My co-worker was also surprised when I ordered the dish for our post-hike lunch, he asked "that's a Vietnamese dish?" because the place we went had a little more twists on their food. I guess it is not familiar to most people as pho unless you are close with folks who know Vietnamese food. Lack of familiarity is similar to my co-workers thinking when I ate vegetarian it's just salads. So much variety within cuisines beyond the familiar/popular dishes that we can discover. I love to stumble across them, through people, travel or a post (saw an article from Facebook on an illness affecting the senses and sex that can come from certain infected fish, which lead me to people interested Russian comfort food because of the Olympics (mmm, dill pickle and mushroom soup-rassolnik sounds fun).
I tried this recipe from the Kitchn, without needing to make substitutes, other than leaving out the split mung beans and not doing a mix of herbs, just one. I didn't have the cilantro for the filling either. I think what I bought was shiso or perilla, checking out these gorgeous pictures of common herbs in Vietnamese cuisine at Girl Cooks World. It imparted a very flavorful lemon taste to me.Anyway, next time I would probably try to plan ahead enough to try the mung bean to give the recipe a bit more protein staying power.
Makes 2 crepes
1. Filling
*1/4 cup soaked split yellow mung beans overnight
1/2 to 1 pkg bunapi mushroom-rinse and chopped off the bottom part to separate mushrooms
2 scallions (white and green parts), chopped
1 cup mung bean sprouts, rinsed
Heat a pan on medium, add 1 tsp oil and let it heat a few minutes. Cook up the white part of the scallion and the mushrooms. until lightly browned. Put aside in a bowl while you get ready to cook the crepe.
2. Crepes-if you have a bag of premixed, skip the first 3 ingredients (depending, check to see if your mix has salt in it)
3/4 cup rice flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon turmeric
2/3 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup water
Put a tsp of oil the pan and let it heat a few minutes on medium. While waiting, whisk together all ingredients in a Medium bowl. Pour in half the batter and spread it around to form a circle. Add half the cooked filling evenly sprinkled on top of the crepe. Let bottom brown and batter cook through. About 5-7 minutes. On mine at 5 minutes I folded the crepe in half and after a minute flipped it on the other side. While waiting for your crepe to cook you can prepare the greens.
3. Greens-(to wrap around the crepe)
3-5 large lettuce leaves
4-5 different sprigs of herbs
Rinse them, remove the herb leaves from the stem.
4. Sauce-
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons water
1 clove garlic, crushed
Mix together.
To eat your crepe dish, rip off a piece of crepe, wrap a bit of lettuce around it, tuck a leaf or two of herbs, and dip into the sauce. Refreshing and light meal.
Have you discovered a new food this month? Has the Olympics inspired you in anyway?
