Living on the Pacific Rim is a wonderful exposure to new
spices, herbs, vegetables and combinations, as we discovered cooking from
Charles Phan’s new cookbook, Vietnamese Home Cooking. His gourmet Vietnamese restaurant, The Slanted Door, in the San Francisco Ferry Building, is one of the most popular restaurants in the City. You need reservations
unless you show up right when they open.
I tried several of his recipes and loved some of them and others were
somewhat disappointing. AND, I
admit, that perhaps I didn’t prepare them correctly. I tried his Shaking Beef recipe because it’s pretty popular
at the restaurant but mine didn’t taste as good as his…operator error? I’ll try it again to see if I can make
it better.
I ended up cooking for two* dinners from this cookbook. Our group could not come up with a date
where the majority of the members could come.
Our newbies, Michelle and David, hosted the dinner at their very
charming home. We only had 6 of
us: 4 cooks, Bill, our sommelier, and Janis’ husband, Bill, to round out the
evening. We started the
dinner with a lovely champagne that David provided from his cellar: Non Vintage Franck Bonville Champagne Cuvée
Les Belles Voyes Brut Blanc de Blancs.
It was bright, light on the fruit and very clean finish. The perfect choice to prepare our
palates for the evening to come.
Janis prepared the Crab
and Asparagus Soup for us. She
was going to originally make the Crab and Corn soup as well but could not find
any fresh yellow corn. The white
corn is very sweet but does not have “corn” character. The soup was refreshing. Without looking at the recipe, I
thought we were going to get a creamy soup but this one uses chicken broth,
flavored with the spring asparagus and large chunks of crab that Bill gallantly
cracked and cleaned for Janis. It
was a great start to a satiating evening.
Bill chose a 2004 J. Rochioli
Chardonnay Rachael’s Vineyard, Russian River Valley, Sonoma from his cellar
to serve with the soup. I liked it
but then Rochioli is one of my favorite Callifornia Chardonnays (Mount Eden
Vineyards, being the other!).
We next had the Lotus Leaf
Wrapped Sticky Rice that David prepared. This was a vegetarian version of the Sticky Rice dish that
you often get at Chinese Dim Sum restaurants. It was filled with a wonderful spicy, smoky sauce that
flavored the cubes of tofu, taro, and mushrooms. None of us missed the meat (usually pork and/or chicken in
the Chinese version). The dried
lotus leaves are purchased from Asian Markets and soaked to make them
pliable. Sticky rice is made from
“sweet rice” that is, of course, stickier than regular short grain rice. I really loved the tea
flavor that the lotus leaves give this dish. We tried a 2001
Dönnhoff Norheimer Kirschheck Riesling Spätlese with this dish that David
pulled from his cellar. Because the rice dish wasn’t very spicy,
the Riesling was a great choice for this dish.
We then had the Caramelized
Lemongrass Shrimp that Michelle prepared. We got to get our fingers into this dish pulling the shells
off and licking our fingers . . . even though Michelle thoughtfully provided
finger bowls for all of us. This
was another spicy dish everyone enjoyed.
The lemongrass was overpowered by the spice in this dish. The caramel helped to tone down
the spice in this dish and added some nice depth to it. We all discussed the seemingly wasteful
use of the lemongrass. It is to
peeled down to a core that is maybe 1/8” thick and then sliced into coins and
chopped even further into smaller pieces. The leaves that are peeled off had a wonderful aroma
that we all thought was unfortunate that we couldn’t use. Michelle served this dish with broken
jasmine rice that served a nice foil for the spicy shrimp. David shared a bottle of 2001 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenur
Riesling Spåtlese to drink with this course. We all didn’t think it held up to the spicy shrimp. Pairing wines with this dinner proved
to be more difficult than we had thought.
While Rieslings go really well with spicy Thai dishes, they do
not work as well with Vietnamese dishes.
Maybe next time to try a smoky Syrah?
I tried over 6 recipes from Phan’s book and the Roasted Eggplant and Leek Salad was my
favorite. I love eggplants, leeks
and cilantro and thought the idea of making it into a salad sounded great. I could not find any baby leeks that he
called for but settled for the smallest leeks I could find. I went online and one person said to
substitute scallions but I chose not to because it would change the taste of
the dish. The salad dressing is
what makes this dish. It uses a
smoky chili paste made from ground annatto seeds and Thai peppercorns along
with bean paste, and other ingredients.
