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Recipes with dried rice vermicelli

3 recipes that use dried rice vermicelli, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Cha ca La Vong, takes 45 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, shallot and caster sugar.

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Mee siam

Malay breakfast stalls and nasi padang counters across Singapore sell mee siam from early morning, often packed in brown paper for the journey to work, and Peranakan homes make it for birthdays and Hari Raya open houses. Thin rice vermicelli is fried with a chilli and dried shrimp rempah until pink, then drowned in a sweet-sour tamarind gravy flavoured with fermented soybean paste, and topped with halved boiled eggs, fried tofu puffs, garlic chives and a squeeze of calamansi. It is light, tangy and moreish rather than rich. Note this version contains dried shrimp and shrimp paste, so it is not vegetarian. The mistake to avoid is oversoaking the vermicelli, which then breaks into mush in the wok; soak it only until pliable. Chef's tip: make the gravy the day before; the tamarind and soybean flavours settle overnight and it tastes rounder.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Cha ca La Vong

A family restaurant in Hanoi's Old Quarter served this one dish for so long that the street itself was renamed Chả Cá, Grilled Fish Street. Chunks of white fish are marinated in turmeric and galangal, cooked until golden, then brought to the table in a pan of hot oil where everyone throws in handfuls of dill and spring onion to wilt. You eat it over rice vermicelli with peanuts, fresh herbs and a pungent shrimp-paste dip. Dill is rare elsewhere in Vietnamese cooking, which is why this dish tastes so distinct. Chef's tip: use a lot more dill than seems sensible; it is treated as a vegetable here, not a garnish.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Bun cha

Around 11 in the morning, the side streets of Hanoi's Old Quarter fill with smoke as cooks fan little charcoal braziers loaded with pork. Bun cha is the city's lunch: grilled patties and caramelised strips of pork belly served floating in a warm bowl of thin, sweet-sour fish sauce, with cold rice vermicelli and a basket of lettuce and herbs to dip in alongside. Each mouthful is a bit of noodle, a bit of meat and a leaf or two, all dunked together. A barbecue gives the real smoky edge, but a ridged grill pan works well indoors. Chef's tip: let the grilled meat sit in the warm sauce for a few minutes before eating, so the smoky fat seasons the sauce and the sauce soaks into the meat.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with dried rice vermicelli