Does anyone have any raw Vietnamese recipes? Any help is appreciated!

Bob

I don't really know what Vietnamese food is. What are the tipical cook (or not) dishes that are served as Vietnamese food?

Thanks,
Ian.

I love ethnic food. I have to confess that I have been more cooked lately than raw due to my move and adapting to the new weather, etc.

However, my suggestion is to adapt recipes you already know to raw. For example, Pho can be made with a veggie broth and then throw in the raw bean sprouts, jalapeno slices, squirt of lime, and hot pepper sauce. Typically the noodles are processed so you might want to skip on the noodle part. You could also use a raw bean thread or rice stick noodle soaked in water then warmed in the broth but that would be cheating a bit on the raw part. You might try some shredded daikon radish to imitate the noodles. Only heat the veggie broth to about 100 degrees F as more than that will kill the enzymes. My one friend suggests only to heat food up to the temperature of one's blood. 98.7F or 98.6F is sort of difficult to achieve and I rounded up. You can always stick to a lower temperature.

For spring rolls, substitute your rice wrapper with butterhead lettuce or such unless you really want that rice wrapper. Then, put in your sprouts, carrot shreds, pepper slices,and shredded lettuce. Roll up and dip into a raw peanut sauce, hoison sauce, or chile pepper sauce. I like my food spicy so I typically choose the pepper sauce. You could also try putting in some minced/ground peanuts into the roll. This would make it more substantial.

Good luck.
Therese

Thanks Therese for the ideas. We just spent 3 weeks in Viet Nam, and blew out to say the least. It was hard to walk the grocery aisles the first few times in the States because of all the garbage passed off as food. Even the fruits aren't as sweet. There's something to be said for having to go to a fresh market every day, and get foods that were picked withing a few hours of being sold! I must admit to freaking out in Ha Noi when the prawn tried to escape, and went running across the street, only to be caught and placed back in its bucket to be sold.

Bob

life101 Wrote:
> However, my suggestion is to adapt recipes you
> already know to raw. For example, Pho can be made
> with a veggie broth and then throw in the raw bean
> sprouts, jalapeno slices, squirt of lime, and hot
> pepper sauce.

You could use spiralized zucchini for the noodles
(it won't be the same texture, but it will be part
of the memory at least-- you can have the noodles.)

> Only heat the veggie broth to about 100 degrees F

If you have a dehydrator, you could put your soup in
it and wait about an hour at 125% (you started with room
temperature water, or warmer)

> My one friend suggests only to heat
> food up to the temperature of one's blood. 98.7F
> or 98.6F is sort of difficult to achieve and I
> rounded up.

think about how warm you would make a baby's bottle -
wrist temperature.

Margaret