Pandemic Cooking: Vietnamese Bánh Xèo

Vietnamese Bánh Xèo can be deceiving in that it looks like an omelette, but does not actually contain any egg!

It is more like a crepe made of mainly rice flour, and turmeric which gives it the nice golden color.
It is filled with pork and shrimp, a little bit of onion, and lots of bean sprouts.
It is served with lettuce, mint, cilantro, Vietnamese pickled daikon and carrot, and topped with nước mắm.

Bags of pre-mixed bánh xèo flour can be found at the Asian grocery stores.
The batter needs to be made a minimum of 3 hours in advance, to overnight.

To make batter for 4 crêpes, you need:

• 6 oz of bánh xèo flour
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 3/4 cup water
• 7 oz (or 1/2 can) coconut cream (or coconut milk)
• 1 scallion

Mix everything except green onion ahead of time and let sit for 3 hours to overnight.

Right before cooking, mince the scallion and add to the batter

For the filling, boil about 3/4 lb of pork belly then cut into strips.

Wash and clean shrimps and bean sprouts and set aside.

Thinly slice a small onion.

Stir fry the onion, pork belly and shrimp in a flat pan, then pour the batter over just like making an omelette.

Add the bean sprouts on top.

Cover and let cook at med-high heat for about 10 minutes until the crêpe becomes crispy.

Fold in half and serve immediately.

Waiting too long will cause the crêpe to no longer be crispy.

Pandemic Baking: Sourdough #5

We can see and taste improvements with every loaf made.

We started the process on Thursday evening, for baking Friday evening.

This time, we felt really good with our stretch and fold technique, so we added a pre-shaping step in our process, followed by a 30-minute bench rest.
After which we performed the final shaping and proofed in a banneton basket for two hours.
The dough rose well, and we used the banneton basket without the liner for added effect.

We preheated the Dutch oven at 500 deg F, baked with the lid on for 30 minutes at 475 deg F, and removed the lid to bake for another 10 minutes.

The scoring of the wheat stalk showed up much better this time, but there is some improvement to be made.

Sourdough #5: 60% hydration

Our Baker's % for this loaf is:
60% Hydration
30% starter -- 100% hydration active starter, refreshed (fed)
1.2% salt

This was baked using Pillsbury bleached all-purpose flour.

This was our timeline used for loaf #4 and #5, and this gave us fresh bread just in time for dinner.
As you can see, bread making takes time, although the time is mostly hands-off.
There are more rest times than activities, as each activity takes no more than 5-10 minutes.
However, you do need to be around the house for the spurts of activity so this is best planned for the day where you can work from home.

Future Work:

1. As we are having difficulty finding unbleached all-purpose flour during the pandemic, we are interested in finding out the difference in result when using bleached vs unbleached, and the different brands of flour (i.e. the different protein % from the different brands.)
2. As we build confidence in handling the wet dough, we will be increasing the hydration from the current 60% towards 70-75% hydration to achieve a more open crumb texture and a thinner and crispier crust
3. As we build confidence in recognizing the correct dough texture at each stage, we will not shy away from making bread on rainy days and will make adjustments to the hydration of the dough as needed
4. As we build experience, we will be experimenting with mixing bread flour and whole wheat flour in the future.
5. We will try a new timeline that will get us fresh bread by lunch time

Pandemic Baking: Sourdough Bread #4

We made additional adjustment during our sourdough quest.

On Sourdough bread #4, we achieved the hydration level per Aunt Joy's recipe, as we became more confident with our wet dough handling skills.
We also reduced our baking time to take into account the fact that we pre-heat our Dutch Oven whereas Aunt Joy does not preheat hers.

We started the process on Thursday evening, for baking Friday evening.

The result is a fabulous loaf of sourdough bread, perfect in (almost) every way! Beautiful crispy crust, and a light and chewy crumb! The only improvement would be the scoring of the bread: we did the decorative scoring without providing an expansion scoring, so the wheat stalk did not come out the way we imagined.

Sourdough #4: 60% hydration

This was baked using 411g of White Lilly bleached all-purpose flour and 89g of King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour.

Our Baker's % for this loaf was:
60% Hydration
30% starter -- 100% hydration active starter, refreshed (fed)
1.2% salt

We have now increased our hydration back to 60% per Aunt Joy's original recipe.
We preheated the Dutch oven to 500 deg F, then reduced to 475 deg F and baked with the lid on for 30 minutes, and took the lid off to bake for another 10 minutes.
We were happy with this baking time.

Pandemic Cooking: Vietnamese Bánh Bột Lọc

Vietnamese Bánh Bột Lọc is a specialty dish from Huê´, central Vietnam, where ông and bà are from.
They are little tapioca dough filled with tasty pork and shrimp, served with nước mắm dipping sauce.
The preparation is a little bit time-consuming, hence perfect during the pandemic where we are all stuck at home anyway.

The pork and shrimp fillings are made separately, and can be made a day ahead.
The tapioca dough is steamed in a cake mold for about 3 minutes, then the filling and some more tapioca dough is added for another 3 minutes of steaming.

