“Giò” – Vietnamese dainty morsel in Spring

On the Tet traditional tray of food according to Vietnamese culture, with traditional dishes such as Chung cake, chicken meat, spring rolls and so on, “giò” is one of the dainty morsels. Today, when “giò” almost become daily food and there are more various and attractive dishes on the tray, delicious dish of “giò” cannot be missed...

Fried pie

There are many types of “giò” such as: giò lụa (pork-pie), giò bò (beep dumpling), giò bì (pork and skin paste), giò mỡ (lean and fat pork paste), giò xào (fried pie), etc. Each type has a particular taste but the most important thing to make “giò” dish really attractive is that the fragrance of banana leaves and fish sauce combined in the piece of “giò”.

Giò xào (fried pie)

In all kinds of “giò”, fried pie is the easiest one to prepare, so families often make it themselves when Tet is coming. The main materials are parts of pork such as: ear, nose tongue, pork cheeks and “mộc nhĩ” (cat’s ear). The materials must be subjected to premilitary treatment, boiled through hot water, sliced, mixed with spices, pepper and fried.

After wrapping the fried pie, keep it in the refrigerator so that all the materials link together. The pie that is delicious must be wrapped carefully, raw materials must not be too dry and the dish will stir fragrance of the spices.

Giò bò (beep dumpling)

Beep dumpling

Also processed as fried pie, beep dumpling is often added for more fat so that it is not too dry. When cutting a piece of beep dumpling, it is slightly pink as the color of the beef. Especially, pungency and fragrance of pepper feature the typical characteristic of beep dumpling.

Giò lụa (pork-pie)

Pork is chosen to make pork-pie must be lean, delicious and fresh meat. It is continuously ground until the meat is fine. These days, the meat is ground by machine, which makes the process more quickly and helps to save the maker’s strength.

However, the pork-pie is make in the traditional way remains the delicious flavor that is different from the one ground by 

Pork-pie

machine, since the makers must use more strength so they take proper care of their product. Fish sauce for making pork-pie must also be tasty and fragrant. When being cut, the pie must has the color of ivory-white and the surface has some small holes, surely that the pie is so delicious!

Giò bì (pork and skin paste)

Pork and skin paste is a local specialty of Pho Xuoi (Hung Yen Province). It is also made from uncooked pork-pie and pork skin that are sliced, then wrapped into small ones like fingers. Pork and skin paste is delicious, it means that pieces of pork skin must be white, clean, boiled, cut into small ones and mixed with uncooked pork-pie. The piece of pork and skin paste is so crispy and crunchy.

In Vietnam, once try to taste these kinds of “giò”, it is certaintly that you cannot forget the tasty flavor and fragrance of the dainty morsels...

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How to make Vietnamse Pho clip

How to make Vietnamse Pho

  Ingredients and preparation Vietnamse Pho

Pho is served as a bowl of white rice noodles in clear beef broth, with thin cuts of beef (steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket). Variations featuring tendon, tripe, meatballs, chicken leg, chicken breast, or other chicken organs (heart, liver, tongue,[citation needed] etc.) are also available. 'With the lot' (made with chicken broth and all or most of the shop's chicken and cattle offering, including chicken hearts and livers and beef tripe and tendons). There are also various vegetarian varieties of pho.

Broth
The broth is generally made by simmering beef (and sometimes chicken) bones, oxtails, flank steak, charred onion, and spices, taking several hours to prepare. Seasonings include Saigon cinnamon, star anise, charred ginger, cloves, and sometimes black cardamom pods.

Noodles
The noodles, called bánh phở in Vietnamese, are traditionally cut from wide sheets of fresh rice noodles similar to Chinese Shahe fen, although dried noodles (also called "rice sticks") may also be used. Fresh noodles have a chewy, al dente texture, though they are more expensive and highly perishable. Dried pho is much softer and more affordable.

Garnishes
The dish is garnished with ingredients such as green onions, white onions, coriander leaves (cilantro), ngò gai (culantro, or long coriander), Thai basil, fresh Thai chili peppers, lemon or lime wedges, and bean sprouts. These items are usually provided on a separate plate, which allows customers to add to their soup to taste. Some sauces such as hoisin sauce, Chinese black vinegar,[citation needed] fish sauce, and the Thai hot sauce Sriracha, are popular additions as well, along with sugar.

For the pho connoisseur, other garnishes which may be ordered on the side include hành trần (the white "bulb" portion of scallions, blanched in boiling broth) (sliced white onions with a dash of vinegar). These are only brought to the table when specifically requested, as opposed to the general platter of greens and lime wedges. The diner typically squeezes a few drops of lime juice onto the vinegared onion slices before eating them. when eaten with the beef slices, are believed to cut the fattiness and balance the strong beef aroma that some find overpowering.

