Lily & Leo

One of my favorite Vietnamese dishes is Bánh Bột Chiên, a common street snack in certain parts of Vietnam, that consisted of this rice cake that’s fried with green onions and eggs.  I wanted to make it for Khoa since it’s Lent season and he doesn’t eat seafood and we can’t eat meat on Fridays.  I wanted to buy the premade rice cake and just cut it up and fry it, but they didn’t have it at the asian market I was at, so I had to make it from scratch!  The recipe says to steam it but I didn’t have one that was big enough, so I made my own contraption with a large shallow pot, a wire rack and lots of foil and stuck it in the oven at 200 degrees F haha! It worked so I’m happy with that!  It came out super yummy, and I’m feeling more in touched with my Vietnamese roots!  I found the recipe here on Helen’s Recipes (Vietnamese Food) Youtube channel.  Her Youtube Channel is amazing for authentic Vietnamese food recipes!  She has a website for all her recipes too here.  Click here for the recipe!  The only thing I changed was instead of using Black Soy Sauce, I used Thick Soy Sauce (not sure what the difference is but my Mom told me to use Thick Soy Sauce so I did, mother know’s best!).  I also used red vinegar instead of white/black vinegar for the dipping sauce.  Khoa loved it, and Lily does too!!

We were eating out on beautiful Saturday morning, and we let Lily eat some noodles for the first time!  She LOVED it and had so much fun playing and eating all the noodles.  So, I was feeling adventurous, and I decided to attempt to make Phở Bò for the first time, and from scratch!  I always wanted to be one of those moms who make amazing homemade phở from scratch, but I always thought it was way out of my skill zone.  However, I have to remind myself now and then that I must try otherwise I’ll never know what I’m capable of!  So once again, I used the recipe from Helen’s Recipes found here.  I don’t eat phở since I don’t like the noodles, but I do like the broth and beef.  I figured I can make this anyways for Khoa and Lily to enjoy since I love making them happy in anyway I can!  TIPS (that I found useful when searching for all the ingredients): Cardamon (an indian spice plant) is also labelled as amomum in the asian supermarket.  I spent so much time in the spice aisle looking for cardamon, it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t find it!  So when you search for cardamon and can’t find it, try looking for amomum!  Also, you need a large empty tea bag to put the small spices in, but you can also use the little mesh tea balls as well!  Those are more secure and your spices won’t risk falling out.  Lastly, if you don’t have easy access to a grill like Helen does in her video, my alternative was to lay my ingredients on a cookie sheet or tray, and put it on the top rack in my oven and broil it will it’s a little charred!  My house smelled amazing really quickly after I did that! =P  Traditional phở bò is cooked overnight to bring out the rich flavors from the beef bones (or chicken bones, whichever flavor you’re making), but I was a little worried about leaving the stove on overnight.  (After I’ve seen the broth simmer for hours…I can now see why it’s not TOO big of a deal).  So instead, I let it simmer for as long as I could before Khoa got hungry =P (about 4 hours total instead of the basic 2 hours if you don’t do it overnight).  It was finally time for Khoa to taste test, and to my surprise, Khoa loved it and said it was REALLY REALLY good and flavorful!  I’m so happy, I feel like I’ve achieved something grand!!  Lily had difficulty eating the noodles for this one since it was so slippery but she LOVED the broth!!  She liked to drink it up straight from the bowl!  The most important part of phở is the broth too, and it was very clear and flavorful, big success!!  YAY!