(upbeat music)
- Hi, my name is Susan.
I'm the Senior Culinary Manager here at Tasty,
and today I'm gonna show you to make my aunt's version
of banh mi with lemongrass pork.
So this recipe comes from my aunt,
her name is Mah Op.
My aunt has always been one of the hardest workers
I've ever seen ever since she's moved to the States
from Vietnam.
I remember being a little girl
and she had a banh mi shop in Seattle,
and so I never went hungry.
Anytime I wanted a banh mi fix,
I could just walk over to my aunts sandwich shop
and load up.
And it kind of was where I grew to love
this very traditional Vietnamese sandwich.
Since then she's move away from Seattle
and now is based in the Cypress,
kind of Long Beach area,
and she has another fantastic sandwich shop
called Sandwich House.
She is the person that gave me this recipe to make,
but I've made a couple of small adjustments to make it
a little bit more me.
There's a couple of key components to the recipe.
The first one you wanna get started
are the pickled vegetables,
'cause those take at least one day to get
all pickley and delicious.
It's very very simple, it's just carrots and daikon.
So daikon is a long white radish,
which is actually pretty mild in flavor,
so it's perfect for the use in that pickled application
because it really takes on any flavor that you add to it.
And what the salt and the sugar and the vinegar do
is just come together to draw out the delicious sweetness
from the carrots and the daikon
and it's just the perfect addition to the sandwich
'cause it kind of keeps the sandwich really nice and light.
So in this recipe for the lemongrass pork
you use four whole stalks of lemongrass.
And it might seem excessive like it's a ton,
but really you only use the center of the lemongrass,
which is the most tender part
and you'll add it to the dish after you cook it down
to kind of soften it up a little bit,
'cause lemongrass, even when cooked,
tends to have a little bit of a bite to it,
so you definitely wanna cut it really really fine
and then saute it just to kind of further soften it
so that it tastes the best it can in the dish.
So I've worked in food media I think,
I'm gonna age myself out like right now,
but I've (laughs) worked in food media for about 15 years,
but last year, when Tasty asked me to make my version pho,
I actually jumped at the chance
because up to that point,
I had actually never been asked to make a dish
that I truly believed in,
that was part of my culture.
And I thought that was so amazing Tasty
was actively trying to make content
that was really diverse and that showcased Asian cultures.
So what I do that's a little bit different
from what my aunt does is that she actually doesn't use
fish sauce which, to me,
there's no Vietnamese recipe that is complete
without a little bit of fish sauce,
so I add a dash into the marinade
and that's just my little secret and never tell her, ever.
So my aunt uses pork butt for this recipe
because it has a lot of nice marbling that runs through it
and it stays really juicy on the grill,
and it's really hard to dry out.
While that's marinating we're gonna cook down
a ton of lemongrass and onion
just until it's softened and it lightly caramelize,
then she adds it to the meat after it's finished grilling.
And I thought that was just super super smart
and it kind of puts you in more control
of how the vegetables react in the dish.
I decided to this by missan because I feel like banh mis
have been growing in popularity.
You kind of see them in a ton of different
types of sandwich shops,
not just banh mi shops in Chinatown or Little Saigon,
you're actually seeing them on menus
in even American sandwich shops,
which I think is really exciting
because I think it's saying that people are really ready
to try new cultures, food, and different flavors,
and I think it's a really exciting time in food.
Another secret that we won't tell me aunt
is I add a layer of whipped pate to my banh mi.
It's something that's interesting
because my aunt doesn't find it traditional,
but for me it just has to be part of a banh mi.
I think sometimes when certain foods are
what people will say are westernized,
people see it as a bad thing
and I don't know, that's a bigger topic for sure,
but I think that what it's at least telling me
is that people are ready to try new things,
even if it's not the authentic traditional way
that I grew up having it.
It is saying that people at least know what a banh mi is,
I don't think that is the case 15 years ago.
APAHM is such an exciting time for the Asian community
because I'm just showing you one recipe
from my Vietnamese roots,
but there's so many other cultures and so much history
that we're able to celebrate during this very special month.
Mm.
I love sandwiches so much.
And banh mis really are my absolute favorite.
- [Male] Oh, yes!
(upbeat music)