30 Vietnamese recipes. Page 1 of 2. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Banh Beo (Hue Steamed Rice Cakes with Shrimp and Scallion Oil).
Little dishes of rice flour and tapioca batter go into the steamer and come out as soft discs, translucent at the rim and opaque white in the middle. This snack from Hue in central Vietnam is topped with dry, crumbly shrimp, toasted in a dry pan until every bit of moisture is gone; any left behind turns soggy on the cake.
In Vietnam this is what people eat for breakfast or when they are feeling unwell, much the way Koreans turn to dakjuk. The broth carries a quiet heat from sliced ginger, and the seasoning is fish sauce rather than soy.
The name is Vietnamese for shaking beef, after the way the wok is shaken so cubes of sirloin sear on every side. It took shape in colonial-era Saigon, when Western cuts of beef arrived and Vietnamese cooks seasoned them their own way, here with oyster sauce, soy and garlic. Once the cubes have a dark crust, the onion softened earlier in butter goes back in, and lime is squeezed over just before serving.
La lot leaves, sold as wild betel, wrap seasoned ground beef and char at the edges while the meat's fat soaks into them, giving each roll a peppery, herbal smell. They are not the betel leaves sold for chewing, so look for the la lot or wild betel label.
Beef shank marinated in fish sauce and garlic simmers for one to two hours with lemongrass and tomato paste, until the meat pulls apart and the broth turns red and lightly thick. It is often traced to southern Saigon kitchens where long French braising met Vietnamese aromatics, and street vendors in Ho Chi Minh City sell it from early morning. Some spoon it over rice; others dip a baguette.
Pork stock thickened lightly with tapioca starch carries crab meat, thick chewy banh canh noodles, and soft curds of egg in this southern Vietnamese soup. The broth should just coat the back of a spoon, and it keeps thickening after the heat is off, so a splash of hot stock at the end loosens it.
Shredded chicken breast and cabbage cut thinner than 2mm are tossed in a sweet-sour dressing of fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. The thick cabbage core is cut out before slicing because it stays tough in the salad. Fish sauce brings salt and savoriness to the lean chicken, lime brings sharpness, and raw cabbage and carrot do the crunching. Poached chicken needs to cool completely before it is pulled apart along the grain. Shredding it hot squeezes out the juices and leaves it dry. Cilantro and roasted peanuts scattered over the top add fragrance and a nutty crunch.
A thin rice batter is spread paper-thin over a cloth set above boiling water, steamed until translucent, then rolled around ground pork with chopped wood ear mushroom. These Hanoi wrappers are far softer and more delicate than wheat ones, so pulling on a sheet while lifting or rolling tears it at once.
Com tam means broken rice: grains that cracked during milling and were once thrown away as unsellable. Today it is the base of a classic Ho Chi Minh City breakfast, and its small pieces take up the meat's marinade well. Instead of a bone-in chop over charcoal, this version uses thin slices of pork shoulder marinated with lemongrass and seared in a pan.
Halved onion and ginger, charred black in a dry pan, lose their raw bite and lend a caramel sweetness to an otherwise clear broth. Thin slices of Korean chadolbaegi brisket go into the bowl raw and cook only from the boiling broth poured over them, staying soft and juicy. The thinner the slices, the better that brief heat reaches the middle. The marbled brisket fat adds more body than standard pho, landing somewhere between Korean gomtang and Vietnamese pho. Bean sprouts, cilantro, and lime on the side let each person tune aroma and acidity, with the cilantro added just before eating so its scent stays fresh.
Thin slices of lotus stem stay crunchy, while shrimp split lengthwise open up a wider surface for the fish sauce dressing to soak into. The vinegar soak at the start removes the astringent aftertaste of the stem; skip it and no amount of dressing hides it. Leave the stems in much past 10 minutes, though, and their own aroma fades as well. Salty, sour and sweet hit together, with cilantro on top, in the style of a Vietnamese goi salad. Resting the tossed salad for 5 minutes or more lets the dressing reach into the shredded carrot and the shrimp.
Crisp at the edges and custard-soft in the middle, these small cup-shaped pancakes come from Vung Tau on Vietnam's southern coast. Coconut milk in the rice batter adds a gentle richness, and shrimp and scallion placed on top cook with the batter before it sets. They are wrapped in lettuce or herbs and dipped in a fish sauce and sugar mix.
