A post of A Food Lover's Journey for Delicious Vietnam #2 announcement caught my attention. I asked her if I'm allowed to participate since I am just a fan of Vietnamese food. So, I decided to be a part of Delicious Vietnam #2 who is hosted by Ravenous Couple.

To be honest, I didn't know about Vietnamese dish until I moved to Winnnipeg. I have tried many of the food from some Vietnamese restaurants in town. As Vietnam is part of South East Asian, some of the dishes are similar to Indonesian ones.

After the making process was done, I'm very satisfied with the result as it tasted damn close with the restaurant ones!  Thanks so much to Wandering Chopstick for all the recipes that I used here.

The vermicelli is assembly with Tom Nuong (Grilled Shrimp) and Cha Ram (Vietnamese Shrimp Egg Rolls). Compare to Indonesian lumpia, cha ram is very simple to make.

I made the Nuoc Mam Cham (Fish Dipping Sauce) and Do Chua (Pickled) a head of time in jars and store them in the fridge. I use sap vinegar instead of white vinegar for both of these condiments. I'm not a big fan of white vinegar. Whenever there is a recipe call for white vinegar, I always substitute for nypa (Indonesia: cuka aren/nipa) or canesugar vinegar (Indonesian: cuka lahang).


Bun Tom Nuong Cha Ram
- Vietnamese Rice Vermicelli with Grilled Shrimp and Shrimp Egg Rolls -
recipe by Wandering Chopsticks
 
Ingredients:
rice vermicelli

Tom Nuong
400 g shrimps
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallot, minced
2 tsp fish sauce, add more to taste
1 tsp ground black pepper

Cha Ram
as many shrimps as you like
as many green onions as you like
spring roll wrappers
a pinch of salt

Nuoc Mam Cham 
1 cup water
1/2 cup Nuoc Mam (Vietnamese Fish Sauce)
1/2 cup nypa or canesugar vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
bird eyes chilies, crushed

Do Chua
1 medium-sized carrot, julienned
1 small daikon, julienned
1 tblsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup nypa/canesugar vinegar


Directions:
Bun
Do as the package direction says so.

Tom Nuong
1. Combine all ingredients for Tom Nuong. Let them sit for 30 minutes.
2. Grill shrimps until done.

Cha Ram
1. Peel and devein shrimps; sprinkle a pinch of salt over them and mix thoroughly. Roughly chop shrimps.
2. Slice the green onions into 2-inch pieces or on the diagonal.
3. Combine shrimps and green onions.
4. Place on wraps and roll (see how to wrap egg roll)
5. Deep fry until golden brown.

Nuoc Mam Cham
1. Boil 1/2 cup water. Actually, you don't have to boil the water, just get it hot so that it can dissolve the sugar more easily.
2. Stir in 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup fish sauce, and 1/2 cup sugar.
3. Taste and adjust if necessary. Add crushed chili peppers if you wish spicy taste. Store in a jar and keep it in the fridge.

The taste should be slightly sweet and rather mild, the pungency of the fish sauce quite muted.

Do Chua
1. After julienning the vegetables, spread them out in a shallow bowl.
2. Sprinkle just enough sugar for a light coating. Add a smidgen of salt. Pour enough vinegar to submerge about half the vegetables.
3. After 15 minutes or so, stir the vegetables so the vinegar is mixed. The carrots and daikon should be lightly pickled after about half an hour.
4. Store extra pickles in a glass jar and pour the extra vinegar in the jar. Add enough vinegar to fill the jar halfway and fill up the rest with water. Screw the lid on tightly. Store in fridge.

Time to assembly:
In a bowl, put rice vermicelli. Top with tom noung, any vegetables that you like (in this case, I added bean sprouts), do chua, cha ram and any herbs as you wish. The herbs can be cilantro, rau ram (Vietnamese coriander leaves) or Thai basil.

In another small bowl, place nuoc nam cham.

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Kaffir Lime and Jeruk Limo are same green, small and very flavourful. What are the diffrences between kafiir lime and jeruk limo? Kaffir lime has a wrinkle skin and less juice, while jeruk limo is similar to regular lime's look, but much more juice than the kaffir lime.

After searching high and low to find the Science name in order to get the English name of Jeruk Limo, I finally found the resource of Jeruk Limo. The website gave me a complete information about Jeruk Limo in English (Thanks!); find how big the trees are at Sybout.

Again, I thanked Sybout for the permission on using a jeruk limo's picture on that website as I don't have any fresh resource to Jeruk Limo. Luckily, I could find fresh Kaffir Lime in Winnipeg, so I have had a picture of Kaffir Lime on my own.

Courtesy of Sybout

Science: Citrus amblycarpa (Citrus limonellus)
Family: Rutaceae
English: Nasnaran Mandarin, Leprous Lime
Indonesian: Jeruk Sambal, Jeruk Limau, Jeruk Limo
It's very popular for variety of Sambal in Indonesia as well as seafood dishes.

