Category: Recipes

Mama Truong’s Fish Sauce: Nước mắm recipe

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Nước mắm (fish sauce) or more officially Nước mắm pha (mixed fish sauce or fish sauce ‘vinegarette’), although never really referred to as such, is THE cornerstone dipping sauce to Vietnamese cuisine. This simple yet complex sauce is the marker by which I judge Vietnamese restaurants and cooks (yes, I am also silently judging you if you […]

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Mystery Cookies: My FAVE-orite.

.Reading time 2 minutes.

This is hands down my favorite cookie, especially for the holidays but good anytime. The mystery is how can four ingredients come together into such complexity. Salty, sweet, chocolate and caramel?  My friends, it is your lucky day: the recipe for mystery cookies. Ingredients Sleeve of saltine crackers 2 cups chocolate chips (or more 🙂 […]

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ngọt: gingery sweet beans dessert recipe / chè đậu gừng

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Hopefully I did not lose you at beans for dessert. Stick with me on this.Bean desserts are common in Vietnamese cuisine (che đậu). Lots of variety and add-ins (pandan, coconut, tapioca pearls). They likely started with digestive benefit in mind, which for this recipe is hypothetically applied given the ginger (gừng). You should just eat […]

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ngọt: sweet Vietnamese coffee jello recipe / thạch cà phê sữa đá

.Reading time 2 minutes.

thạch cà phê sữa đá / sweet vietnamese coffee jello recipe Cà phê sữa đá is basically jet fuel with sweetened condensed milk. Big on flavor, caffeine and sweet. Decidedly Vietnamese for sure.  Cảm ơn / thank you / to Amy at thatwinsomegirl.blogspot.com for posting her recipe. She had way prettier cubes than I did but the […]

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ngọt: Vietnamese banana cake recipe / banh chuối nướng

.Reading time 5 minutes.

This recipe is all about the banana and is more ‘bread pudding’ than cake. Ideally eat this treat while still warm with maybe some whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream but it is still good once cooled. No matter what though: cut yourself some crusty edge pieces right out of the oven, tell everyone you are trimming off the […]

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Barney Google and the Applesauce Cake: Vintage Recipes from my Kitchen Today

.Reading time 6 minutes.

This is a tale of two baked goods whipped up on different days but from the same awesome vintage cookbook, courtesy of Trinity Treasures (from Trinity Episcopal in Everett, WA a la 1965). I love love love cooking out of vintage recipe books, it is a something of a challenge, in part that recipes are written […]

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