Food that I've never taken the time to write down

I first started cooking food with my mom when I was twelve. She wanted me to help out around the house more since she was about to give birth to my sister. From that time, I have a collection of Vietnamese recipes that I learned to make by taste and feel rather than by recipes written down in a book. When I make these recipes, the ingredients and proportions change depending on my mood and on what's available.

Driving around Belfast today, we encountered a couple of Asian markets and our friend Paul asked me to make him some Vietnamese food. I made Hot and Sour Chicken Soup and Lemon Grass Grilled Pork. We got to talking about recipes and he asked me to send him these and a couple of others. Since I took the time to put them down, I figured I would go ahead and put them on the blog for others to use (Brady, I'm thinking about you in Charlottesville). Alas, no pictures.

Here are the recipes:

Hot and Sour Chicken Soup (though you can use fish or shrimp)

3 cloves garlic, sliced
2 stalks lemon grass, cut into 1-inch pieces and smashed with a knife
1/2 onion, cut into 1/2-inch wedges
1 small tomato, cut into quarters
.6 kilo okra, cut into 1-inch pieces and boiled for a few minutes
2 stalks celery (sliced thinly) or taro root
1 red pepper, sliced 1/4-inch pieces
6 cups water
3 chicken bouillon cubes
1 lb chicken, cut up into pieces
1 can pineapple chunks, drained of liquid
fish sauce
salt
tamarind paste
chili garlic sauce
brown sugar
2 tbs chopped cilantro

Saute garlic, lemon grass and onions in vegetable oil until fragrant. Add chili garlic sauce (2 tbs). Add chicken and saute for 1 minute. Then add celery and pepper, saute for 1 minute. Add water, bouillon cubes, tamarind paste. Bring the water to a boil. Add the pineapple chunks, 3 tbs fish sauce, 1 1/2 tbs brown sugar, 1 tbs salt. Simmer for 10 minutes, check for flavor and add more fish sauce, salt, tamarind past, chili sauce or sugar as needed. Stir in cilantro just before serving.

Grilled Lemon Grass Pork

500 grams pork tenderloin, sliced thinly
2 stalks lemon grass, sliced thinly
3 tbs fish sauce
1.5 tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Mix together all ingredients. Marinate for at least 20 minutes, longer is better. Put the pork on skewers. Grill until done.

Vietnamese dipping sauce (My mom's down and dirty dipping sauce; no frills, no fuss)

Equal portions of (use the same container to measure out each):
fish sauce
sugar
vinegar
water

Mix ingredients together well, make sure that sugar is completely dissolved. For additional kick/flavor, you can add thinly sliced garlic or chopped thai chilis or chili garlic paste.

Chicken and rice soup

1/2 chicken
1/2 cup rice
6 cups water
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 tbs vegetable oil
5 tbs ginger, chopped
fish sauce
salt
black pepper
cilantro
1 green onion, sliced thin

Bring to boil chicken and water with a pinch of salt. Once starts to boil, turn heat down to simmer for 30 minutes. Saute garlic until golden brown and then add the rice until it's opaque white. Add the rice mixture to the water. Cook chicken and rice together for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, take the chicken out and let cool. Cook rice for an additional 45 minutes. Pull the chicken off the bone and throw the bones back into the rice mixture. Shred the chicken into thin pieces. After the 45 minutes, add shredded chicken, ginger and fish sauce to taste. Serve with lots of black pepper, a sprinkling of cilantro and green onion.

Taking a small break

The first picture perfectly captures our first day in Belfast - sitting at a Gaelic football field sipping on a Guinness. Jacob and I decided to take a small break, "mini-retirement" as he likes to call it, and travel around the world. It was kind of a reward for the last two years of hard work with my masters program.

It was a hectic couple of weeks wrapping things in DC, cleaning, packing and getting things ready to sublet our room. The last few days were a little crazy. But I think that we got things in order pretty well, and hopefully our new sublet is enjoying the room as much as we did.