The paste is then added to a soy sauce base which is then added to the
salad dressing ingredients. The
good news is that once I made the chili paste, it’s good for about 3 months so
I can easily add it to other dishes. Phan is correct, it is worth the
effort and tastes 10 times better than any bottled version. We drank a divine 1989 S. Anderson
Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Richard Chambers Vineyard, Stags Leap District,
Napa that Bill found in his cellar.
He and David swooned all evening about this cab. It went well with this salad as
well as the next dish, the Lemongrass
Short Rib Stew that I also prepared for this group.
* I must digress here to share a bit about another Vietnamese
Home Cooking dinner that I shared with Jeffrey. Jeffrey was so disappointed, after buying the cookbook, that he
couldn’t make the date that he and I decided to do a separate dinner ourselves and
invite another couple or two.
Tina said she’d like to join us since she bought the book too and
couldn’t make the dinner date either.
So-o-o we set a date on a Monday evening and had dinner on the
mountaintop. At the last minute
Tina had a family emergency and couldn’t make it so it was just Jeffrey and I
cooking. I won’t go into a
lot of detail but we had Fresh Spring Rolls, Lemongrass Chicken, and Steamed Fish in
addition to the Roasted Eggplant and
Leek Salad and the Lemongrass Short Rib Stew that we had for our dinner on the 18th. For dessert at Jeffrey's, I made a Chocolate Walnut Tart to end
the evening on a sweet note. 
The Lemongrass Stew was delicious and everyone enjoyed the spiciness
and the daikon of this dish. The first
time I made it, I added the diced Thai Chili as a garnish, along with the Thai
Basil chiffonade. It made the dish
really hot so I left it off at this dinner but now I think the dish actually needs
that extra kick. Bill found
a 1986 Beringer Cabernet Sauvignon,
Private Reserve to drink with this dish. I liked it and thought it stood up well to the spicy kick in
this dish but Bill and David thought the S. Anderson cab was a better
choice. The Beringer lost its
fruit as the evening wore on, so I too agreed that the S. Anderson was a better
choice. In an effort to find the
perfect wine, David added a lovely Burgundy, 1999 Nuits-Saint-Georges Red
Burgundy, Les Saint-Georges Domaine Robert Chevillon, Premier Cru., to the
dinner to see how they worked or didn’t work with spicy dishes. Although we all loved the
burgundy, it didn’t fare well against the stew.
For this dessert, I prepared a non-cookbook dish (there
weren’t any desserts in this cookbook BTW) that contained Vietnamese
ingredients, Toasted Coconut & Lemongrass Bread Pudding with French Vanilla
Ice Cream. It was
easy to make and the recipe used more of the lemongrass leaves because the
cream and coconut cream was steeped in the toasted coconut and chopped up
lemongrass stems for over an hour.
It wasn’t very sweet which appealed to me but for those who like sugar,
it was a just a rich dessert…maybe
if I added a chocolate sauce to it?
To appease our sugar/chocoholics, Michelle brought out a small platter
of chocolate pieces from Peru and Bolivia and we had a comparative tasting…and,
as with all tastings, different people had different preferences. Bill shared a 2006 Weingut
Losen-Bockstanz Riesling Beerenauslese that went well with the dessert but was
a disppointment to Bill. He was thinking that he should have poured the Ice
Wine instead but no one was complaining.
I don’t think we got through this dinner before 11 p.m. . .
. so after five hours of eating,
we all toddled off to our cars, letting the designated drivers head home.
AND, you may have noticed that there aren't as many photos of this dinner in this post. Mea culpa. I forgot to take any photos of our May 18th dinner so the photos that I posted are from the May 13th dinner at Jeffrey's...and I didn't even remember to take photos of every dish there either. Willie, I really miss you!
Our next dinner will be from the French Laundry
cookbook. A return to the most
fabulous gourmand-oriented dinner we’ve ever had. I will start polling for a date and try to find one that
everyone can attend . . . this dinner will not be one you want to miss! David promised to prepare the Foie Gras Torchon for us so we have at
least one dish settled!
Once we have a date, I’ll let you know where this dinner will take
place. Most likely a July or
August date and if it’s really hot, we may need to do it at our air-conditioned
home. Stay tuned and . . .
Cook on!