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Vietnamese cuisine

In the process of its development, Vietnamese culture has been much influenced by many other cultures and an art form of distinctively Vietnamese - the cuisine - has taken shape. Vietnamese cooking represents an amalgamation of influences creating a truly unique flavor...

With almost ten centuries under Chinese dynasties' reign and its proximity to the north, Vietnamese cooking was strongly influenced by China, including the use of chopsticks, the art of stir-frying, and the consumption of noodles and bean curd. Chinese introduction of Buddhism into Vietnam gave birth to a vegetarian cuisine that is remarkably varied and extensive.

Laos, Cambodia and Thailand have radically changed the flavor of Vietnamese cooking by introducing the Indian curries and spices. The Vietnamese have modified the use of the spices. A spicy dish of Vietnam is usually milder than that of Thailand, even though both cuisines use fish sauce, shrimp paste, lemon grass, mint, basil, chili peppers, and curry as key ingredients. 

The French played a crucial role in the development of Vietnamese cuisine. They introduced techniques of sauteing and developed different types of Western edible products. The French also implanted a love of café au lait and gateaux. Vietnamese soups, which stemmed from French influence, have their own taste with the use of various noodles. Different regions of Vietnam have their own ways of making soup specialties.

Even with all these influences, Vietnamese cuisine has retained a distinctive character through Vietnamese cooks' creative adaptation of these foreign influences. The Vietnamese are skilled at combining complementary ingredients to form new flavors with contrasting textures. The food is healthy, thanks to its reliance o­n fresh vegetables, stir-frying, and use of vegetable oil rather than butter.

A Vietnamese meal is rarely divided into courses. All the food is served at o­nce and shared from common dishes. Meals are anchored by a starch, usually rice and sometimes noodles. Unlike northern Thai and Japanese palates, the Vietnamese prefer long-grain rice to the glutinous short grain varieties. Most meals include soup, stir-fry, and another main dish. Often, a light salad with shrimp or beef and vegetables will accompany the meal. The Vietnamese use a small-size bowl and a pair of chopsticks at meals.

Vietnam's 3,200-km coastline has long made fish and other seafood substantial to the people's diets. Other foodstuffs such as pork, beef, and chicken are also common, but in smaller quantity.

Vegetables are widely consumed, especially in the south, to redress the balance between animal meat and fresh ingredients. The distinct flavors of Vietnamese food come primarily from mint leaves, coriander, lemon grass, shrimp and fish sauces (nuoc nam and nuoc cham), star anise, ginger, black pepper, garlic, basil, rice vinegar, sugar, and green o­nions. Many flavourful marinades are made by some combination of these flavourings. Marinated meat or fish is quickly sauted in the wok and served with an array of raw vegetables and herbs. All this may be eaten together with rice or rolled in a rice-paper wrapper or lettuce leaf (or both), then dipped into a pungent sauce.

Most meals in Vietnam are sold in resturants or at small shops and stalls that line the maze of streets and alleys.



Pho, more or less the national dish of Vietnam, is a kind of rice noodle soups often used at breakfast. However, it can be eaten at anytime of the day and many Vietnamese have pho more than o­nce a day. To cook pho, northern people often uses beef whereas southern people prefer chicken, but both versions use rich flavorings of chili peppers, coriander and mint.

Cha gio is also a popular food. Stuffed with spicy bits of seafood and vegetables, the small crispy mixture is wrapped with rice paper and fried deep in boiling cooking oil. The dish is served with the ubiquitous fish sauce.

Fish sauce (nuoc mam) is an indispensable ingredient in everyday meals of the Vietnamese. It is processed from distilled and fermented seafish and used as seasoning. A small jar of fish sauce is plalced o­n every Vietnamese kitchin table.

The cuisine of Vietnam possesses a wide variety of dishes. The Vietnamese people are proud of their tasty food with delightfully complex flavors. To foreigners, Vietnamese specialties are really worth exploring, trying, and enjoying...

(Source : VDC Media)

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Vietnamese Tea

Tea has long become familiar beverages, Vietnamese from North to South, from the countryside to the cities, where the first cup of tea is to open the story.

If you have the opportunity to return to the countryside north you will see the old man in no time to do what with the kettle boiling, brake green tea you drink. Or in the city, when the first cup of tea is indispensable. Tea has become a habit, gesture ancient culture of the Vietnamese people.

Vietnam has a lot of different types of tea from green tea, dried tea, lotus tea until the tea is innovating and improving social needs such as ginger tea, artichoke tea, chrysanthemum tea, lingzhi tea ... But popular and widely used in daily life of the Vietnamese people are still teas below:

Green tea (green tea)

Green tea is also known as green tea has long been popular in all regions of Vietnam.Everywhere people also find green tea is present , the water that everyone can use, just for refreshment, cooling, anti-cancer as well.