Science: Citrus hystrix
Family: Rutaceae
English: Kaffir Lime
Indonesian: Jeruk Purut
It's very useful to reduce the unpleasant smell from fish or meat by zesting the skin since the fruit has very small amount of juice.

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People may be known this as satay, but we spelled this out "sate" and pronounce as "sat�".

There are many varieties of sate in Indonesia; peanut, sweet soy sauce or curry base.

Sate Padang is one that has curry base sauce. It consists similarity to Minangese rendang spices, turmeric leaves and other spices.

Based on Sefa�s blog, there are three different variant of Sate in West Sumatra; Sate Pariaman and Sate Padang Panjang. Those two are named after the cities in that province.  However, it�s commonly called Sate Padang as Padang is the capital city of West Sumatra.

All is made from oxtongue and beef, but they have a different sauce.  Sate Padang has a thick and very hot sauce or gravy due to peanuts and ample chilies.  Also, Sate Padang has a combination taste of Sate Pariaman and Padang Panjang. While Sate Pariaman has red gravy, Sate Padang Panjang has yellow one.

Sate Padang
- Padangese Sate -
Recipe from different various sources on the Internet and modified by me

Ingredients:
908 g (2 lbs) oxtongue (or beef or combination of two)
8 kaffir lime leaves
2 stalks of lemongrass, take only the white part, bruised
1 turmeric leaves, knotted (optional)
2 asam kandis (I substituted for kokam or gorakha, it can be found at Indian/Caribbean markets)
water for boiling ox tongue
bamboo skewers
cooking oil
� - � cup rice flour, dissolved in a small amount of water

Spices to grind:
7 shallots
3 cloves garlic
red cayenne peppers (I substitute for ground chilies as many as you can handle the hot flavour)
3 cm long galangal
2 cm long ginger
2 cardamoms
1 tsp ground coriander
� tsp cumin powder
2 tsp curry powder (I prefer the Srilankan curry powder)
ground white pepper and salt as needed

Condiments:
rice cake (ketupat)
fried shallots (bawang goreng)

Directions:
1. In a pot, add water and bring to a boil. Add oxtongue, cook for about next 15 minutes.

2. Remove ox tongue from the pot and save 750 mL of the liquid. Scrape the ox tongue with a knife. Rinse well under running water. Cut into cubes (1x2x1 cm3).

3. In the same pot, combine 750 mL liquid, ox tongue cubes, ground spices, turmeric leaves, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, asam kandis and salt. Bring into a boil then reduce the heat, simmer until the tongue completely cooked.

4. Thread 4-5 pieces of tongue into each skewer. Brush with a small amount of cooking oil and grill couple of minutes until both sides are brown (do not grill too long as ox tongue is already cooked).

Gravy:
1. Simmer the broth.
2. Gradually pour into rice flour mixture while stirring.
3. Keep stirring until the gravy thickens.

Serving Suggestion:
Place Sate Padang and rice cake on the plate. Pour the gravy over and garnish with fried shallots. Serve while it�s still hot.


Note: If you are using beef, you don't need to boil with water first.  Cut the the beef into cubes, combine with water and spices and boil.

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Perfect for hot weather! Today was 29C in Winnipeg

For people who only know that avocado is added into savoury dish, I'll tell you something about avocado. I grew up with fresh fruit shake that we can buy from the street food hawkers at most places in Indonesia. My favourite fruit shakes are guava, soursop and avocado. Usually the sellers will have whatever fruits are in season.

Anyway, what I'm going say, I didn't really know about putting avocado into savoury stuff before. Nowdays, I use avocado for both, savoury (sushi, sandwich, dipping) and sweet (avocado shake and smoothie).

Yes, avocado blended/shake is very popular beverage in Indonesia and Vietnam. That is why I can easily purchase avocado shake at the Vietnamese restaurants in Winnipeg, since there is no Indonesian restaurant in town. However, there is a different style compare to the one that I used to have.

Every family or person has their own recipe. My family used to add coffee instant and chocolate sweetened condensed milk or mocha syrup. It's topped with chocolate sprinkle which the Indonesian is called for meisis. Some people serve this with ice cream on top and it's called avocado float.

As chocolate sweetened condensed milk is not available for purchased in Winnipeg, I just used the regular sweetened condensed milk.

PS. I almost forgot about this until today I visited Serge's blog. He blogged about this on February. I posted this picture before on my facebook.

Note. when I made this, I didn't have my mocha syrup. I was in Boissevain not at my own house. Well, I can only find Marjan Boudain's mocha syrup in Winnipeg.


Jus Alpukat
Indonesian Avocado Blended/Shake

Ingredients:
2 ripe avocados
1 tsp espresso coffee brew (if you like stronger/weaker taste, feel free to add/reduce more)
4- 5 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
300 ml water
ice crushed as much as desired
mocha syrup
chocolate sprinkle.

Directions:
Blend all ingredients, except chocolate sprinkle until smooth. In the serving glasses, add mocha syrup, transfer the avocado mixture and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkle over before serving.

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First and foremost, I would like to say thank you very very much for the birthday wishes that I received through emails and facebook. Also, I got a nice breakfast in bed from my husband, a glass of berries (acai, blueberry, blackberry and boysenberry) smoothie and a glass of strawberry soy milk. Thank you, Pung!

