Weeknight Meals

Who doesn’t like lentil soup? This soup is as easy as cutting up a few vegetables and putting them in the pot. The hard part—if you’re hungry—is waiting for it to cook. This is great on a cold fall day when you need a little something to warm you up. It reheats really well, and you can even freeze it if you have any extra.

I made this one day when I was supposed to make dinner for my friends but didn’t have much time. They were totally impressed and begged for the recipe. It’s really fast to make because it uses premade tortellini. That may seem like a cop-out, but who has time to make tortellini from scratch? Plus, the sauce is super creamy and wonderful!

This dish proves how a few simple ingredients can turn into a wonderful meal. You can add more vegetables if you want, but I say why mess with success? This dish has a hint of spice. If you like things spicier, you can be more generous with the crushed red pepper.

This is probably one of the easiest things you will ever make; plus, it gives you an opportunity to try new vegetables. If there are certain vegetables in season or on sale, just substitute those or include them along with the vegetables in the recipe.

In our family, this dish is usually made with chicken. Then Megan started trying to convince us that tofu was actually good. I tried it reluctantly, and I was kind of surprised to find that the tofu wasn’t bad (shocking, I know). So even though I’m not a true tofu believer, this is pretty good, especially if you use baked tofu, which holds together when you cut it up much better than regular tofu does.

We have two recipes for tacos in this book, which may seem repetitive, but the only similarity is the tortillas and cheese. This version has the great combo of black beans and corn, with a little bit of zip from the sauce.

These addictive bite-sized riblets are perfumed by lemongrass, and the addition of caramel sauce to the marinade—a trick of the trade often used by food vendors in Vietnam—imparts deep color and flavor. Honey is a fine substitute that results in a slightly sweeter finish. Removing the tough membrane from the underside of the rack (a technique borrowed from American barbecue masters) and a long marinade yield riblets that are chewy-tender. The rack of spareribs must be cut through the bone into long strips. Don’t attempt this yourself. Instead, ask your butcher to do it. Serve the riblets as an appetizer or with rice for a satisfying meal. For a Viet twist on the classic American barbecue, pair the ribs with Grilled Corn with Scallion Oil (page 183) and a green salad or Russian Beet, Potato, and Carrot Salad (page 186).

The menu at Vietnamese restaurants in the United States often includes an inexpensive, homey rice plate with grilled pork chops flavored with Chinese five-spice powder, garlic, and onion. Unfortunately, I have often found the dish disappointing, with the rib chops dry and thin. Even with a knife and fork, the meat—typically broiled, rather than the advertised grilled—is hard to cut. After a number of dissatisfying rice plates, I decided to make the pork at home. To avoid dry meat, I opted for pork shoulder steaks. The slightly fatty, flavorful steaks turned out to be perfect for absorbing the bold marinade and remained moist after grilling. Sliced up before serving, the meat is easily managed with chopsticks, too, and I include a dipping sauce for extra flavor. Serve the pork with rice and a salad or a stir-fried or sautéed vegetable for a light meal. Add a soup such as Opo Squash Soup (page 60) and you have a traditional Vietnamese menu. Use any left overs for baguette sandwiches (page 34) or Mixed Rice (page 245).

Chinese celery has a wonderfully intense and rather wild flavor when eaten raw, which explains why it is always cooked before serving, as in this simple stir-fry. It looks like pencil-thin stems of Western celery with roots attached, and in a bunch, it could be mistaken for Italian parsley because the leaves are similar. At a Chinese or Viet market, choose Chinese celery that looks crisp and fresh (check the roots) and use it within a couple of days of purchase.

In classic stir-fries such as this one, beef, a special-occasion meat in Vietnam, is paired with a vegetable that is equally prized and costly. Here, it is cauliflower, traditionally considered a luxury vegetable in Vietnam because it used to be grown only in the cool areas around Dalat. To allow these precious ingredients to shine, they are treated simply with little sauce and only a few other ingredients. Taking a cue from Chinese cooks, I use flank steak for stir-frying. Cut across the grain into small pieces, it cooks up to an inimitable tenderness. To complement the beef, I select cauliflower that tastes sweet, looks dense, and feels heavy for its size.

I often pan-sear steaks Vietnamese style, with lots of garlic, black pepper, and Maggi Seasoning sauce, a favorite condiment of the Vietnamese. Thinly slice the steaks so guests may help themselves with chopsticks, plus the juices released are delicious mixed into a bowl of rice. Or, make the steaks part of a Western knife-and-fork meal (bit-tet is the Viet transliteration of the French bifteck) and serve with crispy fried potatoes instead of rice (see Stir-Fried Beef with Crispy Fried Potatoes, page 140, for guidance on cooking the potatoes).

This recipe is my re-creation of a dish prepared by Le Thang, the chef and owner of the now-defunct Dong Ba restaurant in Little Saigon in Westminster, California. The modest eatery, named after the famous outdoor market in Hue, showcased the rustic dishes of central Vietnam, and although the mì Quang noodle soup and bánh bèo chén (rice pancakes steamed in small bowls) were superb, the minced pork was my favorite. Conceptually, this dish is similar to the recipe for Caramelized Minced Pork (page 131), but it takes on a distinctive central Vietnamese character from the bold use of lemongrass, chile, garlic, and shrimp sauce. Indeed, the generous amount of lemongrass acts as more of a main ingredient than a seasoning, while the chopped shrimp, roasted peanuts, and toasted sesame seeds add layers of flavor and texture. The result is salty, sweet, spicy, rich, and dangerously addictive. Enjoy this dish with plenty of rice, adding some cucumber to each bite for a cool and crunchy contrast.