Tea Leaf Green

In the countryside (most common in the North) before usually every home or have a tea in the bottom of the garden, to pick a function of drinking water daily.



Warm of green tea braking 

Green tea picking down, rinse, pat (shredded) in a warm area (made of clay), magnet braking boiling water for about 30 minutes can be used. Want to green water and good light fragrant tea when you have to hand, just make the tea leaf borders, not crushed, and when braking brewed tea warm for nine of the area is covered with towels or straw dunes.

Dry tea

Dry tea is also another form of green tea, dried tea is made from young leaves (two or three) two high tea on the hill, and then dried in the sun or dryer are new.



Tea picking in the hills

Vietnam is famous for dried Thai Nguyen tea, because tea is grown and developed in a mountainous environment, absorb the water on the upland so delicious.

On cold winter days, hot cup of tea is an indispensable friend of the family of the North. Many people crushed dried tea, drink throughout the year during the month ... Especially when the spring festival, almost every house has dry braking teapot invitations next disk ginger jam or nuts.

Lotus tea

Lotus tea is a tea representatives of Vietnamese tea culture, tea pickers from young leaves (leaf 1 to 2) marinated with shower. Marinated lotus tea is a subtle art to reach its fragrance as desired.



For every 1 kg of dry tea, need 800-1000 lotus. Days in Hanoi is famous for Lotus in the crowd Tri, Quang Ba Village, West Lake lotus because here both aromatic and large, a lotus with 50 - 80 petals. To fragrant lotus, often people will be picked in the early morning, when it was not yet frozen lotus lotus incense and absorb the morning dew ... picking the cup portion of rice. How chilled tea is extremely elaborate, just a layer of lotus tea sprayed a layer of rice. Finally covered with paper (paper used for wrapped incense posts) or leaf rolls together. After 3 - 4 days ready (instrument made of bamboo) extract of dried tea then marinated again continuously as it ranges from 5 - 6 times as in lotus incense density that people want.



Lotus used to preserve rice with tea

Days before there is no hair people usually do it manually each time drying tea by boiling water in the bottle sealed, placed in a basket and then for tea around applied to the water heater.How to tea lotus flavor left in each field longer.

Maybe so, but when lotus tea enjoy a sense of sweet tea but cool, ethereal fragrance gently. A warm shower can take many weeks tea aroma that is still remaining thousand fragrant aroma.

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Vietnamse Phở

Phở is served as a bowl of white rice noodles in clear beef broth, with thin cuts of beef (steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket). Variations featuring tendon, tripe, meatballs, chicken leg, chicken breast, or other chicken organs (heart, liver, tongue,[citation needed] etc.) are also available. 'With the lot' (made with chicken broth and all or most of the shop's chicken and cattle offering, including chicken hearts and livers and beef tripe and tendons) is known as 'Phở đặc biệt' (unique phở). There are also various vegetarian varieties of phở.

Vietnamse Phở

Vietnamse Phở

Broth
The broth is generally made by simmering beef (and sometimes chicken) bones, oxtails, flank steak, charred onion, and spices, taking several hours to prepare. Seasonings include Saigon cinnamon, star anise, charred ginger, cloves, and sometimes black cardamom pods.[2]

Noodles
The noodles, called bánh phở in Vietnamese, are traditionally cut from wide sheets of fresh rice noodles similar to Chinese Shahe fen, although dried noodles (also called "rice sticks") may also be used. Fresh noodles have a chewy, al dente texture, though they are more expensive and highly perishable. Dried pho is much softer and more affordable.

Garnishes
The dish is garnished with ingredients such as green onions, white onions, coriander leaves (cilantro), ngò gai (culantro, or long coriander), Thai basil, fresh Thai chili peppers, lemon or lime wedges, and bean sprouts. These items are usually provided on a separate plate, which allows customers to add to their soup to taste. Some sauces such as hoisin sauce, Chinese black vinegar,[citation needed] fish sauce, and the Thai hot sauce Sriracha, are popular additions as well, along with sugar. The herb ngò ôm (Limnophila aromatica) is sometimes added as well.

For the phở connoisseur, other garnishes which may be ordered on the side include hành trần (the white "bulb" portion of scallions, blanched in boiling broth) and hành giấm (sliced white onions with a dash of vinegar). These are only brought to the table when specifically requested, as opposed to the general platter of greens and lime wedges. The diner typically squeezes a few drops of lime juice onto the vinegared onion slices before eating them. The hành trần and hành giấm, when eaten with the beef slices, are believed to cut the fattiness and balance the strong beef aroma that some find overpowering.

Read more »