Bánh mì with authentic chả lụa!



Matt was able to buy me enough free time yesterday that I was able to start prep-work on Raveneous Couple's recipe for chả lụa. The only exception I made was to use Bob's Red Mill's Baking Powder rather than Alsa baking powder (which I'd never even heard of before researching chả lụa, never mind seen). T&T Supermarket at The Promenade Shopping Centre proved fruitful in the search for banana leaves — all I had to do was check the freezer cases in the Filipino food section.

Today I steamed the chả lụa in four banana leaf packets for a little over a ½ hour, then pan-fried thin slices to place on my second go-around at bánh mì! As before, the bread is an ACE Bakery demi-baguette with kewpie (Q.P.) mayonnaise and a canola oil/light soy sauce/fish sauce blend. I used fresh cilantro as before. This time, I omitted the vegan margarine, actually used the medium shredding disk on my food processor (rather than my vegetable peeler) for the daikon and carrot slaw, and Commensal Veggie Paté in place of the liver spread.

I'm glad to say that this attempt at the sandwich was definitely more authentic than my previous attempt. I was able to find a small portion of foie gras the farmer's market earlier this week, but I wanted to have truly fresh bread to spread that on, rather than the day-old baguette I had this time. I'm thinking I might have the quintessential homemade bánh mì next weekend.