Seventy-five years of French domination left many influences in the Viet kitchen. Because I grew up eating these stuffed tomatoes on a regular basis, it never crossed my mind that they were adapted from a traditional French idea. It should have: farci means “stuffed” in French and tô-mát is a Vietnamese transliteration of the French tomate. My edition of Larousse Gastronomique offers nine recipes for stuffing tomatoes. Here’s a tenth, flavored with a shot of fish sauce, of course. As a hybrid dish, these savory, slightly tangy tomatoes can be enjoyed with chopsticks as part of a traditional Viet dinner or with knife and fork as part of a Western-style meal. For the best results, select firm, slightly underripe tomatoes that will hold their shape nicely after cooking.

Simple to prepare, this traditional dish is meant to be eaten in small quantities with lots of rice. The pork cooks slowly in a skillet with salty-sweet seasonings until it starts rendering a little fat and turns reddish brown. The caramelized, crispy results recall the delicious bits that stick to the bottom of the pan when you sear meat. The final addition of scallion lends a touch of color. You can also eat this minced pork with com nam (page 241), cooked rice shaped by hand into compact balls or logs. When I was a child, my father used a wet dish towel to knead hot rice into thick logs, which he then let cool before slicing. My siblings and I would pick up a piece with our fingers, firmly press it against some of the minced pork, and eat it out of hand.

This steamed fish recipe, given to our family by our Chinese Vietnamese friend Uncle Su, is special. During cooking, the bold seasonings mix with the sweet fish juices to create a wonderful sauce for flavoring the flesh and a bowl of hot rice. Fresh salmon steaks or fillets are a fine substitute for the heads, which my parents prefer. You can also try the sauce atop other moderately flavored fish that have some richness to their flesh, such as sablefish. Avoid lean, dense fish, such as halibut or swordfish, which dry out and toughen when steamed.

This recipe was inspired by a grilled tuna steak that I ordered at a sleepy roadside restaurant in Vietnam. Working tableside on a small charcoal brazier, the young waiter cooked a half-inch-thick tuna steak with care and patience. Back in my home kitchen, I decided to adapt the recipe to the stove top. I find that pan searing allows greater control than grilling over the doneness of the lean, meaty steaks, yielding juicier results. There are no tricks here. The tuna steaks are coated with the same seasonings used for Grilled Shrimp and Squid (page 111), and the gingery dipping sauce offers a good contrast to the richness of the fish. Serve with Chicken Dumpling and Chrysanthemum Leaf Soup (page 61), boiled gailan (Chinese broccoli) or regular broccoli (which are both good with the dipping sauce), and rice.

Shrimp can be paired with strong flavors—in this case, a tangy and sweet tamarind sauce with a touch of heat—and still retain their briny character. The tartness of the tropical pod comes through in the sauce, but it is balanced by the other seasonings, just as it is in a well-prepared Indian tamarind chutney. These shrimp are at home with a bowl of rice for soaking up the sauce, but they also make an interesting cross-cultural hand roll tucked into a warm corn tortilla and eaten like a taco. As long as you have frozen cubes of tamarind liquid on hand, this recipe is quick to prepare.

For everyday meals, Viet cooks often prepare kho, simple dishes simmered in a bittersweet caramel-based sauce. Similar to the Chinese braising technique called red cooking, Vietnamese kho cooking transforms ingredients into richly colored and flavored foods. Economical to prepare but lavish tasting, these dishes also keep well for days, a plus in the old days of no refrigeration. If you are new to seafood kho dishes, start with this one. You will experience shrimp in a totally new way. Nowadays it seems a mistake to overcook seafood, but here you purposely do it to allow the flavors to penetrate thoroughly. The shrimp cook vigorously, releasing juices that combine with the other seasonings to create a dark, tasty sauce. The onion nearly disintegrates, and the final addition of oil lends a rich note. Traditional cooks use extra lard or oil to give the shrimp, which are still in the shell, an appetizing sheen, but I use peeled shrimp because they are easier to chew.

Cut into strips, these sunny yellow sheets add splashes of color and flavor to foods. When thin and delicate like a crepe, they are perfect for mixing into rice and garnishing bun thang noodle soup (page 217). When thick and fluffy, they punctuate boldly flavored foods, such as Beef and Jicama Hand Rolls (page 30) and Headcheese (page 170). Regardless of thickness, egg sheets are made the same way, in a nonstick skillet and flipped over to cook both sides. Here, I have given you directions for preparing thin sheets, which are a little trickier to make. I have included instructions for thick sheets in the Note that follows.

The featured ingredient in this homey egg dish is mam nem, a thick, taupe sauce made of salted and fermented fish that is pungent and earthy like a delicious stinky cheese but mellows when combined with other ingredients. This southern Vietnamese seasoning is usually labeled fish sauce, but is different than light, clear regular fish sauce, or nuoc mam. Before using it, shake the small, long-necked bottle vigorously to blend the solids and liquid. In this recipe, the cellophane noodles absorb the savory depth of the sauce and plump up during steaming to give the egg mixture its firm texture. At Vietnamese restaurants in the United States, a small piece of this steamed egg is often included as a side item on rice plates. At my house, I prefer to serve it as a main dish, accompanied by rice, a quick soup (canh), and stir-fried water spinach (page 178).