Vietnamese Peanut Hoisin Dipping Sauce Recipe (Tuong Goi Cuon)

We brought summer rolls this weekend for a barbecue potluck. Traditionally, the rolls are served with a sauce made from liver but as a child, I always had an aversion to it. So I made tương gỏi cuốn (which literally translates to "sauce for salad rolls" in Vietnamese) with ingredients that would be appealing to a Western palate.

The condiment is a blend of peanut butter, hoisin sauce, ginger garlic paste, đậu (lentils), coconut water and a few ingredients that balance the sweet and sour taste. For more crunch, the summer rolls are first dipped in chopped peanuts.

Whether you serve this sauce with summer shrimp rolls or veggie spring rolls, it will knock your socks off!

Asian-Style Strawberry Napoleon Recipe (Mille-feuille Fraise Noix de Coco Dessert)

Mille-feuille, called "Napoleon" in the U.S., is a very popular French dessert. Traditionally [according to Wikipedia], a mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry, alternating with two layers of cream pâtissière, but sometimes whipped cream or jam. The top is usually glazed with icing or fondant in alternating white (icing) and brown (chocolate) strips, and combed.

I’ve made traditional mille-feuilles many times before, and I was in the mood for a change. I assembled a gluten-free version using layers of Vietnamese coconut paper called bánh phông sữa. They are paper-thin sheets made of coconut milk, sugar, cassava and condensed milk. I flavored the dessert with fresh strawberries and a coulis de fraise, which is a strawberry sauce. This dessert is bake-free and so easy to create, that I had the girls do the assembly. They had so much fun putting them together and even more making them disappear!

Vietnamese Vegetables with Ginger (Rau Muong Xao Gung)

Vietnamese cuisine boasts many dishes that highlight fresh ingredients in a healthy manner. Rau muống xào với gừng (Vietnamese pea tendrils sautéed in ginger) is an excellent example of this.  The dish is incredibly simple; the pea tendrils are blanched and then flavored with ginger and a little turmeric for color. I made it recently for my uncle who was visiting us and is a practicing Buddhist, which is why the recipe does not call for onions, shallots or garlic. Don’t worry though; the dish is only light on calories, not flavor.

As a child, our typical Vietnamese family meals were composed of individual bowls of rice, meat, seafood or tofu, a bowl of canh (a clear broth soup), a vegetable side dish and a dipping sauce. I always looked forward to a bowl of rau muống, served with a soy sauce and ginger dipping sauce called mắm gừng. If you have trouble getting your family to eat their greens, give this dish a try. It worked on me!

Pan Fried King Bananas

Chuối ngự are Vietnamese bananas that look similar to small plantains. They have a starchy texture and a subtle sweetness. If you look for this particular banana in Asian markets, they're called King, Raja or emperor bananas.

King bananas can be prepared in a lot of ways. Today, I twice cooked them. First, I parboiled them, then I pan-fried the bananas in oil until golden brown. They make great appetizers if you top them with cheese and other condiments, or they also make a wonderful side dish. In this case, I paired them with baked fish.

Shrimp Spring Rolls (Vietnamese Roll Recipe)

Shrimp spring rolls (gỏi cuốn in Vietnamese) are the perfect finger food when we have a party. Not only are they healthy, but they're very tasty as well. I usually serve them sliced in half with a peanut and hoisin sauce on the side.

For this dish, I prefer to wrap the rolls with tapioca sheets, called bánh tráng mỏng in Vietnamese, which literally translates to "thin paper disks". They are thinner than rice paper, and as a result the shrimp are still visible once wrapped. The other plus of using tapioca sheets is that they look fresh longer, once they're made, versus the ones with rice paper. Tapioca rounds are stickier than rice paper when wet though, so it's a little more difficult to wrap them.

In these particular fresh rolls, I added the basic ingredients such as shrimp, rice noodles, bean sprouts, cucumber, lettuce and Vietnamese herbs. Meat could be added but I like them very simple. It's a fairly fast dish; the only long step is wrapping the rolls, but with our large family, the work was quite easy.

And for the vegetarians in the house, we wrapped bì cuốn chay, so everyone could share the same meal for dinner.