5 Ingredients or Fewer

Long before I knew about Chinese American egg foo yong, I was dipping these tasty pancakes in fish sauce and soy sauce and enjoying them with hot rice. When my mother was short of time, she would prepare a couple of plates full of these yellow, pink, and green pancakes for dinner. They are incredibly easy to whip up and yet taste fancy. The edges get fluffy and crispy from frying in a liberal amount of oil, and each rich bite contains a bit of tasty shrimp. I don’t devein the shrimp for these pancakes because I have found that it leaves unattractive lumps. But if you prefer to devein them, do so.

Here , simple dough made of glutinous rice flour, water, and salt is shaped into small, round disks and steamed on banana leaf circles, which impart fragrance and prevent sticking. The result is bánh day, eggshell-white cakes that are eaten in pairs with slices of Viet sausage slipped between them. The cakes are sweet and chewy, while the sausage provides a savory counterpoint. If you don’t have time to make the sausage at home, pick some up at a Viet market or deli.

Vietnamese cooking, like Chinese cooking, takes texture seriously. In fact, ingredients such as dried white tree fungus, a highly prized relative of the wood ear, lack flavor but offer interesting texture. Crunchy, resilient, and gelatinous, white tree fungus is expensive when compared with regular mushrooms and most other fungi and is thus saved for special occasions. It looks like crinkly, golden sponges and is sold in boxes or plastic bags at Chinese and Viet markets. It is important to use a good chicken stock in this recipe. Both the mild-flavored fungus and the vegetables need the contrast of a rich backdrop. The resulting soup will remind you of an underwater scene, the florets of white tree fungus suspended like silvery blades of seaweed among the orange carrot slices and bright green snow peas. For extra flair, add hand-shredded poached chicken breast along with the carrot.

When my family lived in Vietnam, these noodles were considered special because Western noodles (called nui, the Viet phonetic equivalent of the French nouilles) and butter were expensive imports. Once we arrived in the United States, we indulged in them to the point that they were no longer dear. In fact, I forgot about them for years, only to rediscover their garlicky, buttery, nutty goodness at a Vietnamese French restaurant in Westminster, California. Nowadays, I prepare these noodles not just because they are a comfort food from my youth, but also because they are good. The unusually savory quality of the dish is due to Maggi Seasoning, a soy sauce–like condiment and Vietnamese staple that was most likely introduced to Vietnam by the French. It is fine to use dried pasta for this recipe, though fresh fettuccine or even flat Chinese egg noodles yield a superior dish.

When you want a salty-sweet addition to your food, look to these bits of golden radish. The pickle is made using the packaged salted radish, commonly labeled salted or preserved turnip, sold at Chinese and Vietnamese markets (check the dried vegetable aisle). The plastic packages come in different sizes, and the radishes are packed in a variety of forms, from minced to whole. I prefer to start out with chunky thick strips the size of a finger and cut them myself. Don’t be put off by any musty smells emanating from the package. After the contents are rinsed, soaked in water, and seasoned, the off odor disappears and the crisp strips become a wonderful and rather delicate treat. In less than an hour, the radish is ready for eating or long-term storage. I snack on the strips straight from the jar, or serve them with rice or chopped up in bowls of Hanoi Special Rice Noodle Soup (page 217).

Viet cooks often deep-fry cubes of tofu until crisp and golden and then add them to a stir-fry or a simmering liquid (in this case, a mixture of fish sauce, water, and scallion). Fried tofu absorbs other flavors especially well, yet holds its shape and retains its faintly nutty overtones. The end result is a chewy, almost meaty quality. Look for regular or medium-firm tofu for deep-frying, never the silken type or the firm type that is best for grilling. Freshly made tofu (see opposite) will puff up during frying and then deflate as it cools; packaged tofu won’t do that and will be denser after it is out of the oil. Both will have excellent flavor. When building your menu, treat this recipe as the main savory dish and accompany it with a vegetable dish and/or meat-and-vegetable stir-fry, a simple soup, and rice.

