Vietnamese cuisine is light, fresh, and uses a variety of easily sourced ingredients, yet it is often overlooked by home cooks. If you've had the opportunity to travel in Vietnam, you are likely familiar with the local specialties that leave you longing to return to Southeast Asia again. For those who have not had the opportunity to travel through Vietnam, you can still cook Southeast Asian cuisine right from your kitchen at home.
Nancie McDermott's Quick and Easy Vietnamese is a wonderful resource and explains ingredients and recipes in a completely understandable manner. She is also the author of Quick and Easy Thai, another favorite cookbook of mine.
Necessary Ingredients for a Vietnamese Pantry
A number of the ingredients needed for Vietnamese cooking can be kept in the pantry for easy weeknight preparation. Here are a few of the useful ingredients to keep on hand:
- Dried rice noodles
- Fish sauce
- Peanuts, roasted and salted
- Soy sauce, regular and dark
- Fragrant rice - Jasmine, Basmati
- Caramel sauce
- Coconut milk, unsweetened
- Dark roast coffee
- Spices - curry powder, cloves, dill, star anise, cinnamon sticks, white sesame seeds, dried chili flakes
- Chinese dried mushrooms (shitakes)
- Sugarcane (water packed in cans)
- Sweetened condensed milk
- Oyster sauce
- Banana leaves (available frozen)
Many of these items are available at your regular grocery store, but for the more difficult items, Quick and Easy Vietnamese contains a page with mail-order resources.
Special Kitchen Equipment
Much like other types of Asian cuisine, much of what you have at home will work to prepare dishes found in the cookbook. In her cookbooks, Nancie McDermott offers help sections, including one on special equipment needed. Here are a few of those key items, which are actually essential for any home cook, no matter what type of cuisine you prefer to cook:
- Good knives -- if you like to cook, you should have a set of good knives on hand
- Strong cutting board -- keep extras if you have space (one for meat, fish, vegetables, etc.)
- Tongs, spatulas, and big spoons -- all essential kitchen tools no matter what type of cuisine you want to cook
- Pots and pans -- Definitely have a good wok and a variety of pan and skillet sizes
- Blender and mini-food processor -- these can make your life so much easier
Other more specialized kitchen equipment includes an electric rice cooker, mortar and pestle, and steaming equipment. For those who like to cook ethnic cuisine in general, these are good items to invest in. The rice cooker is the heart of many types of Asian cuisine and steamer baskets or pots with built in steamers are great. Steaming food is such a healthy way to prepare dishes and these are invaluable pieces of equipment to have on hand. A good mortar and pestle is essential in many types of ethnic cuisines wherein you need to make your own sauces and curries from scratch.
Recipes in Quick and Easy Vietnamese
There are 75 recipes in ten chapters and an eleventh chapter that contains Vietnamese menus. Chapters in Quick and Easy Vietnamese include:
- Appetizers and Snacks
- Soups
- Chicken and Eggs
- Beef and Pork
- Fish and Shellfish
- Salads and Vegetables
- Rice
- Noodles
- Sweets and Drinks
- Sauces and other Basic Recipes
As with Quick and Easy Thai, the recipes in Quick and Easy Vietnamese are quite easy to follow and execute. The cookbook contains traditional Vietnamese recipes and most are relatively simple to make, even for the less experienced home cook.
Be sure to try recipes like Pho Noodles with Beef, Hanoi Style (page 128), which is a Vietnamese specialty. The broth is easy to make and the smell of cinnamon, cloves, and star anise will warm up any home. Also known as Pho Bo, you can also make Pho with pork if you prefer.
Another Vietnamese delight is Sugarcane Shrimp, or Chao Tom (page 27). These are great to make for dinner parties and simple to execute. These are basically minced shrimp with spices cooked on small pieces of sugarcane. If you are unable to locate sugarcane, just make them into small patties and serve without the sugarcane. These are not to be missed so do not skip making them if you cannot locate sugarcane.
Do not forget to try the Vietnamese Coffee recipe (page 154) after your dinner. Vietnamese coffee has French roots and is dark roast and sweetened with condensed milk or simple syrup.
About the Author - Nancie McDermott
Nancie McDermott spent time in Thailand and learned how to make traditional Southeast Asian cuisine during her time there. Once she returned to the United States, she longed to replicate the recipes she had grown to love while abroad.
McDermott has taught cooking classes and contributed food and travel articles to a variety of publications, including Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, FoodArts, and the Los Angeles Times. She has published a host of books over the years and is a frequent television guest chef. Aside from her Thai cookbooks, other books she has authored include The 5 in 10 Pasta and Noodle Cookbook (1994) and The Curry Book: Memorial Flavors and Simply Irresistible Recipes (1997).
- Title: Quick and Easy Vietnamese: 75 Everyday Recipes
- Author: Nancie McDermott
- Publisher: Chronicle Books (2006)
- List Price: $19.95 US, 167 pages
- ISBN: 0-8118-4434-X
Erin De Santiago - Erin is a freelance travel, food/wine, & Disney writer in Taipei, Taiwan, who has traveled within 40+ different countries to date.
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