Recipe - Tofu Báhn Mì

My first memory of a Báhn Mì comes from about 5 years ago, and it is one of amazement.  A friend in Atlanta and I were going to a concert and she brought along some Vietnamese sandwiches from a shop near her house.  

I was seriously amazed.  How did I not know this existed?  It’s like the original fusion food, from long before the invention of Korean burritos and Mexican pizzas.

It was another few years before the thought occurred to me to make my own and I have to say that too often I forget about what a wonderful meal Báhn Mì sandwiches make.  Recently I remembered them and made them for dinner and we all enjoyed just how fresh and bursting with flavour they are!

You can make these with meat, tofu, tempeh, eggs, or even just a ton of delicious veggies.  As one blog has pointed out, a good Báhn Mì is the sum of its parts, thus the important thing is to have a nice array of super fresh fillings. 

Summer is the best time for these sandwiches because veggies are at their most abundant and tastiest.  Fresh cilantro, mint, lettuce and other greens, thinly sliced carrots, radishes, and cucumbers, peppers, grilled zucchini and other veggies, there is no limit to what you can put on these guys!  For garnish a bit of mayonnaise and sriracha sauce (Vietnamese sweet hot sauce) is enough, but you can certainly add more.

The marinade for the meat or protein can be a simple mixture of soy sauce, garlic, oil, and lemon balm (if you have it growing rampantly in your yard like we do!).  

This recipe is loosely modeled on The Kitchn’s recipe for Báhn Mì with Lemongrass Tofu, but we added a half pound of bacon for some extra fun and crispiness.  Almost all the ingredients can be sourced through Bailey’s, including the tofu!  Substitute a locally made hot sauce or salsa for the sriracha to keep things really local.  

Tofu Báhn Mì Sandwich

Serves 4-6

Tofu and Marinade:

1 package firm tofu, sliced into 6-8 long slabs

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon local oil

1 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)

2 handfuls lemon balm, minced (or lemongrass)

1 clove garlic, minced

Veggies (this is flexible so use what you have):

1-2 carrots, julienned (sliced in matchsticks)

1-2 cucumbers, julienned

1 daikon radish, julienned

1 red onion, thinly sliced

Rice wine vinegar

Salt and pepper

Cilantro

Mint

Lettuce

Jalapeño peppers, sliced

French bread or ciabatta bread

Mayonnaise

Sriracha sauce

Optional (but definitely voids the vegetarian/vegan aspect!):

Bacon!  

To make the marinated tofu, mix together the soy sauce, oil, lemon balm, and garlic, add the tofu and marinate in the fridge for an hour or more.  

Mix together the julienned veggies, add a few splashes of rice wine vinegar, salt, and pepper.  Remove long or tough stems from the cilantro and mint.

Fry the marinated tofu in a bit of oil over medium-high heat until it is golden brown on both sides.

Serve by putting all the fillings on the table, slicing open the bread, and let everyone make their own sandwich.

Salad Season - Simple Vinaigrette on Bacon & Radish Salad.

My goal these days is to eat as much salad as possible.  That’s mostly because our backyard garden is bursting with lettuce, kale, spinach, and more!  It’s also because I want to stock up on the leafy goodness before the weather gets too hot and they start turning bitter.  Ultimately though it’s mainly because I love salads and never seem to get sick of the endless possibilities and combinations!

Rather than dump store-bought salad dressings on these wonderful local greens, I find it better to create a spontaneous salad dressing for each unique salad.  The easiest way to make a salad dressing is to start with oil and vinegar (both of which can be local too!).  Then I follow with some garlic or herbs, a bit of mustard, honey, sometimes a bit of mayonnaise or yogurt to help make it more creamy, and finally some salt and pepper.  Here’s what a typical dressing recipe looks like:

·        ¼ local oil (sunflower, soy, canola, etc.)

·        2-3 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (preferably raw)

·        1 clove garlic, minced

·        1 tbsp. homemade mustard

·        1-2 tsp. honey

·        1 tbsp. yogurt

·        salt and pepper

If the salad features lots of heavier greens like kale and mature spinach I like to add some bacon to the mix (there are some health arguments in favour of this*).  My favourite way to do this is to fry 1 or 2 pieces of bacon, chopped up, and then toss the greens in the pan after turning off the heat.  The greens don’t need to cook, they just get quickly coated with the delicious bacon grease and then thrown in to the salad and everything gets tossed together with a bit of cider vinegar.