In Vietnam, small clay charcoal-fired braziers are used to cook dishes like this smoky eggplant topped with scallion and served with a garlic-chile dipping sauce. Here in the States, I often make this dish in the summer when the farmers’ market is brimming with an incredible array of eggplants. (The vegetable is at its sweetest in August and September.) You can cook the eggplant over a gas burner, or even bake it, but you’ll have the best results on a grill. Small globe eggplants, meaty Italian eggplants, and slender Japanese eggplants all work well for this recipe.

People often ask me what I remember about my life in Vietnam. I always respond that my memory is filled with photographic images of people and places, but because I was only six years old when we fled, I had not yet experienced enough of life to have fuller pictures. However, one of my most vivid memories is of our cook, Older Sister Thien, squatting and fanning the small charcoal brazier on which she grilled corn on the cob. As the corn cooked to a charred chewy sweetness, she brushed on scallion oil made with home-rendered lard. The aroma and taste were heavenly. Here is my updated version with regular cooking oil. With so many varieties of corn available in summertime, you should have no trouble finding the sweetest one for grilling. This is traditionally a snack food, but it is also a wonderful addition to an Eastern or Western barbecue. Parboiling the ears before grilling ensures that the corn is evenly cooked and the grill work is fast.

Asparagus is often thought as a vegetable that requires delicate seasoning, but this hearty stir-fry proves that notion wrong. The sweet, heady sauce is essentially the same sauce called for in Water Spinach Stir-Fried with Garlic (page 179), but the addition of meaty shiitake mushrooms produces a more robust dish. Prepare this easy stir-fry during springtime when asparagus is at the height of its season, or substitute 1 1/4 pounds green beans or long beans other times of the year. Be sure to use high-quality dried mushrooms, and don’t skimp on the soaking time, or they won’t develop their naturally full flavor or velvety texture.

Because cool-season crops such as cabbage and cauliflower are difficult to grow in Vietnam, they enjoy a special status. In fact, my dad remembers how his mother carefully tended the cabbage heads in the family garden, covering each one with a cooking pot to encourage the leaves to curl. When we came to the States and found cabbage so readily available, my mother began fixing this easy stir-fry regularly for our weeknight suppers. I have since followed suit, and also sometimes serve it as a simple lunch with rice. The naturally sweet and spicy cabbage ribbons are enriched by a coating of egg, while a final splash of fish sauce adds a nutty, briny flavor.

It is hard to imagine the Viet table without water spinach (a.k.a. morning glory in English, rau muông in Vietnamese, and ong choy in Cantonese; illustrated on page 174), a long, tubular leafy green that is part of the lifeblood of the country and appears in many guises. The tender tops with their pointy leaves are often boiled or stir-fried. The hollow stems are sometimes laboriously split into slender pieces, dropped in water to curl, and then the crunchy raw spirals are used as a garnish for certain noodle dishes, such as Crab and Shrimp Rice Noodle Soup (page 215); as a bed for a beef stir-fry; or as a lightly dressed salad. Water spinach is also pickled. Even today my parents become wistful at the mention of a rustic meal of boiled rau muông, soup prepared from the left over cooking liquid, a heady fish kho, and rice. So, it was a sad moment when we arrived in the United States to discover that we could not afford water spinach, which cost nearly two dollars a pound and was not widely available. What had once been an everyday vegetable was suddenly a splurge. When my parents did buy it, my mother would stir-fry the greens with garlic and fermented shrimp sauce (mâm tôm) and finish the dish with lots of lime. Aromatic, earthy, and tangy, the traditional combination was a comforting reminder of our culinary roots. Nowadays, rau muông is thankfully much less expensive and is easily found at Chinese and Southeast Asian markets. During the peak summer season, prices are downright cheap. Here are two options for stir-frying the bounty: first, the soulful dish of my youth, followed by a more modern preparation flavored with garlic and oyster sauce, which pairs well with Eastern and Western dishes (try it with a steak). If you can’t find water spinach, Western spinach can be used for either of the two stir-fries that follow.