Van's Vietnamese Recipes

When I was in Melbourne in 2002 I had a Vietnamese housemate who loves cooking. She learnt and picked up excellent cooking skills at a young age from her granny. She told me dad was an army general, mom ran the family's business, and she became the family cook at a young age.

One day she cooked and invited me to taste her dishes. One bite and I immediately took notes of her recipes. So tasty were her dishes! I loved especially the crunchy pig's fallopian intestine. It was the first time I had eaten pig fallopian tube. It was really, really crunchy and sweet! Never tasted anything like it. Made me eager and excited to want to test-cook myself.

Van's Fish in Soya Sauce

Ingredients:
Trevally or Pacific Dory (can also try stingray)
Tomato paste (substitute with fresh tomato and ketchup if you don't have the paste)
3-4 Bird chillies
Tiparos fish sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Boil fish sauce (with some water to dilute a bit) in pot with red chillies, cut into small pieces. Liquid need not cover entire Trevally fish pieces.

2. When fish sauce has been boiled for some 5-10 minutes, add the fresh fish pieces. Boil until fish is cooked.

3. Finally add 1 Tbl of tomato paste or puree, and continue boiling.

4. After another 3-4 minutes, fish is done.

5. Add some pepper if you like to the dish when adding tomato paste.

Delicious!

Van's Pig Fallopian Recipe

Ingredients:
Pig fallopian intestine
2 Tbl belachan paste
2 Bird chillies
3 Garlic cloves
4 kalamansi lime and salt for cleaning the intestine

Dipping sauce:
2 Tbl of liquid or soft shrimp paste.
2 red chilly padi and 3 cloves garlic.

Mince both garlic and chillies. Stir in the shrimp paste. Squeeze a quarter lemon into the mixture and mix thoroughly. Add sugar to balance the saltiness of the shrimp paste.

Method
1. Simply clean fresh pig ovary tubing (aka birth intestine at Sheng Shiong) with juice squeezed from 4 yellow lemon and salt. You may substitute with kalamansi lime, which are much cheaper than Australian yellow lemon here. Leave for 10 minutes. Then wash with clean water. The smell should be gone.

2. Boil the pig tubing in a pot of water until just slightly undercooked, as the intestine will continue to cook from its ambaint internal heat when you remove from the pot. Overcooked fallopian intestines are rubbery and unpalatable. And there's no other way to cook and partake of Miss Piggy's fallopian intestine except in this way.

3. Slice the pig tubing into bite-sized pieces.

Enjoy !!