Vietnamese Chicken Bùn

Mmm, that cold rice vermicelli salad, or whatever Anglo-ish name you can come up with. You know what I'm talking about. Aside from phở (especially on those hungover or sick days), one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes is bùn (dude, I am not Vietnamese, if you couldn't already tell. Sorry if I mess up on any terms). I usually go for the one with barbecued shrimp and pork, or spring rolls and barbecued pork.

Given the fact that I have a slight fear of grilling (sorry to be a female stereotype), I decided to venture forth by myself with my apartment complex's gas grills and some boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Yay for dark poultry meat! I once succumbed to the notion that white meat was more desirable. But who wants dry-ass meat? Asians know what's up. I feel more at ease cooking chicken than pork. I don't know why...I've made pork dishes several times, but maybe the next meat venture is grilling pork. Anyway, it was a Monday, so I decided to prepare the chicken two ways so I could have a variety of meals for the rest of the week. Way 1 was simply salt and pepper. Way two was a Vietnamese-style marinade. BTW, I wasn't aware of the fact that Andrea Nguyen is a modern-day Vietnamese cooking master. But her name kept popping up during my recipe searches, so kudos to her!

Vietnamese-style Marinade for Chicken

2 to 3 lbs chicken (use whatever kind you like, bone-in or boneless)

1/4 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 tsb. fish sauce (aaahhh! The stage crew for a local SF theater group once substituted in fish sauce instead of apple juice for a fake shot an actor was to take on stage. LOL)

1 tsb lime juice (can also use lemon juice or vinegar. I think you can also use more lime juice than fish sauce if you're freaked out by the, um, pugent nature of fish sauce)

2 tsb. canola oil or whatever neutral oil you have on hand

Mix the marinade ingredients together, wash and dry your chicken, then submerge the chicken into the marinade and massage the crap out of it. OK maybe not that much, but you want some good flavor! Let it marinade for 30 minutes to two hours.

Heat your grill to medium and throw the chicken on, turning every five minutes until the juices run clear. Because I was using boneless, skinless chicken thighs, I only needed to turn the chicken once for a total cook time of about 10 minutes. Juicy grill success! Now for the rest...

Vietnamese Chicken Bùn (for one serving)

1 to 2 pieces of Vietnamese grilled chicken, sliced

rice vermicelli

cilantro

mint

Thai basil (for me, this is optional)

shredded or julienned carrots

shredded or julienned cucumbers (seeded if you like)

1 to 2 pieces of soft leaf lettuce, chiffonaded

1/3 to 1/2 cup nước chấm (nuoc cham without the diacriticals...I'm just linking the recipe here because this post is getting long! At the time I didn't have any Thai chilis and used chili-garlic sauce instead, which worked well enough for me. Here's an article comparing that with sambal oelek and Sriracha.)

If you're using dried vermicelli, soak it in hot water for about 10 minutes, then drain. I like to line the bottom of a giant bowl (a mixing bowl, no joke) with the lettuce, then put the noodles on top. I arrange the veggies, herbs and chicken into sections for presentation's sake, then I douse the whole thing with the nuoc cham. Stir it up and eat it up.

Ginger-Mint Vodka Soda

Being a bartender, I guess I should post a booze recipe. Don't worry, I'm not one of those people who considers herself to be a mixologist or any other ridiculous title (an old co-worker said he's a drink monkey, haha). I don't intend to be a career bartender and feel like an ass when friends ask me to bartend at informal events because the drinks — usually just simple two- or three-ingredient cocktails — don't require any special knowledge. I guess some people get nervous about proportions, but they're just to what your preferences are. However, of course I am always happy to bartend for friends. I do enjoy it and like being helpful (well, sometimes, anyway).

That being said, one of my favorite cocktails is the vodka soda — decent vodka, soda water and a squeeze of lime. I love this recipe because it's the basis for so many tasty, refreshing cocktails and doesn't have an excess amount of sugar that will add to your potential hangover the next day. I think a lot of people think you need sweet mixers or a lot of ingredients to make a decent cocktail, but that's not always the case. This is especially true when using a sweet-flavored vodka. Most would think to mix it with lemon-lime soda when all you probably need is the soda water and squeeze of lime (or lemon, or whatever). Maybe a splash of something else, such as cranberry juice or sour mix, depending of the flavor of the vodka. For the recently trendy sweet tea vodka, I just use soda water and maybe a squeeze. If it's a lower-quality one (ahem, Seagram's), then a splash of sour mix, as well. Orange vodka with soda and a splash of OJ is a nice grown-up version of Orangina. So you see, the possibilities are endless.

One more bartender gripe when it comes to cocktails: tonic water is NOT the same as soda water! A surprising number of people think that tonic is soda and therefore, a diet-friendly mixer. SO not the case. Tonic water basically has as much sugar in it as cola does (there are diet versions of tonic water, as well). And the distinctive taste of it is mostly due to quinine. I'm not hating on tonic water. It actually has medicinal qualities to it and glows under black light! I just want to make sure that alcohol imbibers know what they're drinking. So anyway...

I so happened to have a small bottle of PacifiKool's Hawaiian Ginger syrup (aaahhhh, so good!), as well as some fresh herbs from my Vietnamese cooking kick (more in future posts). So I threw together this simple, delicious cocktail. As usual, proportions are up to you!

Ginger Mint Vodka Soda

1.25 ounces of decent vodka (I'm a fan of 42 Below, but at the grocery store nearest to me, Ketel One on sale will do)

1.25 ounces of PacifiKool's Hawaiian Ginger syrup

mint leaves (perhaps a palmful)

lime wedge

soda water

ice

Ideally, you should muddle the mint, but I have neither a muddler nor the patience for that right now. So I just crushed and rolled the leaves around in my hands. I'm sure I lost some of the essence to my palms, but it was fine for my personal cocktail at home.

Put everything together in a glass, stir and sip (or chug) away at any time of day. You can leave out the vodka if you're not that hardcore(!).