Asian-Y Thanksgiving Ideas (+ 5 recipes)

+ Tote Restocking + DIY 🌶️ sauce + Lot Roll follow-up

Hello everyone and welcome to all the folks who recently subscribed!

Thanksgiving is upon us in the United States. Are prepared? I’m not. Our family is having an early Thanksgiving this week! We’re non-traditional celebrants. More on that below.

First, follow-ups from last week’s post that included the Viet favorite — beef in la lot leaf rolls:

• No la lot Leaf? Emily asked if you can skip the leaf if you don’t have it. Yes! Just make the meat mixture, shape into patties and cook however you’d like. Get the la lot leaf lowdown video tips and more.

• Banh hoi fine rice noodles: Mary mail ordered what turned out to be a large quantity. What to do with it all aside from serving with la lot rolls? I answered her comment/question in the post (use the link directly above). Mary’s planning a noodle-laden Thanksgiving with banh hoi!

• Footlong la lot banh mi: Got left over la lot? Make banh mi! I saw it in Vietnam years ago and it’s a splendid banh mi. This week, I made one to share with my husband (WFH lunch!). He was very happy because he was pining after a good banh mi and honestly, that’s hard to come by. Make your own! I gently panfried the rolls to refresh them, let them briefly cool, then assembled the sandwich. Banh mi tips are at at VWK and in my cookbooks, The Banh Mi Handbook, Vietnamese Food Any Day and Ever-Green Vietnamese.

  

  The bread came from Safeway!

Homemade Hot Sauce Season

Is your garden, grocery and/or farmer’s market full of ripe chiles? It’s time to make hot sauce. Cathy, a retired professional chile breeder, harvested a bunch from her garden, as well as homegrown lemongrass to make the trio of condiments from Ever-Green Vietnamese: Viet chile sauce (tuong ot), fermented chile garlic sauce (tuong ot toi), and the vegan sate sauce (sot sa te — not a peanut sauce, but an umami-laden lemongrass chile oil that’s divine!).

When making the hot sauces, use a moderately hot chiles and feel free to blend. This weekend, I blended Fresno, jalapeño, cayenne, and Aleppo sourced from a Korean market, Safeway and local farmer’s market. Red peppers have a delightful fruitiness, but in a pinch, use green ones for a grassy flavor.

Viet Herb Tote Preorders

Cowabunga! After the totes sold out again within hours, over 100 people requested more. I will restock next month but it will be the last time. Despite the busy holiday season, Enviro-Tote, the company I work with, agreed to add extra priority to get the herb totes done next month.

I hope to ship on December 19th or 20th. To ensure that you get your tote(s) and to help with prompt shipping, I opened the shop for preorders.

Head over to the Viet World Kitchen pop-up shop and note the following:

• ⚡️ New — you can order a tote with a free signed bookplate!

• There’s free shipping for all orders over $75.00. ✨

• Paid newsletter subscribers can save $5 off each item; please use the discount code at the bottom of this tote post. Yes, if you got the discount before, you can get the discount again!
  

Viet and Asian-y Thanksgiving Tips

My family has been enjoying non-traditional Thanksgiving Dinners for as long as I can remember. Lately, I’ve been having conversations with friends and acquaintances about what to serve. Nowadays, people are into culturally mixing things up. For example, our neighbor Tom shared that because their family members have so many favorite dishes that it’s hard to figure out a viable menu to please all. His solution: He takes everyone out for sushi on the day after Thanksgiving! It’s less stressful.

People also want to add more vegetables to their menus. A South Asian acquaintance usually serves Indian food and now with Ever-Green Vietnamese in her kitchen, asked me for holiday ideas. I adore side dishes and in the book, suggest that we boost them! They can be the sly super-stars of the meal.

To add Viet and Asian-y notes to your holiday menu, consider my suggestions below. They’ll add tangy, bright, fresh sparkles to your festivities.

You’ll see recipes from Ever-Green Vietnamese followed by ones at the website. And personally, I wouldn’t mind a platter of garlic black pepper crab too!

From Ever-Green Vietnamese

• Spice-Citrus Marble Cake / Banh Marble Cake (p. 269) — Make dessert first so you free up the oven. Employing spices used in the Viet kitchen, this cake smells like Thanksgiving. You get to blend the spices. Use potent ones. I favor Burlap and Barrel’s cinnamon and ginger from Vietnam. Today, I baked a marble cake (below) to bring to Mom’s house in a couple days. I used TJ’s oat milk which got very frothy when whisked. You shouldn’t get such big holes with richer milks or whole cow’s milk. The cake baked up just as normal and unfolding was fine as usual. I can’t wait to cut into it and eat a piece! But before serving, I’ll rebake it in the pan (I unmolded the cake and replaced it in the pan for transport) for about 15 minutes at 350F to refresh and crisp the top a bit. For a different look, bake the cake in a small 6-cup bundt cake pan, if you like. The cake freezes well too.

  

• Grapefruit, Mushroom, and Cucumber Salad / Goi Buoi (p. 178) — Citrus is coming into season and this is a refreshing, beautiful salad for the table.

• Grilled Romaine with Spicy Fermented-Tofu Sauce / Xa Lach Romaine Nuong Chao (p.183) — Sounds daring but it’s just a grilled lettuce salad dressed with a creamy, spicy, vegan dressing. Fried shallots finish things off instead of croutons so you get a lo-carb salad!

• Oven-Blasted Sweet Potatoes with Sate Sauce / Khoai Lang Nuong (p. 209) — If spicy-savory-sweet is your jam, this recipe is it! Small honey nut squash would be great in lieu of the sweet potatoes.

• Char Siu Roasted Cauliflower / Bong Cai Trang Nuong Vi Xa Xiu (p. 227) — Could be a side dish or a main for non-meat eaters. Leftovers are stupendous for steamed bao (p. 121) or banh mi (p. 125)!

• Roast Chicken and Veggies with Nuoc Cham / Ga Ro Ti - In lieu of turkey, make a sheet pan meal with chicken parts and lots of veggies then douse it with nuoc cham to finish. This is my 2023 Thanksgiving main dish.

  

  

  Top row by me; bottom row by Aubrie Pick for Ever-Green Vietnamese.

On the website:

• Sweetened Condensed Milk Rolls — Fluffy and not too sweet but kinda sticky in a good way. Bake these in advance, freeze if you like, then spritz with water and reheat in the oven to refresh. Repaint them with glaze for an added layer of flavor. They’re great for leftover turkey sliders too.

• Korean Muchim Fruit Salad Dressing — Use this spicy, tarty, savory dressing by Eric Kim for a salad of Fuyu persimmon, Asian pear, and/or big green Grapes. Cut the fruit into bite size pieces.

• Cranberry Sweet-and-Sour Sauce — Adding a bit of ginger warms up the sauce for the holiday table.

• Leftover Turkey Pho — Save the turkey scraps for a pho spectacular over the weekend! Make it in the Instant Pot or Multicooker. Or, simmer the pho in a stockpot.

Early next week, I plan to pop back into your inbox with some salady persimmon ideas. So if you see Fuyus (the squat ones), get a few and set them out to ripen to firm-ripe.