Vietnamese food...

[Trielelvan]

I haz a question preez.
While shopping at a Mường market, I came across Bánh Hỏi Tươi - Vietnamese super thin fresh rice noodles.
Once I removed the cellophane and felt the brick, I realized (sadly lol) that these do NOT translate well for the dish I was preparing. It's almost like fine spider silk strands woven together in layers. So beautiful.

I did a little research on how to prepare them correctly this time, but I'd like to get some first person feedback.

Has anyone had these before? (I'm assuming Jay and Drem have at some point ) What kind of meat and vegetable is best to serve with this?

P.S. I am getting excited for Chinese New Year coming up. I am making Nian Gao with sweet red bean paste, Char Sui Bao, and Guo Tie (pan fried potstickers) for my in-laws for the first time.

[Drem]

well you can use them in lots of dishes but i would make some sort of sea-food stock with fresh cleaned shrimp added in at the end and maybe tilapia and tofu, but cook the soup with chili flakes (lots), shallots, fish sauce (little), white pepper, perilla, ngo om to compliment the noodles, and minced or rondelled thai chilis, a little sugar, and fresh basil and cilantro and possibly water cress and bean sprouts. but you gotta labor over that for a few hours and don't put the fresh herbs in until you're actually eating it or you cook away all the nutrients and flavors. i assume you know how to make nuoc cham to add to your soups and dip your spring rolls in and spice your bun cha etc? if not just go look it up it's really simple and fresh and delicious

or make a thai dish like tom yum goong which is like shrimp soup with a shitload of spice. the recipe for that is a little more intricate and it involves shrimp, mushrooms, kaffir limes & leaves, tamarind zest, lemongrass, and a core paste made up of shallots, garlic, shrimp paste, sugar, and maybe salt if you're not using fish sauce in the stock

obviously kaffir limes and tamardin zest are optional but you need the lemongrass and that paste so go look up a recipe. there are all sorts of things you can make with those little glass noodles

[Drem]

also there's this nice vietnamese appetizer called banh nep which is similar to those potstickers you mentioned but i think they're my favorite potstickers ever. first you steam them for like 15 minutes to puff them up and make the dough thicken and then you deep fry or pan fry them briefly at high temp and you get this amazing golden brown potsticker of awesomeness. try it sometime. and you just dip it in the normal soy/sugar/water/spices mixture and it tastes .... mmmm... i wanna go get some now..

[Drem]

also if you're feeling particularly daring and you have scallops around you can do the nest trick and cook the noodles el dente, chop them into half-inch or maybe quarter-inch strands and then spin a dredged scallop around til it starts to catch and fry them on a bed of arugula or water cress or spinach at the highest possible heat that you can in the shortest amount of time before everything ruins and eat up nom nom nom

just keep in mind that vietnamese food is like 30% or more french because the french owned that country and imparted lots of new techniques, items, and flavors that other asian countries don't have (like shallots and baguettes). though what i just mentioned above has nothing to do w/ vietnamese food save for the tiny noodles :p

[Trielelvan]

well you can use them in lots of dishes but i would make some sort of sea-food stock with fresh cleaned shrimp added in at the end and maybe tilapia and tofu, but cook the soup with chili flakes (lots), shallots, fish sauce (little), white pepper, perilla, ngo om to compliment the noodles, and minced or rondelled thai chilis, a little sugar, and fresh basil and cilantro and possibly water cress and bean sprouts...

That sounds like heaven in a bowl. Screw chicken soup lol
Ok, so would you steam the noodle cake, put in a bowl, and just ladle the soup over it? Or not cook it and let the hot soup do the job? Maybe the noodles I've gotten are just really cheap, but they mush right up rather quickly, so I worry about the texture here. The one layer I attempted to boil turned into goo. The other I tried to pan steam worked out better, but the center was still very, very soft.
And yep, nuoc cham ingredients are a staple in my home as summer rolls are as well.

I don't think the nest trick would work with these. Maybe with the slightly thicker vermicelli rice sticks. The brick really does not come apart at all except in layers, and each layer is like noodle fabric... hmm... although... that gives me an idea.

The potsticker you mention btw does sound very similar in cooking, except that I start them off lightly browning the bottoms, add water and cover to steam, then fry until golden and crisp instead of steaming from the get go.
Either way - nom nom nom yum. It sounds fantastic.

Thank you very much for the recommendations

[Jay]

You would boil the noodles, let them dry a bit them ladle soup onto it yes. Usually with some sort of seafood or chicken depending on what you felt like cooking. It's called Hu tieu. That's if it's the clear looking noodles. If it's the white noodles then you can make Bun Canh or Bun Bo or something of that nature.

