Pho Report part 2: Saigon Express and Le Regal

These two Pho’ joints are less than a block apart in downtown Berkeley. On the surface they couldn’t be any more different. Le Regal is a medium scale Vietnamese restaurant with a pleasant interior, nice for a sit down meal, whereas Saigon Express is, as the name suggests, basically a fast food joint complete with a chafing dish buffet and faded illuminated photos of the food. Imagine my surprise when there pho’ had more than a few things in common.

Le Regal

The soup here, delivered by a fairly pleasant if hands off waitstaff, was perfectly decent. The broth was a little thin but not altogether unpleasant. The addition of little bits of fried garlic was welcome and It came with a huge heaping mass of the standard garnishes.

The one part of this bowl of soup that was definitely sub par was the meat. It wasn’t necessarily low quality meat it just wasn’t the right cut for pho’. It was too meaty and chewy when served partially raw.

Saigon Express

The broth here was again thin and lacking in the beefy depth I’d come to expect. The noodles where all clumped together at the bottom of the bowl. They seemed as if they’d been cooked the day before then let to sit. The meat, once again, was the main disappointment. It was the same cut as usual but it was so overdone that it had basically the same texture as the cut used by their neighbor across the street. The one pleasant surprise about this place was the addition of cilantro to the garnish plate.

A Side Note
For some reason every place I’ve been to recently has come with lemons instead of limes. Is there some shortage of limes in the bay area?

Salmon Risotto A la Cooks Illustrated

This recipe is a hybrid and a variation of two of my favorite recipes from cooks illustrated. It’s a tribute in a way to one the greatest aids I’ve ever had to my cooking. A magazine who’s incredibly thorough process of finding the perfect recipe for each dish manages to be, more often than not, a lesson in cooking technique as well as a set of directions for a perfect meal

Enough of this gushing.

This weeks recipe is quite long and involved so I’d like to get to the recipe as soon as possible.

A few notes first though:

First: The two recipes I took this from are Spring Vegetable Risotto and Poached Salmon with Herb Caper Vinaigrette. I definitely changed them a bit but the cooks illustrated originals are pretty bad ass. You usually need a password to get these recipes on their website but I think they’re both free right now.

Second: I had tons to do the day I cooked this one so naturally I made it as complicated as possible to aid me in my procrastination. There’s no need to put to caramelized onions in per se’ or use so many different veggies but you know… that’s the way I roll. Plus this makes tons of really good food that you can eat for a week.

Third: This is really based mostly on what I had in the fridge that day. The risotto part of the recipe is actually a pretty good way to get rid of all the stuff in your crisper. Most of the stuff in step three of the Risotto section can be replaced by any moderately firm and hardy vegetable.

Four: When your cutting the vegetables remember to put aside all the best scraps (the woody ends of the asparagus, the green parts of the leeks, the carrot tops, the basil stems, the onion skins and such) as you’ll need them later.

So before further ado…

Ingredients

For the Salmon
2 Salmon Filets weighing about 1 ½ pounds.
2 Lemons cut into ½ inch think rounds
½ Basil Leaves, Chopped
1 Clove Garlic, minced
1 cup Dry White Wine
Salt & Pepper

For the Risotto
2 cups Water
4 cups Vegetable Broth (or Chicken if there’s no vegetarians eating)
1 Tbs Olive Oil
1 Yellow Onion halved and sliced thin
1 Tsp. Brown Sugar
4 Tbs Butter
½ Pound Asparagus chopped
1 small bulb Fennel trimmed and chopped
1 Carrot chopped
1 Leek (white part only) halved length wise and chopped thing
4 Cloves Garlic minced
1 ½ cup Arborio Rice
1 cup Basil Leaves, chopped
½ cup grated Parmesan Cheese


Poaching the Salmon

1. Arrange the lemon slices evenly in single layer across the bottom of a medium size pan. Sprinkle with garlic and basil. Pour on the wine until it just covers the top of the lemon slices. Salt and pepper the salmon filets and place them on the lemon slices skin side down.

2. Bring wine to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook until salmon is just done, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove Salmon to a plate and set aside.

3. Strain the poaching liquid into a bowl through a mesh strainer pressing on the lemons to extract as much flavor as possible. This should produce about a cup of liquid, if it doesn’t add a little more wine to it until it does. Set aside for later.

