookware to empower consumers to thoughtfully choose.

And, remember when some folks nicknamed Covid-19 as “kung flu” and how the pandemic caused a surge in Asian hate crimes and discrimination? Those were good times, right?

Way before the pandemic, looking Asian could be viewed negatively. About fifteen years ago, as Rory and I were taking a walk in our neighborhood, a group of young men drove passed and one of them leaned his head out the window and screamed, “Go back to China!”

I reflexively stopped, raised my middle finger to give them the bird, and screamed back, “Fuck off! I’m not Chinese! I’m Vietnamese!” I stood my ground with minimal fear because we were across the street from a friendly Black-owned barbershop. We could run there for help, if needed.

The car briefly stopped before the young men took off. They surely forgot about the incident. For all I know, in 2026, they may be looking to live their best Chinese lives.

There’s plenty of analysis of Chinamaxxing from TIME magazine and also some humorous-not-so-humorous advice from the South Morning Post, the leading newspaper outlet in Hong Kong, China. I’m usure what to make of the current Chinamaxxing meme and trends, but I do hope that it results in genuine greater cultural appreciation.

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Making Chinese-Vietnamese connections

Chinamaxxing also got me thinking about my own interests in Chinese culture, which started in college when I decided to minor in Chinese languages and culture. I eventually scored a fellowship in Hong Kong, traveled to China and partly built my food writing career on researching and writing about Chinese food.

Why go out of my Vietnamese lane? China is geographically and culturally connected to Vietnam through migration, politics, war, language, and yes, food. The relationship between the two countries has not always been a happy one, but understanding China helped me to better understand my Vietnamese heritage and history.

For instance, when I was in my twenties, I hung out with Teresa, a gal from Hong Kong whose father used to be film director. Their family lived in Monterey Park and Teresa introduced me to a wonderful Chinese-Islamic restaurant, where I fell for dishes such as fragrant stir-fried lamb spiced with cumin and lots of green onions and a thick, crunchy sesame scallion bread. To this day, I love to eat the two together, stuffing the stir-fry into the bread and wiping up the sauce with even more bread!

Over the decades, I’ve tried all kinds of recipes for a fabulous rendition of the bread recipe and this past Friday, to get my mind off of book proofreading, I made it again and landed on my best rendition yet. Get the sesame-scallion bread recipe and make it sooner than later to enjoy its tender chewy, nutty, rich flavors.

Because Vietnamese and Chinese languages are linked in many ways, when I learned that the sesame scallion bread (zhīma dà bǐng) was a type of bǐng (餠, the Chinese word for bread, pancakes, pies, and certain other doughy foods), I was able to wrap my head around the Vietnamese notion of bánh, a very broad category of food that includes bánh mì, cookies, cakes, dumplings, crepes and other starchy foods.

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Chinese Vietnamese people and food

When I started out writing about food, I befriended Chinese Vietnamese chefs too. The late chef Charles Phan of the Slanted Door was Chinese Vietnamese, for instance. So are my pals, chef restaurateurs Eric and Sophie Banh of Monsoon and Ba Bar in Seattle. Chinese people have been in Vietnam for a long time, so much so that there are countless people who identify as Chinese Vietnamese. They mostly see themselves as Vietnamese but can speak Cantonese and or Teochew.

Knowing about and being able to prepare and share Chinese cuisine is part of Vietnamese culture. In the early 1960s, when my dad was provincial governor in Phan Thiet in South Vietnam, my mom planned dinners that included Vietnamese, Chinese, and French dishes. She employed two cooks — one of whom was nicknamed Chú Năm Bếp (Uncle of Five Kitchens). Mom described him as a charming, talented man whose could cook practically anything; the five kitchens reflected his mastery of five cuisines.