The final result are delicate little "bánh" filled with pork and shrimp. The dough is chewy and the filling is tasty. Super yummy and worth the time put in!

Pandemic Cooking: Moroccan Chicken Tagine Recipe

We wanted to find some good recipes to cook in our tagine, and came across this recipe online.
Chicken Tagine is a traditional Moroccan dish, braised with spices, garlic, onion, olives, and lemon.
We tried it for the first time over couscous, and the taste was delicate and wonderful.
On the second day, we reheated it and served along our homemade sourdough bread, for a second delicious meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 lemon
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and legs
• salt, pepper
• 1 TBSP olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, cut into thick slides
• 2 TBSP all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 2 TBSP honey
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and cut
• 1/2 cup Greek cracked green olives, pitted and halved
• 2 TBSP chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Instructions:

• Combine spices in a small bowl
• Zest the lemon and combine with 1 minced garlic clove
• Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper and brown the pieces on med-high heat both sides then set aside
• Reduce heat to med and stir fry the onion until soften
• Add remaining garlic and stir fry until fragrant
• Add spices, flour, and stir for about 30 seconds
• Add broth, honey, some lemon zest, 1/4 tsp salt, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any browned bits
• Remove chicken skin and add chicken back and on med-low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes
• Add carrots and continue to cover and simmer for another 10 minutes
• Stir in olives, remaining lemon zest and garlic mixture, 1 TBSP lemon juice
• Garnish with cilantro and serve

Pandemic Cooking: Vietnamese Bánh Bèo

Bà being in California with Auntie helping with our niece and nephew, Pinky and the Brain, we are on our own making the favorite Vietnamese food from bà.

With all the right tools, and good team work, we whipped out four plates of bánh bèo for lunch.

And pigs that we were, we ate the whole thing!

Pandemic Cooking: Char Siu Meals, let me count the ways...

There are so many meals you can whip up once you have that Char Siu handy!

We miss the simple Hong Kong style Char Siu on rice with a side of Cai Lan.
So good, and yet so simple! Done in 20 minutes.

Add the Char Siu to a bowl of Ramen noodles and some shrimps, and voila!
Fancy Ramen in 2 minutes!

Miss that Vietnamese bowl of vermicelli?
Throw in the Char Siu on top of some vermicelli noodles, add some fresh cut lettuce, mint, cucumber, bean sprouts, and pickled Vietnamese carrot & daikon; sprinkle some nuoc mam, and there you have it!
If you pre-make the carrot and daikon and pre-mix the nuoc mam, this is a meal that can be ready in less than half an hour.

Miss that Vietnamese Banh Mi?
Get some buns, add the Char Siu, throw in cilantro, cucumber, some jalapeno pepper, some of those pre-made Vietnamese pickled carrot & daikon, and you have a delicious Banh Mi in 15 minutes!

And finally, throw in some Char Siu, shrimps, egg, add some frozen mixed vegetables in a big pot with some rice to get a delicious meal of fried rice!

Pandemic Baking: Sourdough Breads #3, #2, and #1

Just like million others who jumped on the bread-making bandwagon during the pandemic, we used our time WFH to learn a new skill, and found so much pleasure in doing so.

We would like to thank Cat & Sam's mom for the success of our new hobby: not only did she give us a strong and active sourdough starter to get us going, but she also sent us step-by-step instructions, with video illustrations.





















We named our starter Buu-Blé, and we feed Buu-Blé once a week.
We save the best flour we have for Buu-Blé during this shortage of flour and baking products: King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour.
It is so pleasurable to watch Buu-Blé grow and double its size at the end of its feeding.

In return, Buu-Blé gave us a great levain for our weekly sourdough bread.
It is so fulfilling to learn and understand the chemistry of rising dough, to practice the various stretch and pull and shaping techniques to handle the dough, to experiment with the scoring of the dough, and at the end, to be in awe of the beautiful loaf that comes out of the oven.


Our sourdough bread #3 looked and tasted pretty good.

Our Baker's % for loaf #3 was:
55% Hydration
30% starter -- 100% hydration active starter, refreshed (fed)
1.2% salt

We used White Lilly bleached all-purpose flour.
We have added 5% hydration from attempt #2, and we are now 5% away from the hydration required in Aunt Joy's recipe (60% hydration.)
At 55% hydration, we were able to handle the dough well, and it had no problem rising.
We reduced the baking time without the lid to 15 minutes (from 20 minutes.)
We felt the baking time still needed to be adjusted further, as the bottom of the loaf was still a bit hard.

Sourdough loaf #3

This below was our second attempt, a significant improvement over our first attempt.
We reduced the hydration by 10% to prevent our mishandling of the dough.
The scoring left to be desired, and we believe the baking time needed to be adjusted, as the crust was overdone.
We still happily ate the whole loaf.