Making the Risotto

1. Place all the scraps you’ve set aside from the vegetables in a dutch oven with all the water and broth. Bring to a very low simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes. Strain liquid through mesh strainer into a large bowl, pressing on the veggies to release flavor. Cover liquid and set it aside.

2. Wipe dutch over clean. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, sugar a pinch of slat and pepper. Cook stirring often until onions are dark and almost caramelized. Remove to a plate and set aside.

3. Wipe dutch oven clean with a wet paper towel. Add 1 tbs. butter heat over medium heat until foaming subsides. Add asparagus, carrots, fennel and a pinch of a salt. Cook stirring regularly until asparagus is bright green and slightly tender and fennel is just beginning to brown. Remove to a plate and set aside.

4. Wipe the dutch oven clean one last time. Melt remaining butter over medium heat until foaming subsides. Add leeks and cook until soft, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 30 more seconds. Add rice and gook until edges of the rice are translucent.

5. Add wine/lemon mixture from salmon poaching. Cook stirring frequently until all the liquid is absorbed.

6. Add 3 cups of the broth/water mixture you’ve set aside from step one. Lower to a simmer and cook stirring fairly regularly until all the water is gone about 12 minutes.

7. Now comes the time of repeatedly adding water and stirring. Add ½ cup liquid at a time and stir constantly until it’s absorbed. Repeat this as needed until the rice has the right consistency. Creamy but still slightly al dente. Usually this will mean using all the liquid.

8. Finally add the onions, veggies you’ve set aside along with the cheese and chopped basil stir to combine. Remove from heat. Crumble in the salmon and continue stirring. Stir in juice from half a lemon.

Serves many and keeps well.

Inkas - Peruvian Food. Who Knew?

I think I need to get a world map and put thumb tacks on all the places who’s cuisine I haven’t tried. Then spend my life trying to remove all the thumb tacks. Every time I try a new nationalities food (usually one I’ve never even considered before) it’s always a sort of culinary revelation. I feel as though I’ve been cheated out of something I never even knew I was being cheated out of. Last time it was Indonesian food, this time it was Peruvian.

Apparently I’m not the only one upset about the lack of Peruvian food awareness. The second I arrived, with my partner in eating Kirsten Goldberg, at Inkas in the outer mission our server began working hard to get us aqainted with the ways of Peruvian cooking. After perusing the menu for only a few minutes he came by to make his suggestions. He suggested we start with a ceviche then went on to recommend and describe not one, not two but six different entrees leaving us much more informed but not all that much closer to a decision.

We ended up ordering the mixed ceviche for a starter. For our entrees Kirsten settled on “Aji De Gallina”, strips of chicken simmered in chile sauce with boiled eggs and potatoes and I had “Combinado De Cabrito” lamb stew with cilantro sauce. served with rice, beans and “salsa criolla” .

The ceviche was, for me, the star of the show. It was a simple mix of shrimp, mussels, squid and some sort of white fish marinated in a lime dressing with onions and cilantro. Served along side it was some marinated yucca, some sort of yam and a small pile of hominy corn kernels. The seafood was great, I have no idea what kind of fish it was but it was meaty and firm without being at all fishy and the dressing although very simple still had some unidentifiable quality that made it better than any lime dressing I’d ever had. Still it was the hominy corn kernels marinated in the same light lime dressing that I, for some reason, keep thinking of every time the meal comes to mind.

The entree’s where no less impressive, even if in my mind they’re a little over shadowed by the kernels from the previous course. Kirsten’s chicken was succulent in a nice orange sauce, both spicy and creamy. My lamb was both tender and juicy. Served in a dark greenish cilantro sauce it almost tasted like a curry. Our exuberant waiter, who returned a number of times during our meal to share tidbits of information about Peruvian cuisine, informed me that the sauce for my lamb contained a spice made from a ground squash that was not found anywhere outside of Peru. He even went as far as to explain that the only way the restaurant’s owners could get it here was in a dried form because of the ban on carrying fruits and vegetables across the border.

Finally at the end of our meal our server returned again to get to know us a little. I told him I lived in the East Bay and he excitedly went and got me a post card with dancing girls on one side and a list of Peruvian restaurants on the other. He suggested that I try La Furia Chalaca in downtown Oakland. I probably will end up checking that one out but if your looking for a introduction to Peruvian food I’d suggest you head out to Inkas. That way you can get great food and have it served by a true ambassador of the culture.