Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

Josh made this the other night with a recipe that I suggested (got to get myself in for a bit of credit here) from Pauline Nguyen’s Secrets of the Red Lantern, which is a really, really fantastic book. I literally took it on the train and read it everyday from cover to cover. This is one cookbook I strongly recommend, not for just their great recipes (and believe me, if Josh cooked with it and it turned out well, it’s good recipes because he would follow instructions whereas I just read it once and then wing it), but for the stories of her family and all the events in their lives. I can’t recommend it enough (by the way, I got it at Costco for about $40. Score.)

We adapted a bit (again, he may have made it but I was yelling instructions ) by using beef rather than chicken and adding some green beans. This recipe was enough for the two of us plus lunches on the next day. Read the rest of this entry »

I had this a few times at Thai’s Vietnamese family meals. I loved these DIY rolls. It’s totally one of those really awesome communal eating occasions that I love so much. The idea is you prepare all the salads, noodles and sauce and get everyone to help themselves with the rolls. Genius. Entertain guests without lots of efforts. Amount of ingredients listed here are for abou4 people.

(my roll. nom nom)

There are quite a few combinations of these rice paper rolls. Beef and onion rice paper rolls go with nuoc cham sauce. Simple boiled, sliced pork, cooked prawns or steamed fish go well with the hoisin/peanut sauce. I quite like the beef & onion combination a little more so I make that a bit more often. Read the rest of this entry »