Those factors and many others contributed to my affinity for Viet cha gio fried imperial rolls and bun rice noodle bowls as well as for Chinese fried wontons, lo mai gai sticky rice in lotus leaf, and wonton noodle soup. Hybrid foods like bo kho — the beef stew with star anise, lemongrass, tomato and carrot has southern Chinese Vietnamese roots and is considered an iconic Vietnamese dish. It has evolved over the years and cooks have taken to serve in many ways but it’s still Vietnamese at heart. I felt confident with turning the classic stew into a quick bolognese-style bo kho sauce to enjoy with wide rice noodles or pappardelle pasta. (Along the same vein, what would stop you from putting some in a banh mi roll because or use for a Viet-ish sloppy Joe. Just some suggestions!)

Chinese-ness in unexpected savors

So when I researched and wrote about the history of pho, it wasn’t a surprise that Chinese cooks and language were part of the story, which also includes the French colonials too. I’d always wondered if there was a Chinese pho recipe. ’s cookbook on Yunnan cuisine answered my question with its Chinese beef pho recipe, which you could add pickled mustard greens to, if you want. (The Red River flows from Yunnan eastward through Hanoi and out to the Gulf of Tonkin, so of course there are connections!)

Pho is highly elastic as I’ve written in The Pho Cookbook so you can play around with it with recipes like the beef short rib and vegetable pho. My traditionalist mother may think it’s weird but I like the recipe’s vegetable component, lower cost, and easy cooking in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot.

And, if you survey global cuisines, you’ll see how far Chinese foodways have migrated. Consider how widespread ingredients like tofu, soy sauce and rice noodles are. Chinese la mian noodles begot Japanese ramen. Wok cooking went to Peru and birthed Chifa cuisine and lomo saltado which then went back to Asia and eventually into Vietnam, where it yielded a beef stir-fry served atop fried potatoes. (Make my delicious umami-rich tofu and French fries iteration.)

Finally, if you shop at a Chinese market or online at Weee!, check the frozen food section because you may find frozen peeled Chestnuts from China. As noted in an earlier newsletter, American chestnuts grow on Chinese trees. So you can purchase the Chinese chestnuts, know about their history, and use them in Chinese ways like the Red-Cooked Chestnut Chicken and Braised Chestnuts with Napa Cabbage which hail from Shanghai. These are no longer fall or winter dishes. They can be enjoyed whenever, if you get your paws on frozen Chinese chestnuts!

Today’s world is incredibly economically, politically, and culinarily interrelated. If you consider all the ways that China influences our lives, there is a certain truth to what China calls itself in Chinese: 中国 (中國; Zhōng Guó), which literally means the Middle Kingdom, the center of the world.

As a Vietnamese person who’s gone the extra distance to understand Chinese culture, do I want to become Chinese?

No way! I’m too feisty and proud to relinquish who I am. However, by cooking and looking around to connect the dots, I know that I can be a Chinese baddie on my own terms. I hope you find these insights and ideas to help you add to your knowledge base, if not just sound awesome to a young person. 😆

Back to proofreading the book. Thanks for being here.

My idea of the perfect cookie is one that’s easy to make in small batches so that they can be enjoyed at freshly-baked peak perfection. And it ought to be light enough so that one or so cookies can satisfy your sweet desire without leaving you feeling weighted down or guilty. I think I found it in this not-too-sweet delightful Chinese walnut shortbread cookie that you can experiment with and take in many directions. Meeting a myriad of needs, it’s kind of a silver bullet.

I’ve been thinking about Asian sweets to share with you because in our 2026 paid subscriber survey, a number of you asked for healthy-ish sweets that are low in sugar and can be made gluten-free, vegan, etc. I thought about those requests and landed on this Chinese walnut cookie, which as you can see, may involve sesame seeds, if you like!

Walnut cookies are popular in northern and southern China, which explains why they are well known in Mandarin and Cantonese (and I’m sure other dialects):

• Mandarin: 核桃酥 (Hétáosū) and 桃酥饼 (Táo sū bǐng)

• Cantonese: 合桃酥 (Hup toh soh)

The second character, 桃. roughly means “shortbread,” rather than “cookie”. When Rory tried this cookie, he said, “Oh, it’s a yummy shortbread.”

He ate one and felt happily satisfied. This cookie tastes indulgent but it contains fiber and protein, and is relatively low in sugar and fat. Spurred on by his positive response, I experimented with small batches, changing up the nuts and toppings to yield a recipe that you can scale up for a party or freeze for future baking.

