Condiments
Vietnamese usually use raw vegetables, rau sống, or rau ghém (sliced vegetable) as condiments for their dishes to combine properly with each main dish in flavour. Dishes in which rau sống is indispensable are bánh xèo and hot pot. The vegetables principally are herbs and wild edible vegetables gathered from forests and family gardens. Leaves and buds are the most common parts of vegetables used. Most of the vegetables have medicinal value.
Rau sống includes lettuce, raw bean sprout, herbs, shredded banana flower, green banana, water spinach, mango bud and guava leaves.
Pairing
- Chicken dishes are combined with lime leaves.
- Crab and seashell dishes are combined with fishy-smelling herb and perilla.
- Dishes reputed as "cold" or "fishy-smelling", such as catfish, clams, or snails, are combined with ginger or lemongrass.
Sauces
- Mắm tôm (shrimp paste)
- Nước mắm (fish extract) can be used as it is or mixed with lemon juice, garlic, vinegar, sugar, and chili. This mixture is called nước mắm pha.
- Tương is made from fermented soybeans.
- Soy sauce mostly is used in marinades and sauces.
- Hoisin sauce is mixed in phở or used as a dipping sauce.
- Hot chili sauce
Food colourings
The colour of Vietnamese food comes from natural ingredients.
- Red - usually from beetroot or by frying annatto seed to make oil (dầu điều)
- Orange - for sticky rice, comes from gac
- Yellow - from turmeric
- Green - from pandan leaf or katuk
- Purple - from magenta plant (lá cẩm)
- Black - in gai cake is from ramie leaf (lá gai)
- Dark brown - for stew dishes, uses nước màu or nước hàng, which is made by heating sugar to the temperature above that of caramel (170°C).
Colourings can be absorbed by mixing ground colourings or colouring liquid or wrapping before boiling to get the extracts. When colouring dishes, the tastes and smells of colourings must also be considered.
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| Five color sticky rice - Xôi ngũ sắc |
Herbs and spices
Vietnamese hot chili peppers are added to most foods, especially in central and southern Vietnam
Coriander and green onion leaves can be found in most Vietnamese dishes.
A basic technique of stir-frying vegetable is frying garlic or shallot with oil before putting the vegetable into the pan.
In northern Vietnam, all dishes with fish must be garnished with dill.
In central Vietnam, the mixture of ground lemongrass and chili pepper is frequently used in dishes with beef.
In southern Vietnam, coconut water is used in most stew dishes.
The pair culantro (ngò gai) and rice paddy herb (ngò om / ngổ) is indispensable in all kinds of sour soups in the southern Vietnam.
Spearmint is often used with strongly fishy dishes.
Perilla is usually used with crab dishes.
Beverages
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Jasmine tea | A local tea beverage of Vietnam |
| Bia hơi | A Vietnamese specialty draft beer produced locally in small batches |
| Cà phê sữa đá | Strong iced coffee, most often served with sweetened condensed milk at the bottom of the cup to be stirred in, is very popular among the Vietnamese. |
| Nước mía | Sugar cane juice extracted from squeezing sugar cane plant, served with ice |
| Rau má | Pennywort juice made from blending fresh pennywort leaves with water and sugar until dissolved is a near-transparent green color and served over ice. |
| Sữa đậu nành | A soybean drink served either hot or cold, sweetened or unsweetened |
| Rượu đế | A distilled liquor made of rice |
| Trà đá | A kind of iced tea popular for its cheap price, it has a faint lime-yellow color and usually does not have much taste. |
| Trà đá chanh | Lemon iced tea |
| Chanh muối | Sweet and sour salty lemon drink |
| Soda xí muội | Sweet and salty plum soda |
| Soda hột gà | Egg soda |
| Sinh tố | Vietnamese fruit smoothie with green bean, red bean, avocado, pineapple, strawberry, jackfruit, durian, sapota, or mango with sweet condensed milk |
| Nước sắn dây hoa bưởi | Made of kudzu and pomelo flower extract |
Exotic dishes
The use of ingredients typically uncommon or taboo in most countries is one of the quintessential attributes that make Vietnamese cuisine unique. While unusual ingredients can only be found in exotic restaurants in many countries, Vietnamese cuisine is deemed atypical in that the usage of these ingredients can play a customary role in daily family dishes regarding of social class.
A common and inexpensive breakfast dish that can be found in any wet market, balut (hột vịt lộn) is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly developed embryo inside, which is boiled and eaten in the shell. It is typically served with fresh herbs: rau răm or Vietnamese coriander, salt, and black pepper; lime juice is another popular additive, when available. A more unusual version of balut dish – fetus quail (trứng cút lộn)- is a snack favored by many Vietnamese students. Paddy crab and paddy snail are the main ingredients in bún riêu ốc – a popular noodle dish – and in some everyday soup dishes (canh) and braised food (món bung). Family meals with silk worms (nhộng), banana flowers (hoa chuối), sparrows, doves, fermented fish and shrimp (mắm cá, mắm tôm tép) are not rare sights. Seasonal favorites include ragworms (rươi), which are made into many dishes such as fried rươi omelet (chả rươi), fermented rươi sauce (mắm rươi), steamed rươi (rươi hấp), stir-fried rươi with radish or bamboo shoot (rươi xào củ niễng măng tươi hay củ cải).
Northern Vietnamese cuisine is also notable for its wide range of meat choices. Exotic meats such as dog meat, snake, soft-shell turtle, deer, and domestic goat are sold in street-side restaurants and generally paired with alcoholic beverages. A taboo in many Western countries and in southern Vietnam, consumption of dog meat is common throughout the northern part of the country and is believed to raise the libido in men. Paddy mouse meat – barbecued, braised, stir- or deep-fried – is a rarer dish that can be found in many Vietnamese rural areas or even high-end city restaurants. Furthermore, television chef Andrew Zimmern visited northern Vietnam in the 12th episode of his popular show Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Cobra beating heart and dried bones, silk worms, and bull penis are some of the dishes he sampled.
