Banh Mi Picnic

The day after our Summer Rolls and Satay, Matt and I made our own version of Banh Mis with our leftovers and picnicked. Banh Mis are Vietnamese sandwiches usually made on a baguette made partially with rice flour. They can include a variety of fillings, but they traditionally include pate, grilled meat or ham, pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro, butter and/or mayonnaise, and chili peppers. I am by no means an expert on the Banh Mi, but Serious Eats has a great article/rant all about them if you’re interested in what’s truly authentic. I can’t claim that ours were authentic, but they were delicious and the perfect picnic food.

We started with a French baguette, sliced mostly in half lengthwise but not all the way through. Since this bread was a little denser than the typical Bahn Mi baguette, I tore out a little of the inside to make room for the fillings. Then, I spread each side with a thin layer of room temperature butter.

Next, I added a layer of meat. I used leftover satay beef that I had marinated and grilled the night before. Matt used some fried tofu.

I sprinkled a sliced chili evenly around the sandwich (but I wish I had actually added more).

We had quick pickled the leftover carrots and cucumber from the summer rolls the night before, so I added a generous pile of those next.

I topped the pickles with a handful of cilantro, stems and all.

I then sprinkled some fish sauce over the top, because I love the stuff.

Finally, I added some squirts of Sriracha for even more heat.

We ate our Bahn Mis with a 2010 Mulderbosch Cabernet Sauvignon Rose, one of my favorites. I’m no expert in wine pairing, but I thought it went wonderfully.

Summer Rolls

I absolutely love Vietnamese summer rolls, so last weekend I decided to learn how to make them myself to get my fix. I find that a lot of places make them too far ahead of time (I’m looking at you, Whole Foods); by the time they come to me, the rice paper loses the nice chewy texture. The natural solution was to learn to make them myself!

I read a lot of recipes and kind of combined them so I could use the fillings I wanted. I usually order them with shrimp and pork, but I made them at home with just shrimp to keep it simple. I used lots of herbs – cilantro, basil, and mint – as well as some cooked rice noodles, lettuce, carrots, and cucumber. I love when they’re served with that peanuty hoisin sauce, so that’s what I tried to replicate. I used a recipe from this website, which called for hoisin sauce, peanut butter, garlic, and chilis. It turned out to be exactly what I had in mind.

All of the components can be made ahead of time. I boiled the shrimp for just a couple of minutes and shocked them in cold water to stop them from overcooking. I poured hot water over the rice noodles and let them soak for somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes – just enough to get them soft, but not mushy. I find that they turn out perfectly when I rinse them in cold water when they just start to get chewy. The rest of the ingredients just require chopping. The real trick is to get them rolled correctly, which I found takes some practice.

Ingredients

Summer Rolls

Rice paper
Cooked shrimp, sliced lengthwise
Rice noodles, cooked
Carrots, shredded (I used a peeler to achieve this)
Cucumbers, cut into long, thin strips
Romaine lettuce
Fresh cilantro
Fresh basil (Thai basil would be even better)
Fresh mint

Dipping Sauce

1 c. hoisin sauce
¼ c. smooth peanut butter
1 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 hot chili, minced

Start with all of the summer roll ingredients ready to go. The assembly happens fast.

Dip a rice paper into a bowl of hot water (but not boiling). Remove it as soon as it gets soft (this takes less than a minute, but varies depending on how hot the water is obviously).

Lay the soft rice paper out on a plate and start adding fillings. I probably should have started with the shrimp so that they looked nicer in the end, but I just went for it with the first filling I had next to me.

On top of the lettuce, I added cucumber, carrots, all of the herbs, and a small amount of rice noodles.

After adding the shrimp, I tucked in each end as best as possible (kind of like you’re rolling a burrito).

Not the prettiest of the bunch, but still delicious.

For the dipping sauce, simply puree all of the ingredients. I may have added a little bit more rice vinegar to suite my tastes. The recipe is pretty flexible. You’ll also need to adjust the amount of chili depending on which kind you’re using and how spicy you want the sauce.

These summer rolls were a great summer starter to have with our grilled satays.