Why walnuts? What about almond cookies?

Most of us know of Chinese almond cookies which have been popularized abroad but the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year cookie features walnuts. These walnut cookies supposedly date to the Tang Dynasty (618–907 C.E.) and a guild of potters and ceramicists. As the story goes, one of the potters dealt with a persistent cough by eating walnuts, which he crushed and added to a biscuit-y dough and baked atop the hot kiln surface. The other potters picked up on the tasty, healthy idea and as their wares spread around the country, so did the cookie.

Walnuts are rich in symbolism. For instance, there’s a Chinese notion that eating walnuts ensures happiness in the new year. I’ve also read that because walnuts look like brains, they also symbolize knowledge and good health.

It all sounds like a joke but in actuality, walnuts have been scientifically proven to be good for many things, including heart and gut health. They also figure into the cMIND diet to fend off dementia. Walnuts are a win-win-win food.

At Chinese markets and online, you may spot walnut cookies but I assure you that baking them yourself from this easy recipe using fresh, quality ingredients will make you much happier than if you bought them. Your home will also smell divine and you’ll better ensure good luck, wisdom, and health in this Year of the Fire Horse!

Below you’ll find:

• The walnut cookie recipe in full text plus downloadable PDF

• A table of swap suggestions that enables you to plug and play to make the cookies gluten-free, vegan, without refined sugar, without nuts, with seeds, or with extra fiber

• Lots of bonus ingredient and technical pointers in text and photos so you have plenty of guidance to easily make my recipe yours

A quick note: After this recipe is sent to you, it will be added to the PTFS recipe index. It’s not a perfect index and has to be manually updated. For instance, I just noticed that I forgot to add the Peking duck recipe! Thanks for your patience.

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Today’s Sunday Special dispatch is short because the real meat of what I have for you is elsewhere.

First, although I’m not one to praise Whole Foods much, I did notice at my local store that there’s still Lunar New Year signage for “fortune foods” like whole fish at the seafood counter. The store is still running sales on Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese condiments — soy sauce, gochujang, and fish sauce, for instance. So, in the spirit of continuing the party, at my website, I assembled 25 recipes to help you further usher in the Year of the Fire Horse. Extend the holiday because that’s what Asian people traditionally do!

If you have a Vietnamese banh chung and don’t know what to do with it, I’ve got you covered with a primer and video! Ditto on pickles, noodles, sweets, and other foods to go along with the must-have Tet sticky rice cake (below, top left and center). Or if you just want to cook up a pan-Asian feast to celebrate the new year, the recipes will give you plenty of options. Head to 25 Recipes for Pan-Asian Lunar New Year Menus.

Second, I created a PTFS recipe index for you to more easily explore and find what you need. The index is one of my 2026 ,Year of the Horse goals!

The index includes all the exclusive PTFS recipes for paid subscribers as well as ones that are available for everyone. Since this newsletter started in September 2022, it has fostered a collection of about 150 recipes — the size of two modest cookbooks or one big one!

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None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for your enthusiasm for Asian cuisines and cultures and my approach to them. Thank you! In particular, we wouldn’t have this robust, hardworking collection of recipes and audiovisual how-tos without paid subscribers pitching in. Seriously.

Before this newsletter, I thought my food writing career meant I had to deeply bow to the SEO algorithm gods in perpetuity. Pass the Fish Sauce liberated me and I thank you all for your kindness.

Now head over to the NEW RECIPE INDEX and start looking and cooking around.

I welcome your feedback on the index because it will continue to evolve.

Hey there, if you’d like to check out the newsletter recipe archive via an index, you’re at the right place. This listing of over 150 recipes covers the first three years of the newsletter from its inception in late 2022. You’ll find PTFS exclusives and free recipes in the newsletter and on my website.

The recipes are grouped in broad categories but are not listed in alphabetical order within the categories. I’ve done my best to cross list them but this is not a professionally done index.

How to use this index

You have 3 basic options: Browse the entire list from top to bottom, use the search function on your computer (⌘ + F on a Mac; Ctrl + F on a PC) to look for specific terms, or click on a link below to jump to particular categories.

