Banh Khoai Mon: Fried Taro Cake Recipe

Fried taro is a dish I enjoy a lot whenever we eat a dim sum place. It's starchy, filling, salty and of course, who would deny fried food? But I can make the exact same dish at home for a lot less.

To recreate this recipe at home, I pan-fried cubed bánh bột khoai môn (taro cake), then sautéed the taro pieces with dried shrimp, mushrooms, coarse sea salt and parsley. How easy is that?

Canh Khoai Mo Recipe (Vietnamese Yam and Shrimp Soup)

Khoai mỡ is an exotic yam that originates from Asia. The root vegetable has a rough, charcoal-colored skin with a creamy flesh. It's grated and cooked until soften. The texture is unique once it's cooked. It's resembles pork fat, hence the word "mỡ", which means "fat" ("khoai" means "potato"). Like many other Buddhist vegetarian dishes, this ingredient is used to imitate meat. However, this time I served it with shrimp balls and taro pieces ("khoai cao") in a soup.

This vegetable was not available in France, so I didn't have it as a child. I first tasted it in a temple in Saigon. It’s very versatile, and can be served either as a dessert or in a "canh" ("soup" in Vietnamese). Khoai mỡ is one of those ingredients that are quite expensive in America but cost almost nothing in Saigon. In Vietnam, this type of root vegetable are planted in great abundance but here, in the US, canh khoai mỡ is more a nostalgic dish that takes you down memory lane if you grew up in Vietnam.

Tofu Eggroll Recipe

I finally made my own soy milk. I had a lot of fun squeezing the boiled, blended soy beans and collecting the liquid. I got the girls to help me out. We used the solid remnants, called okara or soy bean paste, to fill eggrolls. I'm telling you, nothing goes to waste in our home! If you don't have time to make okara (because it's quite time-consuming), you can buy it ready made in Korean markets.

To make the eggrolls, I blended the soy bean paste mixture with matchstick-cut fried potatoes, wood ear mushrooms, bean thread noodles and fried tofu. It’s packed with protein and makes a great substitute for meat. I served the eggrolls with the usual accompaniments: vermicelli rice noodles, Vietnamese herbs and shredded cucumber. You’ll love it!

Taro Root Korma Recipe

Taro korma is an Indian vegetable curry. The spicy gravy contains fried onion paste and yogurt and is flavored with ginger-garlic paste as well as several Indian spices. Taro pieces are fried till crispy, and then finish cooking in the curry paste. Taro is a very starchy ingredient that makes the gravy a lot thicker and denser when added.

Kormas can be either vegetarian or "non-veg" with any assortment of vegetables, fried cheese such as paneer, or meat such as goat korma. I came up with this dish for a very simple reason: there was a basket full of taro waiting to be cooked!  Taro root usually doesn’t keep for more than a week, and it will turn sour when it's mixed and stored in the freezer. Buy it close to when you’re ready to cook, and enjoy it. It’s definitely worth the effort.

Bi Chay (Shredded Tofu and Crispy Mock Pork)

Bì chay is probably one of my favorite Vietnamese vegetarian street foods. Not only is it a popular everyday eat, but it is also very common at temples. It's a mix of fried Asian ingredients such as tofu, taro, potatoes, jicama and fine vermicelli noodles. The whole mix is topped with dry toasted jasmine rice mill. It gives a nice aroma and chewy texture to the blend.

Whenever I pack sandwiches for a picnic, I either make the good ol' cheese and vegetable sandwich or an Asian-style sandwich, which is called bánh mì chay. It is a Vietnamese-style baguette sandwich stuffed with bì chay, pickled daikon and carrots, and green sliced chiles.

You can also simply eat bì chay with bún (bún chay), the vegetarian equivalent of bún cá chiên (fried fish with vermicelli rice noodles). 

If you want to serve this as a appetizer (bì cuốn chay) for a vegetarian crowd, just wrap the bì chay in rice paper and create little spring rolls.