Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Purplecook Makes Vietnamese Food!


Banana Blossom Salad

My friend Trang, patiently and generously, taught me to make Banana Blossom Salad and Clay Pot Sea Bass, two of our favorite Vietnamese dishes, a while ago. I decided to try them myself to see if I still remembered the lesson. A few phone calls to Trang and some quick internet searches later, here are the results.

Clay Pot Sea Bass

I'd say the two best moments were at the Vietnamese market when the cashier rang up the banana blossoms and said, "Do you know what to do with these?" and I proudly responded in the affirmative, and at the end of the cooking process when my caramel sauce actually, magically, came together (even though I probably put too much oil in the oil-to-sugar ratio).



Vietnamese mint; Thai basil
Chopped fried peanuts; fried shallots


sliced banana blossom
in acidulated water


cutting the sea bass into cubes


sea bass cooking on caramel sauce


sea bass, cooked


the finished salad

another picture, just because it's so beautiful
(and delicious!)

3 comments:

Karen said...

Looks awesome. I wish I knew what the banana blossom looked like before you cut it up.

Anonymous said...

this looks very good.

anon. (the only real anon.)

Rebecca said...

My first successfully recreated (or at least approximated) purple-kitchen dish!

Blog Widget by LinkWithin