Let's move on to what I'm going to post. Since I have been taking some different food pictures, I was confused which one that I'm going to post first. I finally did an online polls and the result was Tahu Pong Semarang as you can see the pic below.

Tahu Pong Semarang is a dish from Semarang, the capital city of Central Java. According to Ci Ine, a Semarang native this dish wasn't lay on bed of bean sprouts and no Chinese celery sprinkle over as well. However, the cookbook that I brought from Indonesia did mention.

You may bet this dish is a mixed Chinese Indonesian with the use of lo bok (known as Chinese radish or daikon, or lobak in bahasa Indonesia) and tofu.

Tahu Pong Semarang consists four different preparations, gimbal udang (shrmp fritters), tofu puff, acar lobak (lo bok pickle) and the hot sweet sour sauce. Since tofu puff is easy to find, I don't need to buy fresh tofus, cut and deep fry them. All I need was buying the package of tofu puff and heat up in the oven to get crunchier texture. Yes, I still had to fry the gimbal udang, slice lo bok and make the sauce.

Upsss, there is one complement that I didn't use fried hard boiled eggs. I'm not a big fan of hard boiled eggs, so I skipped them.
Tahu Pong Semarang
-Tofu Puff and Shrimp Fritters with Hot Sweet and Sour Sauce-
recipe by Yasaboga, modified by me

Ingredients:
1 package of tofu puff
vegetable oil

Gimbal Udang - Shrimp Fritters
200 g medium size shrimps, peeled and deveined
150 g bean sprouts
3 cloves garlic, grated
1 tsp ground white peppercorn
2 tsp Chinese celery, chopped
150 g unbleached all purpose flour
a dash of baking soda
2 eggs
125 mL cold water (4C)

Acar Lobak - Lo bok pickle
300 g lo bok/Chinese radish/daikon, juilenned
1 tsp seasalt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp nipa vinegar

Hot Sweet and Sour Sauce:
1-2 tsp sugar (I stick to 1 tsp)
1 tbsp nipa vinegar
3-4 tbps Indonesian sweet soy sauce
125 mL water
Grind:
5 bird eyes chilies
4 cloves garlic, fried

Other complements:
bean sprouts
fried shallots
1 tbsp Chinese celery, chopped

Directions:
Tahu Pong - Tofu Puff
Reheat in the oven until crunchy

Gimbal Udang - Shrimp Fritters
1. Mix garlic, white peppercorn, celery, flour, egg and water; stir evenly. Add bean sprouts.
2. Prepare a flat pan and skillet to fry the gimbal. In a flat pan, pour a small a amount of oil. Use low heat at first. Pour batter about 8 cm diameter on a pan, place 4 shrimps on batter. Cook until half done. Remove from pan. At medium-high heat, fill the skillet with oil, re-fry the gimbal until golden brown.

Acar Lobak - Lo bok Pickle
Sprinkle salt over the lo bok. Do soft-squash until lo boks are wilted. Rinse lo bok under running water and drain. Add other ingredients and keep in the fridge until time to serve.

Hot Sweet and Sour Sauce
Mix all ingredients

How to serve:
Plate a bed of bean sprouts. Place tahu pong and gimbal udang on top of bean sprouts. Pour the sauce over and sprinkle with chopped Chinese celery and fried shallots. Ready to serve and eat with acar lobak.

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Yummy Gravlax

The Stella's Cafe and Bakery serves all day breakfast menu.   I never ordered the same food whenever I went there.

The first time I felt in love with this cafe was about 3 years ago. I adored their homemade jam. With a perfect sweetness, I meant for a person who doesn't like too much sweet things like me; their jam is so perfect. Also, I still could find the strawberry chunks in it. You can dunk your toast into the jam.

Last Wednesday, my husband (PB) and I went there for the sixth time. I saw the cafe has new choices. While PB ordered a fish burger with a cup of carrot coriander soup, I chose an Open Face Gravlax Salmon with the same soup as he had.

Surely, he loved the fish burger which was made from pickerel. As Stella's style, it always had a sprinkle of fried shallots inside the burger. What about me? It was my first time to have Gravlax. I do love it. I am a sashimi lover, so I didn't refuse Gravlax at all. Gravlax is a Nordic dish consisting of raw salmon, cured in salt, sugar, and dill. If you still wonder about Gravlax, here is a good link to inform you more.

My Canadian husband has a very little mix with Icelandic.  However, he didn't know about Gravlax before.:)

He also enjoyed the bottled tea that we only found at Stella's so far. Perfect sweetness and acidity! Not too sweet nor too sour.  To wake me up, I needed a bit caffeine for my beverage. I picked a cup of Caff� Latte.





The ambient is very relax, even though most of the time are busy.

I'm doing this review not because I get paid.  Hence, this is my personal opinion. When you are in Winnipeg, try to visit this local cafe.  The Stella's has 3 locations in town.  The one that I used to go is at 166 Osborne Street.

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