A side effect learning to cook is you become a snob. You pick up from a perfectly below average Vietnamese restaurant, take one bite and it’s just… sad. Something was missing. Sriracha or jalapeños, maybe? Crunchy bread? A Bahn Mi should have a lot of different things going on in it, and this was… well, entirely one feeble note.
So you go “Is this hard?” and order a book. It’s almost never that hard. Regular people with no formal training have been making this stuff for generations. The book is Vietnamese Food Any Day, and the author also has a helpful video.
The beagle was very happy because I dropped a small piece of chicken.
The other thing that happens is you start tinkering.
Tilapia gets no respect. Which is absurd. It’s cheap, its sustainable, and it will happilly take on whatever flavors you throw it at. So for our next trick… what about a fish bahn mi?
Same recipe, just saute some fish in place of chicken. Also, The Chef is an idiot who didn’t use a big enough baguette for the amount of fish. Don’t be like him, err on the site of excess baguette.
Ingredients
- Siracha
- Baguette or roll. It’s gotta be crusty. v1 I used a take-and-bake and it wasn’t crunchy enough.
- Cilantro
- Small cucumber
- Mayonaise or butter
- Daikon or radish
- Carrot
- Sea salt
- Big spoon of sugar (it calls for 1.25 cups but holy shit)
- White vinegar
- Lukewarm water
- 1 chicken thigh per sandwich (or 1 filet tilapia for the fish version)
- 1 large garlic clove
- Honey
- Hoisin sauce
- Soy sauce
- Toasted sesame oil
- Sauce also calls for 1 tsp Chinese 5 Spices but I didn’t have it. Since I don’t like buying ingredients for just one thing, try some mix of cinnamon, black pepper, ginger, clove, and tarragon.