[Phlegm]

Banh hoi tuoi is already cooked if that whats i am think of. It's not for soup making. I eat with nem nuong, roasted pork or duck, or shrimp paste on sugar cane stick. It also use to as an ingredient in wraps.

[Drem]

yeah you can do a lot with these noodles but phlegm is traditionally correct. and nem nuong is the marinated pork pate i mentioned earlier

so darcler, after you finish boiling the noodles you need to strain it under COLD WATER until the water runs completely clean (move the noodles around w/ your fingers to get all the starch off) or it will all mush together soon after you take it out of the boiling water and the starches cool down

then you press them into little balls or sheets or whatever. the idea is like, when you bite them they're a big solid mass but then they break apart in your mouth

but i think you can make from spring rolls to soup with these noodles tbqh

[Phlegm]

You don't cook it. Banh hoi is already cooked.Tuoi means fresh in english. It usually come as a side for use in wraps. It comes on a plate top with scallions in oil.

[Phlegm]

http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/20 ... odles.html

[Drem]

oh i missed the fresh part, sorry, i just get excited when people talk about vietnamese food. i thought she just said she bought a bag of noodles and needed to know what to do. i thought she was saying they were dehydrated rice noodles

and instead of just googling everything and copying and pasting you should try your banh hoi with a lot of other stuff (only saying that because everything you've mentioned so far is on that website). the vietnamese i ate them with just used them as a bun noodle and made great bun cha. older vietnamese always wanted animal innards and shit with them. other ppl made spring rolls. other ppl took those spring rolls and deep fried them. other ppl ate them with just herb topping on the noodles. it doesn't matter. they're just rice noodles bro.

i've been eating this kinda crap for like 1.5 years on a daily basis because she hated any food that wasn't vietnamese.... you'll come to realize the entire vietnamese kitchen only needs about nine ingredients to make everything the culture has to offer. and like the french, they've got a name for everything

also, try garlic-chive compound butter over your noodle plate instead of oil-sweatted garlic and scallions

[Phlegm]

actually, i googled after i wrote all that and got that page. I live in the San Jose area which has like thousands of vietnamese restaurants so I tried many of the vietnamese dishes. Although my two favorite is nem nuong and chao tom. My favorite noodle soup is bun rieu.

[Drem]

oh nice. and hell yeah it does. all the vietnamese here constantly talk about seattle and california. they're like immigrant meccas or something for them

i've not had bun rieu tho it sounds pretty tasty. my favorite out of all the stuff i got exposed to was definitely bo xao xa ot. really simple tho i guess. thit kho kho or anything with that caramel-like fish sauce/sugar/garlic stuff was really delicious as well

[Jay]

I'm honestly not a huge fan of Vietnamese food. I like it, but I don't get hard over it unless it's Banh Xeo or Pho. Bun rieu is pretty good too but I can't eat that more than once every couple of weeks. Banh Xeo or Pho I could eat every single day with no complaints.

[Trielelvan]

oh i missed the fresh part, sorry, i just get excited when people talk about vietnamese food. i thought she just said she bought a bag of noodles and needed to know what to do. i thought she was saying they were dehydrated rice noodles

While shopping at a Mường market, I came across Bánh Hỏi Tươi - Vietnamese super thin fresh rice noodles.

lol sorry, thought I was pretty clear.

so darcler *snip*

also... I am not Darcler

Thank you!

I had a feeling they were intended for use as a wrap since Vietnamese food has a kind of love affair with wrapping food. It made sense they way they come apart in sheets that don't really unravel at all.
Also, I steamed a few and used them to wrap some spicy pork and cabbage (nothing fancy - just quick prep in soy, sugar, garlic, pepper, ginger, and sesame oil topped with sriracha ) = win. Delicate and delicious and fabulous.

I really am not too big a fan of most Vietnamese fare either. Of what I've had, it's been 50/50 super delicious or super disgusting (my friend Thuy introduced me to a number of things I don't ever wish to taste or smell again... the "dessert cookie" thing nearly made me puke right at the table) with very little middle ground.
There are, however, a number of foods I absolutely love from the culture (e.g. lamb coconut curry with onions... omg yum), so I try to keep open-minded about everything until I've actually tried it... with a couple minor exceptions... like balut *gag*.
Drem, I looked up thit kho. Very like my mother's tau yu bak. I think this is a must-try now.

[leah]

you guys make me hungry. although i don't believe i've ever had vietmanese food and i am not very adventurous. nor can i cook.

FOOD FAIL!

[Drem]

yeah i don't know if i'm used to most of the flavor profiles yet but the nutritional value of almost every vietnamese food is amazing. it really is some of the healthiest, freshest food you can ever eat

but things like chicken feet and congealed pork blood triangles and any offal whatsoever isn't too appealing to me