Requested Recipes

I made Pho and fresh spring rolls the easiest way possible. First of all, I have the book, Quick and Easy Vietnamese Home Cooking for everyone . I used this to just look at. I like this book because it has pictures and descriptions of all the ingredients. Plus, I really just looked at what the restaurant, "Halong Bay, put into their fresh spring rolls. There are so many different kinds to make. This is what I did.

Pho ga:
Noodles-- I bought the wider noodles at the Asian grocery store. They say "Oriental Style Noodle, Banh Pho" on the package. The cost was $1.25. The directions are on the back of the package. Boil for 6-8 minutes.

Chicken-- I bought a routissaire chicken already cooked from Wal-Mart and tore it into pieces

Broth-- I took the easy way and bought Pho soup cubes. It is just like a bouillon cube. One pho cube makes 3 cups of broth. I had to ask for the Pho cubes at the Asian grocery store. I couldn't find it on my own. Now I wish I would've bought more packages, as it would keep forever.

Top with-- this is what I like on mine: a quarter of fresh squeezed lime, cilantro, and bean sprouts, sometimes onion

Remember not to put everything together until you're ready to eat it. I kept everything in separate containers in the fridge, and then heated small amounts up for lunch or breakfast even.

This is a really quick and cheap meal. I think it tasted very close to what I had at the restaurant, too.

Fresh Spring Rolls:

Rice paper: buy at Asian Grocery store. Take one sheet at a time and place it in lukewarm water. Lay flat on surface. Now place veggies and rice vermicelli and what ever else you choose inside. Fold the sides in a bit over top of ingredients and then roll up.

Rice Vermicelli/ Saifun noodles/ bean threads/ cellophane noodles: From what I understand all of this means the same thing, or nearly. I bought this at the Asian grocery store. To prepare, all you do is soak them in hot water for 10-15 minutes. I just stored left overs in a zip lock bag until I wanted to make more spring rolls.

Veggies: lettuce leaves (I bought a package of mixed greens), bean sprouts, you can also put in what you want like cucumbers, carrots. Just chop everything really small. The recipe in the book called for mint leaves and garlic chives. I didn't use those.

Meat or fish: I didn't add this, as I made just Fresh Vegetable Spring Rolls. Can add cooked pork loin, sliced thin, and/or cooked shrimp.

Crispy noodle: I added this. The restaurant I eat at adds something like this to their spring rolls. I bought a small bag of homemade crispy noodles for 99 cents at our local Chinese restaurant and it worked fine. I just added 1-2 noodles to each spring roll before rolling it up.

Sauce: I didn't make my own, because I was missing two ingredients. However, I bought in the very small Asian section at Wal-Mart a jar of Thailand peanut sauce dipping sauce. It was OK, a bit spicy. My mom added a little honey to it, and it tasted better. I'll include the dipping recipes found in my cookbook below. I still intend to make my own dipping sauces.

Nuoc Cham dipping sauce:
Makes about 1 1/2 cups
1 cup boling water, 1/3 cup fish sauce, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 TBSP lime juice, 1/2 TBSP peeled like in vinegar, 1 tsp chili paste,1 carrot shredded. Combine all ingredients. This sauce keeps up to three weeks if refrigerated.

Bean Dipping Sauce or some people may call it a peanut dipping sauce: Makes about 2 1/4 cups
1 1/2 cups water, 1 cup chopped onion, 1/2 cup hoisin sauce, 1/4 bean sauce, 1/4 cup plum sauce, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 TBSP creamy peanut butter. Combine all ingredients except peanut butter in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until onion becomes soft. Stir in peanut butter. Let stand to cool.

NOTE: ingredients like the fish sauce, hoisin sauce, bean sauce, plum sauce can all easily be found in an Asian grocery store. Really something to have as part of your pantry.

These recipes are so easy to make that I'm half embarrassed to say I made them. It's more like throwing it all together. I really nead to pick out my next recipe and try it. I'm really hungry for some type of fried noodles.