Grilled Scallions with Romesco Sauce

Spring onions with Romesco sauce is a popular Catalan combination. I couldn’t find spring onions at the store last weekend, so we did the same thing with scallions on the 4th of July. It turned out to be a great recipe for summer grilling.

There are tons of recipes out there for Romesco. It’s typically a sauce of pureed almonds, garlic, olive oil, dried peppers, and sometimes tomato. We have had a lot of success with José Andrés’s recipe, which we usually vary depending on what we have on hand at the time. This time, we grilled most of the ingredients instead of roasting them in the oven. It’s one of those recipes that will come out great no matter what, and is good on just about anything. I will definitely be making it again soon with grilled shrimp.

Grilled Scallions with Romesco Sauce
Adapted from José Andrés’s recipe

Ingredients
3 large plum tomatoes
2 large red bell peppers
1 medium onion (halved but unpeeled)
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 dried ancho chile
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons Sherry wine vinegar
1 slice bread, crust removed and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon pimentón
Scallions (thickest you can find)

Instructions

Grill the tomatoes, bell peppers, and onion whole on the grill until very charred.

When they’re blackened and soft, peel and seed them.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chile and fry until darkened and slightly puffed, turning once, about 30 seconds. Transfer to a small bowl and add enough water to cover. Let it stand for 30 minutes. Then, peel and seed it.

Meanwhile, heat another tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the almonds; sauté until lightly toasted, about 1 minute.

Add the chile, tomatoes, bell peppers, onion, almonds, bread, olive oil, garlic, vinegar, and paprika to a blender. Blend to a course puree and season with salt. Keep the sauce at room temperature while you grill the scallions.

To prepare the scallions, simply coat them in olive oil and sprinkle with salt.

Put them on the grill over high heat and remove when slightly charred.

Have the napkins ready and dunk the grilled scallions into the sauce. I would also recommend opening a bottle of Cava!

Restaurants: Peasant

Matt and I spent the day in New York last Saturday and decided to stray from our usual picks and splurge on nice meal. Peasant, located in Nolita, has a simple but delicious sounding Italian menu that caught our eye when we walked by in the afternoon.

When we arrived, we noticed that the restaurant is much more spacious than the places we usually go to in the area. The wait staff was not particularly welcoming, though, and seemed almost insincere.

The waiter brought over some delicious, crusy bread, a bowl of ricotta, and a bottle of olive oil to start off with. That kind of could have been a meal in itself.

We started with the Asparagus with Egg appetizer, which was covered with a generous amount of toasty parmesan cheese. Given the amount of cheese, I was surprised that it needed much more salt. I was also hoping for the egg yolk to kind of run all over the roasted asparagus, but it was overcooked. At least the asparagus were nicely cooked.

What really sold me when I first read the menu was the Tagliolini with Sea Urchin, so, not surprisingly, that’s what I ordered as my entrée. I haven’t had sea urchin in anything but sushi before so I didn’t really know what to expect, but I thought it went beautifully with the pasta. The thin egg noodles were simply tossed in olive oil and whole cloves of roasted garlic. The sea urchin kind of melted into the pasta and gave it a nice, but mellow, taste of the sea. My only criticism was that there was an awful lot of oil and nothing to really cut the richness, so I couldn’t really eat a lot of it.

Matt’s entrée was less successful. He got the Gnocchi with Morels and English Peas. The morels were amazing – and how could they not be – but the gnocchi were very gummy and the peas were raw. Matt was less offended by the peas, but we both agreed that the gnocchi were extremely subpar.

We decided to give dessert a shot and ordered the White Chocolate Bread Pudding. It, like the rest of our meal, was just okay. I’m kind of a traditionalist when it comes to bread pudding (and desserts in general) so I didn’t love the crunchy almonds that were inside. It came with a white chocolate gelato and a little bit of caramel, both of which were good.

I’m glad I tried Peasant mostly because of the sea urchin pasta dish. However, there are too many great restaurants in New York to come back and give it another chance.

Peasant
194 Elizabeth St
New York, NY 10012