Viet-Style Maggi Roast Chicken and Butternut Squash
3 recipes about home, country and new beginnings
Hello everyone,
Fifty years ago, on April 25, 1975, my family had just arrived at the U.S. Air Force base in Guam. I remember the fresh breezes on the island, the feeling of relief that we were safe and out of Vietnam. We were free. I was six at the time and loved running around the base wearing my pajamas (one of two outfits I had). I remember hearing that my uncles had arrived in Guam and ran as fast as I could to let my parents know of the news.
We had to get out of Saigon because my father, a former military governor in South Vietnam during the late 1950s and early 1960s, would surely have been persecuted by the Communist North Vietnamese who were making their fast advance toward the capital of South Vietnam where we lived.
After President Ngo Dinh Diem’s assassination in 1963 by a coup led by South Vietnamese military officers, my Dad was blacklisted from public service. He was interrogated and jailed with other officers for a few of days, during which the conspirators tried to unearth all the dirt on my father as they could. Dad was clean so they released him. “Your father went in as a military officer and he came out as a civilian,” Mom said.
Few people could be trusted in Vietnam at that time. But we were lucky enough to find an escape by air. Two U.S. State Department employees stealthily returned to Saigon to evacuate as many people as they could. My aunts who worked with those men, secured out passage out of the country. My mom, a former U.S.A.I.D. employee in logistics and the secretary pool, banged away on a typewriter for hours to fake paperwork for our departure through Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon.
Today, the State Department and USAID occupy a different part of the American consciousness. To Vietnamese people back then, they were lifelines.
After spending one week in Guam, where I tasted canned beef stew (think Dinty Moore) for the first time, we flew to Camp Pendleton U.S. Marine Base in Southern California, just south of San Clemente. We stayed at Pendleton for a few weeks before my dad, eager to explore America and forge a new life, located an American business colleague who happened to live nearby.
Mr. Robert Beals sponsored us out of the camp. All refugees needed sponsors so they could find their bearings. If you didn’t get sponsored, you went to another camp.
By May 24, 1975, just a month after we fled Saigon, we were walking around Southern California, in Dana Point Harbor where we stayed at a hotel. It cost a lot of money so as soon as possible, my dad had rented an apartment in San Clemente where a former president lived. “If the town is good enough for Nixon, it’s good enough for me,” Dad said about this sun-splashed seaside enclave.
Those first days and years in America were full of excitement and newness. Americans — from the mayor, mortician, real estate mogul to the pawn shop owner and barber — were incredibly kind in showing us the ropes. We didn’t have a car so we walked everywhere at first, my dad leading in quasi-military fashion, with my mom, three sisters, brother, and me (the youngest), trailing behind.
The American supermarket was a wonderment. Such plentitude everywhere, all neatly packaged up.
What did we cook? Many things, including chicken, which had been precious and expensive in Vietnam. In America, however, chicken was much more affordable. Whenever there was a whole chicken sale, Dad dragged me to the supermarket so we could double up on the per person sale limit. My mom often wanted at least six chickens. I was embarrassed that we were poor and chased so many weekly food sales, but now I’m the one who gladly buys chickens marked 50% off for quick sale!
At home, mom would break down all those whole chickens to use for stock, chicken pho, chicken in caramel sauce, chicken liver pate, chicken bologna (giò lụa), and a Viet-style roast chicken (gà rô ti). Because there was so much chicken around, a dinner of roast chicken meant that there would be future gà rô ti banh mi plus gà rô ti atop sticky rice. Viet-style roast chicken has many uses and our family’s was better than what I ever had (or have ever had) in Little Saigon.
This week, thinking of those years, I bought some chicken parts and roasted them the way my mom used to — with a salty, peppery, garlicky marinade featuring the beloved Maggi Seasoning sauce, an umami-packed 1800s Swiss invention introduced to Vietnam by the French. By the way, the name — gà rô ti, combines Vietnamese (gà) with French (rô ti).
I recreated Mom’s recipe for my first cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen (2006), but it had been a while since I’d made it. I didn’t realized how much I missed it, and how damn easy and good it was! I also made improvements.
Remaking the garlicky roast chicken, I not only got to enjoy a childhood favorite, I also solved an issue that had plagued me back when I wrote the book over twenty years ago — effortlessly making the chicken crisp in the oven. I didn’t know then what I know now.
Additionally, I also incorporated an easy vegetable side. Eat the chicken and vegetables for a low-carb meal. Add rice to enjoy the meal the way my family and I do (the jus is fab on the rice). And, don’t forget roast chicken banh mi and sticky rice!
But I didn’t stop at tweaking the chicken. I made something new.
Because I was on a roll and the marinade literally takes a couple minutes to assemble, I tweaked it to created Maggi roast butternut squash and mushrooms. It turned out to be a satisfying, vegan dish that you can serve as either a main or side dish.
We’re all eating much more varied diets these days and have people at our table who may not eat meat. The marinade proved super useful so I retitled it as Magic Maggi Marinade for PTFS. The squash looks fall-ish but it’s light so it can be a year-round comfort dish.
This dispatch conveys know how and flavors that I’ve enjoyed during the past 50 years. Herein you’ll find:
The Magic Maggi Marinade recipe (with a chart for you to scale up or down!)
A Maggi Roast Chicken and Spring Vegetables recipe in text and PDF
Also a Maggi Butternut Squash and Mushrooms recipe in text and PDF
And explainers (how to get that crispy skin?) and extra tips (what’s Maggi?) so you can vary the recipes and work the them into your lives