Our Baker's % for loaf #2 was:
50% Hydration
30% starter -- 100% hydration active starter, refreshed (fed)
1.2% salt
This was baked with a preheated Dutch oven, at 40 minutes with lid on (500 deg F), and 20 minutes with lid off (450 deg F.)

Sourdough loaf #2

This below was our very first attempt at making sourdough bread.
It was inedible, as it did not rise properly, and in our attempt to salvage the bread, we baked too long, turning the poor loaf into a piece of rock.

Our Baker's % for loaf #1 was:
60% Hydration
30% starter -- 100% hydration active starter, refreshed (fed)
1.2% salt

Sourdough loaf #1

What did we do wrong? It was hard to tell; we made so many rookie mistakes!
But here were a few mistakes that we identified in order to fix:

1. We left the dough to rest in the oven (OFF) with the light ON (one of the internet tips) -- perhaps this was too warm; the dough was a shaggy mass every time we handled it
2. We did not know how to handle the dough properly during the mixing stage and folding stage, so we played with the dough too much (we ended up folding the dough 8 times); the dough never built the proper gluten structure.
3. We did not preheat the oven long enough, did not own an oven temperature, and baked at (what we assumed) 475 deg F with lid on for 40 minutes, and 425 deg F with lid off for an extended 30 minutes or maybe longer (?)
4. It was a rainy day, perhaps causing the dough to be wetter than we could handle.

Lessons learned:

1. We have been leaving the dough to rest on the kitchen counter, and have been getting good results
2. We reviewed different youtube videos to learn the proper stretch and fold techniques, and shape and tension pull techniques from expert bread makers
3. We purchased not one, but two oven thermometers! And we kept an eye on the temperature readings during pre-heat and baking stages
4. True or not, we kept an eye out for the weather forecast and only planned to make bread on beautiful sunny days! This may change as we build confidence in recognizing what the dough should feel like at each stage

We used the leftover discard to make a sourdough scallions pancake. Delicious snack!

If you want to learn how to make sourdough bread, you will need a few kitchen tools.
And the willingness to try, fail, and try again!
We found the bread making process to be very fun and fulfilling, especially during the pandemic where there was no place to go and no one to meet.

Minimum kitchen gadgets required:
1. A dutch oven
2. Two 24-oz (or larger) jars for the starter
3. A food scale for accurate measurement of flour and water
4. An oven thermometer to check oven temperature during baking (lesson learned for us!)
5. A large mixing bowl
6. A kitchen towel

Additional kitchen gadgets for the perfectionists out there:
7. A banneton basket for circular design on the bread
8. A razor lame for fancy scoring
9. A metal bench scraper
10. A plastic dough scraper
11. Rice flour (gluten-free) to line the proofing basket

Pandemic Cooking: Dumplings from Scratch

During this pandemic where we both WFH, we finally found time to learn how to make dumpling skins from scratch.

Since we only need to make enough for two, this feels less overwhelming than when we were making dumplings for our Thanksgivings and Christmas meals.

The homemade skins were so supple and soft that they made the dumpling wrapping such a pleasure to do. What team work!
And the end result was simply amazing.

Pandemic Baking: Easy One Bowl Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Recipe

Everyone is baking at home during the pandemic.
If you are new at baking and want to try your hands at an easy recipe, try this one.
This recipe is super-easy and the result is a delicious and moist chocolate chip banana bread.

Ingredients:

• 3 ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cup (200g) all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
• [optional] 1 TBSP 2% greek yogurt

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 deg F
• In a bowl, smash the bananas then add melted butter and mix until smooth
• Add sugar, egg, vanilla, yogurt, mix well
• Add flour, baking soda, salt and mix until batter is smooth
• Add chocolate chips
• Pour batter into a greased loaf pan lined with parchment paper
• Top with additional chocolate chips
• Bake for 50 minutes to one hour
• Remove from pan and let cool completely before cutting

Pandemic Cooking: Char Siu Recipe

Do you have a craving for Chinese BBQ pork, also known as Char Siu?
If you are sheltering-at-home and practicing social distancing, and don't want to go to your favorite Chinese restaurant, you are in luck!

This recipe requires just a few ingredients and the result is just amazing!

Marinade:

• 1 1/2 TBSP brown sugar (white OK too)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 3 TBSP light soy sauce
• 1 tsp five spice powder
• 1 TBSP oil (vegetable or canola)
• [optional] red food colouring or red fermented bean curd 

Cooking:

• 2.5 - 3 lb boneless pork shoulder
• 2 TBSP extra honey 

Instructions:

• Mix marinade in a bowl
• Cut pork in half horizontally (long flat thin pieces) for better flavor penetration
• Marinade pork for 48 hours in the refrigerator

• Preheat the grill to 350 deg F
• Pour reserved marinade in a small saucepan; add extra honey and simmer until syrupy
• Grill the marinaded pork at 350 deg F
• Flip often (~ every 10-15 minutes) to prevent burning
• Brush with reserved marinade every flip
• Total grill time is about 40-45 minutes; use meat thermometer to check pork internal temperature to reach 160 deg F for doneness