Pho better or Pho worse

After a fun F1 race potluck dinner featuring yummy Vietnamese ricepaper rolls/Gỏi cuốn, I was really excited to try cooking a few Vietnamese recipes on my own. So I made my way down on monday and found this really lovely book: Vietnamese cooking made easy in Toapayoh Library. As well as a copy of Harumi's Japaese cooking.

The Vietnamese cookbook rocks because:it has a sprial bound spine which makes a breeze to flip(even with messy hands) I love the introduction and how it includes information on basic vietnamese ingredients(with pictures!) and covers a good range of recipes. It has the dips/sauces, appetisers, salads, noodles/soups, the meats and desserts.



Right off I picked the stuffed tomatoes dish to try first, it was too adorable to resist! Figured, if I mastered it and it was good, it'd be a definite crowd pleaser for future potlucks/or when meeting the in-laws *heh* Preparation was pretty easy, only work involved was prepping the ingredients for seasoning; easily solved with a mini food chopping device. THE tricky part was cooking the stuffed tomatoes, I had to cook mine twice, cos the first time they were still a little rare in the middle. so Tip of the Day is: brown them on the top in the pan then tuck them in a preheated oven to slow roast.





Ingredients:
4 large tomatoes
2 tablespoons oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Coriander leaves to garnish


Filling:
200g ground pork
2 large dried chinese mushrooms, soaked in hot water till soft, stems discarded, caps minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots,minced
1 spring onion, minced
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper


Sauce
2 teasppons water
1/2 tablespoon fish sauce
1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon sugar

1. Make the Filling first by combining all the ingredient and mixing well. Set aside for 20 minutes.
2. Using a sharp knife, slice off about 1cm of the top of each tomato, scoop out the pulp to form the tomato cups. Reserve the pulp for the Sauce and invert the cups on a plate to drain off excess liquid.
3. Dry the inside of each tomato cup with a paper towel. Fill each cup with a portion of the Filling. Heat oil in a wok/skillet over medium heat and panfry the stuffed tomatoes with the opened end facing down for 3-5minutes. Turn the stuffed tomatoes right side up and panfry the bottoms for 3-5mintues until cooked. Remove from pan and place on serving dish.
4. To make the sauce, mince the reserved tomato pulp and mix with the water, fish sauce, oyster sauce and sugar till well combined. Then reheat the remaining oil in the pain over medium heat and stir fry the minced garlic for 1-2 minutes until fragrant and golden brown. Add the prepared Sauce mix well and bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Remove sauce from heat and pour over the stuffed tomatoes. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with steamed rice or toast.

Give this recipe a try! I didnt regret it and Im sure you won't either [: And let me know if you think the sauce in this recipe tastes like ketchup!

p.s: This book also has a recipe for Pork Pate which I'm dying to try soon. Let's hope it turns out great too

p.p.s: Harumi's recipes are a bit more daunting I feel. Although I tried her Sweetpotato Montblanc recipe with disastrous results because I tried to substitute sweet potatoes with pumpkin and heavy cream with normal cream. Its back to the cooking pot and trying it out again on another day!