• Appetizers and Savory Snacks

• Bread, Dumplings, and Pancakes

• Dessert, Sweets and Drinks

• Eggs

• Grilled

• Meat (chicken, pork, beef, duck, lamb)

• Rice and Noodles

• Salads and Soups

• Sauces, Dressings, and Seasonings

• Seafood

• Stir-fries

• Tofu (without meat)

• Vegan, Vegetarian, and Vegetable Sides

Appetizers and Savory Snacks

• Pate Chaud (including meat + veg filling recipes)

• Curried Oysters with Cucumber Sauce

• Viet-Spiced Petit Palmier

• Japanese Fried Chicken Karaage

• Basic Chilled Tofu Blueprint (+ 4 sauces)

• Chili Crisp Candied Nuts

• Gingery Wontons in Chili Oil

Bread, Dumplings, and Pancakes

• Master Banh Mi Blueprint for Viet sandwiches any time

• Asian Bakery Pillowy Hot Rolls *

• Mandarin (Moo Shu) Pancake Mini Class

• Pate Chaud (meat + veg filling recipes)

• Helen Goh’s Traveling “Speckled Bread” (bara brith)

• Cucur Badak (a Malaysian dumpling)

• Easy Wonton Noodle Soup

• Gingery Wontons in Chili Oil

Dessert, Sweets and Drinks

• Vietnamese Coffee Tiramisu

• Chinese Walnut Cookies

• Boozy Fruitcake Bites (a cookie)

• Shortcut Silken Tofu and Ginger Syrup

• “Beginner’s” tart tatin

• Apricot-ginger jam

• Shortcut sticky rice and mango

• Coconutty Black-Eyed Peas and Rice Pudding (che dau trang)

• Grilled Bananas in Sticky Rice with Coconut Sauce (chuoi nuong)

• Egg Coffee + Salt Coffee (2 recipes)

• No-Churn Lemongrass Ice Cream with Coconutty Cashews

• Easy Almond Cake

• Orgeat (almond syrup for cocktails)

• Best Bellini and Windowsill Spritz (summery peach cocktails)

• Slice-and-Bake Matcha Cookies

• Persimmon Spice Cookies

• Petit Palmiers with Viet Cinnamon

• Flourless Almond Cookies

• Lemongrass Ice Cream with Roasted Pineapple

• Vietnamese Shiso (Tia To) Shrub

• Easy Lime Pound Cake

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Eggs

• Perfect boiled eggs

• Caramelized pork and eggs in coconut sauce (a southern Viet icon)

• Egg Coffee (Ca Phe Trung)

Grilled

• Classic Bun Cha Hanoi-style Grilled Pork and Rice Noodles

• Grilled Lemongrass Beef Skewers

• Indian lamb steak with lemon rice and chutneys

• Tamarind-Glazed Chicken

• Char Siu Pork Ribs + Char Siu Pork Steak (2 recipes)

• Chicken Tikka Skewers

• Grilled Lemongrass Pork Dinner Plan

• Yakitori Chicken and Vegetables

• Grilled Roast Fish with Viet Tamarind Sauce

Meat (chicken, pork, beef, duck, lamb)

• Instant Pot Pho

• Chinese-American Chicken and Rice Casserole (in conventional oven)

• Combi Cooker Chicken and Crispy Rice Casserole

• Fast chicken pho

• Classic Bun Cha Hanoi-style Grilled Pork and Rice Noodles

• Any Meat Moo Shu (pork, chicken, beef, shrimp)

• Shortcut Chinese-style Roast Duck feast

• Meat Pate Chaud

• Red-Cooked Chestnut Chicken

• Mapo Tofu Macaroni and Cheese

• Chicken and Lemongrass Curry

• Lemongrass Chicken Stir-Fry

• Grilled Lemongrass Beef Skewers

• Indian lamb steak with lemon rice and chutneys

• Mapo Tofu (my best recipe for the classic)

• Taiwanese Five-Spice Pork Sauce Rice Bowl (Lu Rou Fan)

• Tamarind-Glazed Chicken

• Maggi Roast Chicken and Butternut Squash

• Char Siu Pork Ribs + Char Siu Pork Steak (2 recipes)

• Bo Kho Bolognese, a Beef, Star Anise, and Lemongrass Pasta

• Chicken Tikka Skewers

• Mapo Tofu Meat Sauce (+ 5 ways to enjoy it!)

