Vietnamese beef fondue. For the sauce, it calls for mắm nêm, which is anchovy-based, and it smells fishy (there is no better word for it) when you open the bottle. The sauce becomes a lot more pleasant when you add mashed pineapples, sugar, lemon juice, and garlic. For the fondue, you prepare a broth: The recipe calls for two cups of vinegar, but that seemed excessive, so I used a cup or so. Then you add four garlic cloves, six slices of ginger, two tablespoons of lemongrass, four tablespoons sugar, and salt. These measurements can easily be varied. In the broth, you cook thin slices of beef for just a minute or two, and then you slice a medium onion and use the broth to cook onion rings. (You’re supposed to use a fondue pot on the table but we didn’t have one.) It felt like a shame to just throw away the broth, which has the comforting aroma of ginger and lemongrass. Next time, I would probably pour a little broth over the beef after removing it, and I’d also marinate it beforehand. The broth could also work as the base for a soup. To assemble the dish, wrap the beef and onions in rice paper along with Japanese somen noodles (or bún), ground peanuts, and herbs. In the summer I would add some leafy greens like lettuce, basil, or mint. Dip the rice paper rolls in the mắm nêm.
(Photo: Estes Park, Colorado, 2011. Recipe is from The Foods of Vietnam by Nicole Routhier.)
365 Days of Food 