Viet World Kitchen

Seared Snap Peas, Eggplant and Fermented Tofu Recipe

Andrea Nguyen — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:37:38 -0700

Many people adore snap peas but I’m lukewarm about them. I associate them with commercially packaged crudite packages filled with raw broccoli and cauliflower florets, and unreal capsule-shape carrots, all surrounding a tub of dressing/dip. Then there were 1990s, when I ‘discovered’ snap peas and cooked them whole on high heat, thinking I’d replicate the glamorous dishes found at restaurants and in magazine photos. I was consistently disappointed by the slippery green pods that were cute but hard to chase around the plate, especially with chopsticks. A couple of weeks ago, I had a snap pea turnaround at La Posta, a nice Cal-Italian restaurant in Santa Cruz. We ordered a side (contorni) of snap peas and squash with lovage (an herb) and ricotta salata (dryish,...

Grow Your Own: Asian Gardening Tips from My Father

Andrea Nguyen — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:48:20 -0700

The first house that my parents bought had a sizeable backyard planted with six to eight pine trees. The trees were mature and covered the sloped yard with about a foot of crunchy long brown pine needles. One summer, I decided to ‘clean up’ the needles to see what was underneath. I filled up bags and bags of pine needles and didn’t seem to make much of a dent. It was a 1950s home that we bought in the late 1970s. There may have been a good decade’s worth of pine needles to gather. It was tedious but I discovered that I like goofing off in the yard. It’s kind of mindless but also meditative and rewarding. There’s patience and surprise in gardening. You can...

Favorite Ways to Keep Garden Pests at Bay

Andrea Nguyen — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:56:46 -0700

Much has happened since I started planting this year’s garden. The morning after I put the plants in the ground, the bugs arrived. For reasons I don’t fully understand, whiteflies and other bugs love to nibble on Vietnamese balm (kinh gioi). I situated the plant close to some summer savory and Chinese chives – two pungent herbs that I thought would deter the bugs. That didn’t work. Each morning, my husband and I would peek outside our bedroom windows to examine the herb bed for overnight damage. Within about 5 days, I knew that I had to defend my plants. I’d cultivated them for me to eat, not the bugs. I pulled out a few old tricks and headed to a local nursery for advice...

Finding Asian Herbs and Vegetables for Your Garden

Andrea Nguyen — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:55:40 -0700

My father loves to garden and my mother loves to cook. I enjoy both as they pretty much go hand in hand. However, I have to admit that I pretty much neglected my garden for most of last year. We hired a nice man named Ricardo to help us keep things tidy but his construction skills were underutilized by the simple tasks that we asked of him: weeding, trimming, and spreading mulch. He went on vacation, promising to check in with us when he returned. Alas, he never called. We got the message. Ricardo let us go as clients. That said, my husband and I realized that we needed to reclaim our yard ourselves, like we used to back in ... 2011! We spent a...