Anthony Bourdain, the host chef of Travel Channel's Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, wrote in April 2005, for the Financial Times, "...everything is used – and nothing wasted in Vietnam." Animal parts that are often disposed of in many Western countries are used fully in Vietnamese cooking. Organs, including lungs, livers, hearts, intestines and bladders of pigs, cattle, and chickens are sold at even higher prices than their meat. Chicken testicles and undeveloped eggs are stir-fried with vegetables and served as an everyday dish.
Many of the traditional northern Lunar New Year dishes such as thịt đông, giò thủ, and canh măng móng giò involve the use of pig heads, tongues, throats and feet. Pig and beef tails, as well as chicken heads, necks and feet, are Vietnamese favorite beer dishes. Bóng, used as an ingredient in canh bóng – a kind of soup, is pig skin baked until popped. Steamed pig brains can be found almost anywhere along a Vietnamese street. Also in the northern part of Vietnam, different kinds of animal blood can be made into a dish called tiết canh by whisking the blood with fish sauce and cold water in a shallow dish along with finely chopped, cooked duck innards (such as gizzards), sprinkled with crushed peanuts and chopped herbs such as Vietnamese coriander, mint, etc. It is then cooled until the blood coagulates into a soft, jelly-like mixture and served raw.
Common ingredients
Vegetables
- Bitter melon (khổ qua)
- Bok choy (cải bó xôi)
- Cabbage (cải bắp)
- Carrot (cà rốt)
- Cauliflower (súp lơ or bông cải)
- Ceylon spinach (mồng tơi)
- Chayote (su su)
- Chili pepper (ớt)
- Cucumber (dưa leo)
- Crown daisy (cải cúc or tần ô)
- Daikon (củ cải trắng)
- Eggplant (cà tím)
- Jicama (củ đậu or củ sắn)
- Hemlock water dropwort (rau cần ta)
- Katuk (rau ngót)
- Joseph's coat (rau dền đỏ)
- Tonkin jasmine (hoa thiên lý)
- Water cress (cải xong)
- Water spinach (rau muống)
Fruits
- Acerola (sơ ri or xê-ri)
- Buddha's hand (phật thủ)
- Canistel (trái trứng gà)
- Cherimoya (mãng cầu tây)
- Coconut (dừa)
- Chinese date (táo tàu)
- Custard apple (bình bát or mãng cầu)
- Durian (sầu riêng)
- milk fruit (vú sữa)
- Guava (ổi)
- Jackfruit (mít)
- Langsat (bòn bon)
- Longan (long nhãn)
- Lychee (vải)
- Mango (xoài)
- Mangosteen (măng cụt)
- Otaheite gooseberry (chùm ruột)
- Papaya (đu đủ)
- Persimmon (hồng)
- Pitaya – dragon fruit (thanh long)
- Plum (mận)
- Pomelo (bưởi)
- Rambutan (chôm chôm)
- Sapodilla (hồng xiêm or xa-pô-chê)
- Spondias cytherea (cóc)
- Soursop (mãng cầu Xiêm)
- Star fruit (khế)
- Sweetsop (na or mãng cầu ta)
- Rose apple (roi in the north, mận Đà Lạt in the south)
- Tea Fruit (thanh trà)
- Tomato (cà chua)
- Water apple (roi in the north, mận in the south)
- Watermelon (dưa hấu)
Herbs (rau thơm)
- Genus Allium:
- Using leaf and flower: Welsh onion or green onion (hành lá or hành hương or hành hoa), garlic chives (hẹ)
- Using bulb: garlic (tỏi), shallot (hành tím), onion (hành tây), Allium chinense (củ kiệu) and chives (củ nén or hành tăm).
- Welsh onion (hưng cừ) and leek (tỏi tây or hành boarô) are not traditionally used.
- Family Zingiberaceae: using ginger (gừng), galangal (riềng)- greater galangal (riềng nếp) is preferred to lesser galangal (riềng thuốc) because of the stronger flavour, turmeric (nghệ) and black cardamom (thảo quả)
- Polygonum aviculare (rau đắng)
- Coriander leaf (cilantro) (rau ngò or ngò rí)
- Lemongrass (xả or sả)
- Dill (thì là)
- Elsholtzia ciliata (kinh giới)
- Long coriander/culantro (ngò gai)
- Rice paddy herb (ngò ôm)
- Houttuynia cordata (giấp cá or diếp cá)
- Parsley
- Peppermint (húng cây or rau bạc hà)
- Perilla (tía tô)
- Spearmint (húng lủi)
- Thai basil (rau quế, húng quế, or rau húng quế) sometimes substituted with sweet basil in the United States
- Hot mint (rau răm)
Vietnamese utensils
- Basket, various kinds (rổ or rá)
- Bowl (small bowl: bát in northern Vietnam or chén in southern Vietnam; large bowl: tô)
- Chopsticks (đũa)
- Chõ- a kind of steamer to cook glutinous rice
- Clay pot cooking (thố đất)
- Cup (cốc or ly)
- Dipper (gáo)
- Flat drying basket (nong or nia)
- Knife (dao)
- Mill (cối xay gạo)
- Mortar (cối giã)
- Pestle (chày)
- Plate (dĩa or đĩa)
- Pot, various kinds (nồi and niêu)
- Spoon (thìa in northern Vietnam or muỗng in southern Vietnam)
- Teacup (tách or chén uống trà)
- Teapot (ấm pha trà)
- Tray, various kinds (mâm and khay)
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