The broth gets its heat from dried chilies and smells of lemongrass, with a salty depth from fermented shrimp, and the noodles are bún, thick rice noodles that are round in cross-section. Bean sprouts and lime go on the side, and a few slices of cooked pork blood sausage bring the bowl closer to how it is served in Hue.
Inside go browned pork, carrot and daikon pickled in vinegar, and cilantro, and nothing else. The pâté and cold cuts common on Saigon street carts are left out, which puts more weight on the bread: the baguette is filled the moment it comes out warm with a crackling crust.
Hold the lime and fish sauce dressing until the bowl is about to be eaten; once it hits the rice noodles, they start to go soft. The beef is sliced thin against the grain and needs a pan that is already very hot, with room for the slices to lie in a single layer. Crowded slices give off water, so cook in batches and pull each one as soon as the edges brown and no raw red surface is left. Rinse the boiled noodles hard under cold water to wash off the surface starch, and lay the lettuce and cold noodles in the bowl before the warm beef goes on so the greens do not wilt.
The name echoes the loud sizzle the batter makes when it hits a hot, oiled pan. In southern Vietnam this turmeric-yellow crepe, crisp and lacy at the edges, is torn into pieces, wrapped in lettuce with mint and perilla, and dipped in nuoc cham.
At midday the alleys of Hanoi's Old Quarter fill with smoke from pork grilling over charcoal, and the grilled meat goes into a bowl of sweet, sour fish sauce, eaten with rice vermicelli and herbs. That sauce is thinner than a dip, closer to a light broth sipped between bites. This version grills both small ground-pork patties and pieces of pork neck, and soaks thin slices of carrot in the sauce.
Unlike Korean fish braises, this southern Vietnamese home dish has no chili at all; caramel and black pepper carry the flavor. Sugar is cooked to a dark caramel first, and catfish or another white fish then braises in it with fish sauce and coconut water. Once the sugar passes deep amber and starts to blacken it turns bitter, and the shallots and garlic go into the pot just before that point. Sweet and salty up front, it ends with the bite of pepper.
Soft crab balls rise through a red, tomato-sour broth in this Vietnamese noodle soup. In northern Vietnam the traditional version pounds whole paddy crabs and strains the liquid, which sets into a custard-like layer as it heats, while this recipe mixes crabmeat, ground pork and egg into a sticky paste instead. Everything rides on the balls holding together: the paste goes by the spoonful into broth that is barely moving and stays unstirred until the pieces firm up. Shrimp paste goes in a little at a time because it is strongly salty.
Turmeric-yellow white fish meets a big handful of dill and scallions, and the dill gives off a strong, anise-like smell the moment it hits the hot pan. This Hanoi dish is named after the La Vong restaurant, which has sold nothing else since the late nineteenth century, and a street in the Old Quarter carries its name too. Cod is the fish here, with rice noodles, roasted peanuts and fresh herbs alongside.
Pork marinated in fish sauce, sugar, and garlic and seared over high heat develops a caramelized brown edge while the inside stays juicy. In this southern Vietnamese bowl it goes, still warm, over chilled rice vermicelli and raw greens, and that hot-cold contrast is much of the pleasure. A sweet-sour dressing of lime juice and fish sauce ties meat, noodles, and vegetables together with no broth at all.
Rice paper rather than a wheat wrapper sets these southern Vietnamese rolls apart: it fries into a thin, blistered shell that shatters more sharply than a Chinese egg roll. Rolling tension matters, since a loose roll bursts in the oil and an overly tight one squeezes the pork and glass noodle filling into a hard core. In the south, families gather around Tet to roll them by the hundreds.
Cao lau belongs to Hoi An, where the noodles were traditionally made with water from an old Cham well and lye from the ash of trees on the nearby Cham Islands, giving them a dense chew; at home, thick rice noodles stand in. It is not a soup: only a few spoonfuls of the sticky soy and sugar pan glaze are poured over the noodles, so the bean sprouts, herbs and crumbled fried wonton skins keep their own textures.
Through the softened rice paper you can see pink shrimp and green mint, and since nothing is fried, the rolls eat light. Poached pork belly and shrimp share the wrapper with rice noodles, lettuce, and bean sprouts, while the peanut sauce on the side carries most of the seasoning.