• Grilled Lemongrass Pork Dinner Plan

• Yakitori Chicken and Vegetables

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Rice and Noodles

• Vegan Bun Cha Hanoi-Style Grilled Veggies and Rice Noodles

• Perfect Jasmine Rice

• Chinese-American Chicken and Rice Casserole

• Combi Cooker Chicken and Crispy Rice Casserole

• Fast chicken pho

• Instant Pot Pho

• Sticky rice, chestnut and shiitake dressing

• Sticky rice with roast chicken (Xoi Ga Ro Ti)

• Japanese chestnut Rice (Kuri Gohan)

• Carrot Fried Rice and Crispy Fried Eggs

• Taiwanese Oil Rice (Youfan)

• Tamil lemon rice

• Microwave Sticky Rice

• Wok-kissed Tofu-Mushroom Pho

• Umami shiitake garlic noodles

• Crab and asparagus garlic noodles

• Pad Thai (vegetarian and vegan adaptable)

• Ginger, Carrot, and Scallion Noodles

• Singapore Noodles

• Grilled Bananas in Sticky Rice with Coconut Sauce (chuoi nuong)

• Viet Roast Chicken and Sticky Rice (xoi ga ro ti)

• Kien Giang Fish and Shrimp Noodle Soup (Bun Ca Kien Giang)

• Chicken pho salad (Pho Ga Tron)

• Panfried wheat noodles with a choose-your-own adventure stir-fry topping

• Crispy panfried rice noodles with a stir-fry topping

• Shortcut sticky rice and mango

• Beef Short Rib-Vegetable Pho

• Japanese Fried Chicken Karaage

• Easy Wonton Noodle Soup

• Garlicky Noodles with Maggi and Butter

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Salads and Soups

• Vietnamese pomelo salad

• Burmese Ginger Salad

• Thai-Khmer Tom Kha Gai (+ vegetarian recipe)

• Vietnamese Bouillabaisse (Canh Chua Ca)

• Wok-kissed Tofu-Mushroom Pho

• Snap Pea and Carrot Shira Ae

• Green Bean Shira Ae

• Hawaiian-style Tofu Watercress Salad

• Viet Thai Melon Salad

• 4 Salads to go with Nuoc Cham Vinaigrette

• Creamy Tofu Seafood Chowder

• Vietnamese Asparagus and Shrimp Soup (Sup Mang Tay Tom, with subs for a seafood delight!)

Sauces, Dressings and Seasonings

• Vietnamese Nuoc Cham Master Recipe

• Cambodian Kroeung

• Tamarind date chutney + cilantro-mint chutney (2 recipes)

• Tamarind glaze for chicken or tofu

• Japanese orange-ginger dressing

• Shira-Ae, umami tofu dressing

• Quick Japanese Seasoned Soy Sauce

• Korean Seasoned Soy Sauce

• Chile and Sichuan Peppercorn Mix

• Taiwanese-Style Soy Paste

• Yakitori Sauce

• Nuoc Cham Vinaigrette (+ 4 salads)

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Seafood

• Crispy lemongrass salmon tails

• Crab and asparagus garlic noodles

• Tamarind shrimp-vegetable stir-fry

• Crispy lemongrass fish

• Grilled (or Roasted) Fish with Viet Tamarind Sauce

• Crispy salmon and caramelized ginger-onion jam

• Shrimp-Tofu Stir-Fry with Bok Choy side (2 recipes)

• Crispy Seafood Cakes (crab, smoked fish, or veg)

• Coconut-Caramel Shrimp and Tofu (Tom Kho Dau Hu)

• Garlic-Black Pepper Crab (cua rang toi tieu)

