All posts filed under: pantry

Pantry Essentials: The Next Level

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Once you have stock your kitchen with the essentials to make Vietnamese food, you should consider taking the pantry to the next level. These are items you may not need every time you make Vietnamese food, but they will come up often enough to consider having them in the pantry. Most of these items should be available at your local Asian markets or on Amazon. 1. Shrimp Paste / Mắm Ruốc Mắm Tôm – This is a pungent fermented shrimp paste made of small shrimps that are dried and fermented with salt and sugar. This is a base for many of the dishes from central Vietnam, especially from Hue. 2. Starches (Potato Starch | Corn Starch | Tapioca Starch) – The different type of starches can be used as thickening agents as well as combined with rice flour for flour based dishes. 3. Tamarind block – The sweet and sour pulp are pressed together into blocks and sold in many supermarkets including Jet.com. They are the basis of sweet and sour dishes, especially canh chua in Vietnam. …

Where to Find Vietnamese Pantry Items

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Vietnamese products are easier to find today than when my parents first immigrated to the US in the early 1990s. With a click of a mouse, we can find and ship certain items easier with the addition of Amazon and other online retailers. I was very surprised to see that even Walmart.com sells Viet Huong 3 Crabs brand fish sauce. In today’s post, I will highlight a few vendors, local and online, where one can pick up the essentials. NYC – Chinatown There are two Vietnamese markets located near each other in Chinatown by the Grand Street subway station. 1. Tan Tinh Hung Supermarket This is a small and well organized supermarket that has most of what one would need to cook Vietnamese food. 2. Ken Hing Food Market Inc. This is a smaller of the two Vietnamese grocery stores that has crammed everything you may need into the small space. Outside of NYC 1.  Kam Mam Supermarket Kam Mam is a regional Asian supermarket with locations in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Chinatown NYC. This is …

Vietnamese Pantry Essentials

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Vietnamese cuisine is well known for its freshness, uses of herbs and the complexity of flavors. We have a history of French colonization leading to the richness and diversity of dishes within the Vietnamese cuisine. There are a few key essentials that are used often in our cooking. This post will highlight the key essentials that we used in all of our recipes on this blog and the brands that we like. Amazingly, I was able to find majority of it on Amazon! The Basics 1. Fish sauce – This is the ingredient that is the foundation for Vietnamese cooking. Fish sauce is made from fermenting anchovies in sea salt over a period of 12-14 months. I was surprise that you can get this at Walmart. My family uses Viet Huong Three Crab brand fish sauce. 2. Soy Sauce – There are many different brands out there to choose. We do not have a specific one to recommend but my family tends to cook with Maggi or Knorr liquid seasoning in place of soy sauce. Soy Sauce …