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Phá Lấu – The Most Exotic Vietnamese Street Food – Cloud of Cookmorphosis

It’s Sunday again, time is passing so fast, isn’t it? Soon, this 2015 will be done in just a blink before I could finish all the resolutions that I was super excited to edit and carefully write down on Dec 31, 2014. If I remember correctly, I only finish half my 2015 resolutions. I’m better hurry or I’ll secretly add the rest to 2016 list. Nobody will know anyway (insert super loud evil laugh here).

As I am on the resolutions topic, one of the big bullet points that I sincerely need to do is to shop less cookwares and kitchen gadgets, and to buy more clothes. Don’t be surprised or doubt. Yes, I’m one of the rare females who barely has ‘a crush’ for clothes shopping. So last Thursday, I braved myself and went on shopping. It took a lot of preparation and courage, believe me. I must’ve spent more than an hour looking at many different tees and tank tops. However, I ended up buying only one tee because they were ridiculously expensive.

Do you know that each one cost $20 or more? And for God’s sake they were not even from brand name or something closed to that. At first I planned to buy 6 or 7 of them for upcoming hot weather, but as I was stepping closed to the check out counter, I could hear a terribly loud screaming of a yellow Le Creuset cast iron pan from the tallest floor of the Empire State building is about to jump down. Yes, I was going to throw away the most precious cast iron pan on the planet just by buying these teeny, tiny tees that might be shrunk half of its current size after two washes. My wallet and my dignity did not allow me to do such a horrible crime so that was why I went home with only one tee.

To be honest, I’m still recovering from that shopping trip as well as from writing the longest post in my blog. And once a gain, I don’t want to ~~bore~~ freak you out, but today recipe is long, very long. That’s why I try to minimize my wandering thought as much as possible so you can go straight to the cooking process. Or you can just scroll the page down as fast as you can, I knew it’s gonna happen. Just do it if it makes you happy. After all, you know that there is only one thing I sincerely want when you visit my blog that is for.you.to.be.happy.at.all.cost.

So today recipe, in my opinion, is the most exotic street food in Vietnam. It’s called Phá Lấu and made from pig or beef intestines or other weird parts such as ears and tongues. Yes, we Asian eat a lot of weird things if you have not already known that fact. Traditionally it’s from China and cooked in soy sauce liquid. But as it comes to Vietnam, we put a little twist on it and cook it in lightly flavored coconut milk mixture with the help of five spice. I said lightly because if you put too much coconut milk in your Phá Lấu, it might turn out to be curry instead. Furthermore, this cooking style is normally used for beef’s parts only, but I decided to mix in pork ingredients too, my Phá Lấu still turned out super delicious.

Just one more paragraph, I promise. The most time consuming part of cooking Phá Lấu is cleaning the ingredients. You have to spend quite a lot of time and effort to wash them in order to get rid of their weird smell. Heavily salted water with little baking soda would do the trick, so no need to worry. Just make sure you don’t skip any step in cleaning process (and a complimented tamarind fish sauce) then you should end up with a super flavorful and tasty pot of Phá Lấu.

Phá Lấu – The Most Exotic Vietnamese Street Food

From: cookmorphosis.com

Ingredients:

For Phá Lấu:
4 pig ears
1 pig stomach
2 beef tongues
1 beef honeycomb
Or any other pork/beef intestines

For cleaning Phá Lấu:
Salt, as needed
Baking soda, as needed
Cooking wine, as needed
1 big ginger, cut in pieces, smashed

For marinating Phá Lấu:
3 tbsp Five Spice (Szechuan peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, and fennel seeds)
1 tbsp curry powder
2 tbsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp red pepper powder
2 tbsp lemongrass, minced
1 oz annatto oil
2 oz fish sauce
2 oz vegetable oil
2 oz garlic, minced
2 oz shallot, minced

For cooking Phá Lấu:
2 cinnamon sticks
5 whole star anise
8 bay leaves
1 medium ginger, cut in pieces, smashed
1 small galangal, cut in pieces, smashed
7 quart of cold water
10 oz coconut milk
Fish sauce, salt and sugar, to taste

For tamarind fish sauce:
Tamarind seedless paste or fresh tamarind
Hot water, as needed
Fish sauce and sugar, to taste

Serve with:

Vietnamese corianders
Bread

Steps:

Cleaning Phá Lấu:

1. Wash Phá Lấu ingredients with heavily salted water plus 1-2 tbsp of baking soda. Use your hands and rub each ingredient carefully to remove its smell and impurities. Wash at least 5 times or until washing water is completely clear.

2. After washed, soak these ingredients in cooking wine and smashed ginger for 30 minutes. Make sure they are submerged completely in wine.

3. In the mean time, boil a big pot of water with pieces of smashed ginger. Transfer soaked ingredients from cooking wine liquid to boiling water and boil for 30 minutes. Discard cooking wine.

4. After taking these ingredients out of boiling pot, submerge them immediately in a big water bath (water + ice).

5. Wash them one more time with heavily salted water and baking soda. Drain and let them dry thoroughly.

Marinating Phá Lấu:

6. In a big mixing bowl, combine all marinated ingredients and washed pork and beef parts. Mix well, cover and let them marinate for at least an hour.

Cooking Phá Lấu:

7. In a small pan, lightly toast cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, star anise on medium high heat for 5 minutes.

8. In a big pot (preferred 8-10 qt), add about 2 oz of vegetable oil and heat over medium high heat. Quickly sear marinated Phá Lấu ingredients, add 7 qt of cold water to the pot. Raise the heat, bring to boil, add toasted spice, ginger, galangal then simmer for one hour or until water is reduced by half. Stir coconut milk in the pot and simmer for another 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning with fish sauce, salt and sugar.

Making tamarind fish sauce:

9. Soak tamarind seedless or fresh tamarind in hot water. Take out 1 cup of tamarind mixture. Add 2 oz fish sauce, 2 oz sugar. Mix well.

10. Use a scissor cut cooked Phá Lấu into bite sizes before eating. Serve with bread, Vietnamese coriander, and tamarind fish sauce on the side (recommend to add a little bit of the sauce into Phá Lấu bowl to enhance the flavor). Enjoy.

T.U

Lee Hersh