"Happy Hue Pancakes"

HAPPY HUE PANCAKE

Hello all,

The book

First let me start by apologizing for the delay, last week was HECTIC. Also there is a change in plans on the selected recipe. I know I said I HAD to make whatever was selected; however, I was unable to find 6 of the 12 ingredients needed to make the recipe in my little town. If I substitute 1/2 of the ingredients, let’s face it... it's not the same recipe. So without further delay here is this week’s recipe, chosen by my hubby Steve:

The Book: The Songs of Sapa, stories and recipes from Vietnam

The Author: Luke Nguyen of Red Lantern Restaurant

A little info about the recipe. BAHN KHOAI is the Vietnamese name for the dish and means 'Happy Pancake', and Hue is a city in Vietnam. So you need to smile while making and eating this dish.

The Recipe:                                                                

100g dried mung beans

Vegetable oil

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Yummy Veggies

200 g raw school prawns

200 g boneless pork belly,

            Sliced thin

1 green oak or butter lettuce

1 bunch Perilla

1 bunch Mint

1 bunch Vietnamese Mint

1 bunch Vietnamese Fish Mint

1 Lebanese cucumber,

            Sliced thin

1 star fruit, sliced thin (optional)

1 onion, thinly sliced into rings

500 g Bean Shoots

Mung Beans

2 spring onion, sliced thin

250 g Sticky Soya Bean Sauce (pg. 331)

 Batter:

125 g cornflour (corn-starch)

75 g plain flour

½ tsp. turmeric

½ tsp. sugar

½ tsp. bicarbonate of soda

Pork & Prawns

100 ml coconut milk

The Toppings

Put the dried mung beans in a bowl of water and soak 20 minutes. Then drain and steam in a saucepan with steamer.
Place a frying pan over medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of oil, 1 teaspoon of minced garlic and the prawns, and stir-fry for 3 minutes.
Remove the prawns and set aside. Wipe the pan clean, and then repeat this process with the pork belly. Set aside.

To make the batter, combine the rice flour, plain flour, turmeric, salt, bicarbonate of soda, coconut milk and 400ml water. Whisk well and set aside for 10 minutes.

Wash the lettuce leaves and herbs and arrange them on a large platter.

Place a small heavy-based non-stick frying pan (about 20 cm/8 inches) over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons of oil. Once the oil is hot, add a thin layer of batter to the pan, swirling to coat the base of the pan. Add some mung beans, slices of onion then add some prawns, pork, spring onions and bean sprouts.

Fry for 2 minutes or until the base is crisp and browned. Repeat this process with the remaining batter and filling ingredients.

Fold the pancake in half to make it "smile", and eat with lettuce, perilla, mint leaves and star fruit.

Enjoy!

The Results are in:

1) Steaming mung beans is messy!
2) No Salt & Pepper while cooking the prawns or pork?? Huh... took a lot of restraint to stick to the recipe on that one. I believe in seasoning in layers!

As for substitution, I couldn't find Perilla or Vietnamese fish mint. My local produce lady suggested I add some fresh basil instead. So I did. I'm a big fan of basil anyway. Couldn't find any star fruit either but that was optional anyhow.

All in all this was a pretty simple recipe, the main thing was getting all of my "mise en place" together. (That's kitchen speak for get your shit together)... see I still got it.

Now for the good, the bad and the WTF's...
As soon as my batter hit the pan it turned BRIGHT red. Huh? That is not what's in the pictures! I'm thinking my turmeric might have been old or darker than his. Oh well it's just color, right? Also, my batter did not get all poufy and crispy-fied like the pic. I followed the recipe to the letter! This is where my theory that 'all famous chefs leave an ingredient or two out when they write a cookbook' comes in. My pancakes kinda look like I made them out of bacon... which would be awesome, but not following the recipe. Hmmm...
So strange colored batter and lack of crunch aside, we decided to eat them anyway. A girl's gotta eat! Much to my surprise they were pretty damn good. They were crisp, fresh and very light. The prawns and pork had great flavor despite the lack of S&P. Haha.Though I wish I'd had the star fruit, I think it would have cut the fattiness of the pork belly. The batter/pancake was ok, a little weird but it wasn't terrible. I would definitely make this again, but with a few tweaks to the batter.
P.S. I poked around a bit on the interwebs and found that Luke Nguyen had done this recipe on the SBS channel here in Oz, guess what the recipe was not exactly the same for the batter. Gonna have to test it out. Cheeky Bugger!!

The end Results... they look like bacon pancakes.