After some flight delays out of Washington, we arrived in Dublin and made our way by bus to Belfast. Our friend, Paul, met us and has been hosting us at his house. The weather's been beautiful ever since we got here. It's almost not like Ireland. Jacob and I last visited in 2002 and toured Southern Ireland where it rained off and on every day of our trip.

Yesterday we were able to take a drive down the coast of Northern Ireland to the Giant's Causeway. It was beautiful. Jacob claimed an island that he found that wasn't on any of our maps. He named it after himself.



You can see the island over Jacob's shoulder in this picture.

The Giants Causeway was awesome! It was perfect weather to walk around. The rock formations were really interesting. They really look manmade rather than natural.



We have a few more days in Belfast. It's a really interesting city and Paul's been telling us a lot of the history. I'll post of the murals that the city is known for next time.

Thanksgiving Menu

I haven't done an all out Thanksgiving meal in a couple of years. Before grad school, I would usually throw an early Thanksgiving party for friends in DC with all of the traditional fixings and then head back NC for a helping of my mom's awesome Vietnamese food. Since grad school started, I haven't had nearly as much time to cook grand meals. These days, it's doctored ramen noodles, take out, and if I'm feeling ambitious, something really simple and by default Vietnamese.

This Thanksgiving, my husband and I will be celebrating in DC with my in-laws coming in on Thursday and some friends who are in town. This is the menu that I have planned for the day:

Lentil and ham soup with kale
Green bean salad with feta
Roasted brussel sprouts with Asian vinaigrette
Butterflied roast turkey
Mushroom, leek and parmesan stuffing
Cranberry and pineapple relish
Buttermilk mashed potatoes
Roasted root vegetables
Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin pie

Here are the items my roommates will cook:

Bread
Avocado eggrolls

And our guests have volunteered to bring:

Vegetarian dressing
Candied sweet potatoes
Greens
Chocolate pecan pie
Assorted Bengali appetizers

Will hopefully post pictures and recipes soon.

Ibrahim

P7090321, originally uploaded by anna.purna.

This is Ibrahim. At the end of the trip, he offered my husband two camels and a house for his sister.

Through the desert on a camel named Sam

P7070268, originally uploaded by anna.purna.

I said that I followed the tourist routes when I went to Morocco. That included a trip through the desert. There were five people in my group. We spent a couple of days in Fez comparing prices and trying to rent an SUV that we could take into the desert. In Morocco, you can get anything you want; you just have to bargain for it, which takes days. And lots of patience. And a lot of tea.

It finally ended up being cheaper to rent a driver and SUV through a service than to try and rent an SUV by ourselves. This was fine, the deal included the driver, car, lodging and meals.

Our driver was this very friendly, really funny guy named Ibrahim who spoke neither English, nor French, nor Spanish, nor Arabic. He knew a small amount of words in each of these languages, just enough to get by. The trip coincided with the end of Ramadan and I think we ended up getting Ibrahim because he was the only one willing to work during that time.

The desert was a great experience. It was beautiful and serene. The sky was so clear you could see all of the stars and the Milky Way to boot. But boy was it cold. We slept in a big with all of our clothes on. In the morning, the Berber guides woke us up, pointed to the nearest sand dune and told us to, "Quick run up there to see the sunrise!" In our dazed state, we did. About 3/4 of the way up that sand dune, I thought my lungs were going to collapse.

But it was a beautiful sunrise. And we were packed on top of our camels to return to civilization after breakfast.

The romantic in me

I thought this site was such a great idea. I can't believe that he actually found her.

Sights and sounds of Morocco

P6290021, originally uploaded by anna.purna.

A few years ago, my husband and I visited Morocco. We went along the usual tourist route, Marrakech, Essaouira, Casablanca, Fez and the desert. But whenever we could, we stayed within the wall of the medinas, the old city centers. You can still find some great bargains tooling around the souks and letting yourself get lost in the labyrinthine passageways.

There's something about the combination of woodsmoke, spices and the slight chill in the air that comes with autumn that brings back tangible memories of that trip.