• Viet-Cajun Seafood Boil

• Crispy Fried Smelts

Stir-Fries

• Any Meat Moo Shu (pork, chicken, beef, shrimp)

• Vegetarian Moo Shu (vegan adaptable)

• Lemongrass Chicken Stir-Fry

• Tamarind shrimp-vegetable stir-fry

• Tamarind tofu-mushroom stir-fry

• Shrimp-Tofu Stir-Fry with Bok Choy side (2 recipes)

• Beef and Asparagus Stir-Fry + Shrimp and Asparagus Stir-Fry (2 recipes)

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Tofu (without meat)

• Crispy Spicy Lemongrass Tofu (Dau Hu Chien Xa Ot)

• Coconut Curry Tofu (+ Curry Fried Rice recipe)

• Tamarind-glazed tofu

• Coconut-Caramel Shrimp and Tofu (Tom Kho Dau Hu)

• Tamarind tofu-mushroom stir-fry

• 20-Minute Char-Siu Tofu

• Umami Tofu Stir-Fry with French Fries

• Vietnamese Spicy Burst Tomato Tofu (dau hu sot ca chua)

• Tofu Dressed with Basil and Garlic

• Tofu Noodle Salad with Chili Crisp

• Shira-Ae, umami tofu dressing + 2 salad recipes

• Chili Crisp Yuba Noodles

• Creamy Tofu Seafood Chowder

• Tofu-Wakame Chowder

• Fried Tofu Smothered in Green Onions (Dau Hu Chien Tam Hanh La)

• Easy Pan-Fried Tofu

• Basic Chilled Tofu Blueprint (+ 4 sauces)

• Yakitori Tofu and Vegetables

• Wok-kissed Tofu-Mushroom Pho

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Vegan, Vegetarian, and Vegetable Sides

• Perfect Jasmine Rice

• Vegan Bun Cha Hanoi-Style Grilled Veggies and Rice Noodles

• Vegetarian (or Vegan) Vietnamese Asparagus Soup (Sup Mang Tay Chay)

• Cambodian Kroeung (seasoning paste)

• Buttery Chestnuts

• Vegetarian Moo Shu (vegan adaptable)

• Vegan Pate Chaud

• Braised Chestnuts with Napa Cabbage (a Shanghai dish)

• Burmese Ginger Salad

• Wok-Kissed Tofu-Mushroom Pho

• Vegan mapo tofu

• Umami shiitake garlic noodles

• Pad Thai (vegetarian version provided)

• Curry Fried Rice + Coconut Curry Tofu (2 recipes)

• Carrot Fried Rice and Crispy Fried Eggs

• Thai-Khmer Tom Kha Hed (mushroom version of Tom Kha Gai)

• Tamarind date chutney + cilantro-mint chutney (2 recipes)

• Tamarind tofu-mushroom stir-fry

• Apricot-ginger jam

• Shortcut sticky rice and mango

• Hanoi-style Sticky Rice, Buttery Mung Beans and Fried Shallot (xoi xeo)

• Umami Tofu Stir-Fry with French Fries

• Coconutty Black-Eyed Peas and Rice Pudding (che dau trang)

• Grilled Bananas in Sticky Rice with Coconut Sauce (chuoi nuong)

• Minimal Mess Smoky Eggplant with Scallion Chili Oil

• Tofu-Wakame Chowder

• Tofu Noodle Salad with Chili Crisp

• Pickled Shallots (dua hanh, for Tet)

• Hawaiian-style Tofu Watercress Salad

• Green Cherry Tomato Pickle

• Reduced Sugar Jam

• Yakitori Tofu and Vegetables

• Dashi-soaked eggplant

• Roasted carrots and creamy nuoc cham

• Vegan Hot and Sour Soup

• Eggplant in Garlic Sauce

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Welcome to the first day of the New Year of the Fire Horse! May the next twelve months shower you with blessings such as excellent health, life satisfaction, and abundant prosperity.

I made a special e-greeting for you and the Viet words say:

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới (say “Chook Moong Nahm Moy”) = Happy New Year

Vạn Sự Như Ý (say “Van Soo N-you Eee”) = May You…

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