Recently I took the bacon idea a bit further and fried pieces of stale sourdough bread and thin slices of fresh radishes in the bacon grease.  This salad turned out awesome.  The end result was a salad featuring fresh lettuce, a bit of kale, croutons and radishes.  A nice addition would have been some crumbled goat cheese but alas, I didn’t have any! 

Another great addition to salads is fruit.  When adding fruit—dried or fresh—I usually leave out the sweetener in the dressing because I don’t want the salad to taste too sweet.  Now that strawberry season is here I’m excited for all the new possibilities!  How about you, care to share any favourite salad additions, or family recipe tips?

*http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20040727/fat-helps-vegetables-go-down

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA401137/Is-Lard-Healthy.html

http://nourishedkitchen.com/green-beans-bacon-shallots/

KW-Chi (A Kimchi for KW)

I’m very new to the world of fermentation, especially when it comes to foods.  I didn’t grow up eating sauerkraut and still find it a bit odd.  However, the first time I had kimchi I knew I’d have to learn how to make it (because I’m kind of cheap, but mostly because I love learning how to make new things!).  So I took two recipes and made my own version using as many local ingredients as I good.  The result is KWimchi, or KW-Chi, or a Kimchi for KW. 

Trying to emphasize the ingredients we have available from local farms this kimchi is a bit more of what Sandor Katz would call a Kraut-Chi.  Regardless of what you call it, it is delicious enough to eat by itself (which I’ve been doing lately!).

You need most of the following to make it turn out:

·        1 cabbage (napa is the traditional, but I’ve just been using standard cabbage), coarsely chopped

·        3-6 carrots (depends on their size and how much carrot you want), chopped into thin sticks

·        1-3 daikon radishes (same as carrots, it’s your choice how much), chopped into thin sticks

·        2-4 green onions (optional, use them if they’re seasonally available)

·        ¼ cup salt

For the paste:

·        Buy a kimchi chili paste from New City Supermarket in Kitchener (that’s what I did for my first batch)

*Or*

·        50g fresh ginger (a decent sized chunk)

·        3-6 cloves garlic

·        1 tbs. fish sauce

·        1 tbs. honey

·        25-100g chili peppers (you’re going to have to experiment to find your desired heat level, and it also depends on your peppers)

Chop up the cabbage and sprinkle with most of the salt, saving a bit.  Massage the salt into the chopped cabbage, then cover with water.  If need be place something heavy on top of the cabbage to keep it submerged.  Leave it in the salt water for at least 30 minutes and as long as 2 hours.  Rinse it under cold water and drain all the water. 

Make the paste by pureeing the ginger, garlic, fish sauce, honey, and chili peppers.  Add the remaining salt.

Squeeze any remaining water from the cabbage then mix it together with the carrots, radish, and optional green onion in a large bowl.  Wearing rubber gloves work the ginger chili paste into the vegetables until all are coated. 

You could eat it now and it would be like a super spicy coleslaw, and you might as well taste it at this point, but press on (pun intended) to the next step.  Pack the kimchi into a large jar or crock, pressing down with your gloved hands or some sort of food masher, until brine begins to rise from the vegetables.  This takes a while, and if you absolutely can’t get enough liquid from pressing you can add salt water to top up your kimchi. 

In order to ferment properly, the vegetables must be submerged below the liquid.  Place a weight of some sort on top of the vegetables to keep them submerged, some people use a smaller jar filled with water, others use a clean stone.  I ferment in a large crock and use a ceramic coffee container to weigh down the veggies.  Cover the jar (loose enough to allow gas to escape) and let it ferment for about a week.  Experiment with length of ferment by tasting it as it progresses.  When it tastes good (to you or your friend) put it in the fridge to slow fermentation.  If you don’t eat it you might keep it for several months.  Mine lasted one week because we ate it that quickly!

Adapted from these two recipes:

The Kitchn's How to Make Easy Kimchi at Home

Nourished Kitchen's Hot, Salty & Sour: My Kimchi Recipe

From Jon Spee, who shares more of his KW Locavore adventures at localkitchener.ca