Happy Lunar New Year!
새해 복 많이 받으세요!
Chúc mừng năm mới!
Or my favorite: Tiền vào nhu nước sông Đà, tiền ra nhỏ giọt như cà phê phin: “Money influx is as strong as Da’s river; expenditure is as little as dripping coffee. ”
We celebrated Lunar New Year — aka Seollal in Korea or Tết in Vietnam — with some newly made Vietnamese-American friends at their home. Sly made a home style Viet dish and we spent the night gorging on Viet spring rolls, Viet style curry served with French bread, and a smorgasbord of desserts, including a sweet Viet-style coconut milk and fruit drink that I love. I had never even heard of Viet curry before (and had to google it to double-check the origins) but oh man was it good. I’m definitely going to try making it at home. As usual, we ate too much. When one of the guest’s kids got a hold of the karaoke machine and an angry Korean neighbor knocked on the door we knew that was our cue to leave, but not before passing out little lucky red envelopes to our hosts’ kids.
On actual Lunar New Year’s Day we ate Vietnamese food leftovers and gave our house a good, deep clean — cleaning out the bad luck to allow to good luck, according to Viet tradition. Binh Than, or the year of the Fire Monkey, is supposed to be an “unstable” year so I figured we needed as much luck as we could get.
Young Soo Ahn
February 10, 2016 at 6:20 amHappy Lunar New Year to 베로니카 / 철원!!
Funnelcloud Rachel
February 10, 2016 at 7:16 amThat menu sounds incredible! Drooling!
Kevin
February 10, 2016 at 7:29 amhttp://foreverconscious.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/chinese-astrology-fire-monkey-2016.jpg
Keeping Good Thoughts…
veronika
February 10, 2016 at 8:25 amHappy Lunar New Year!
veronika
February 10, 2016 at 8:27 amViet curry, which is more stew-like, is on my list of dishes to vegetarian-ize. It had taro, carrot, sweet potato, and chicken but the chicken can easily be subbed for some dry fried tofu. So good eaten with a fresh baguette!
veronika
February 10, 2016 at 8:28 amyear of the instrument-playing monkey?
Funnelcloud Rachel
February 10, 2016 at 11:32 amDo it! That sounds so good! And the baguette is a great idea – I never think to do that with Asian food (besides banh mi, which I have been craving lately), but makes perfect sense with a Viet stew. Yum!
veronika
February 10, 2016 at 12:15 pmI only think of baguettes when Viet food is involved. I have actually never been a big rice person (weird) but I can eat baguettes all day, every day!
JJ
February 10, 2016 at 8:17 pmBo kho is also a Viet curry, with beef potato and carrot… I prefer it also with baguette but seems like most places do it over noodles here. I had a Viet goat curry once that was a lot different and more herbal though.
Kevin
February 11, 2016 at 8:54 amShe’s blowing fire in a green key to make the lotus grow.
Keeping Good Thoughts…
veronika
February 11, 2016 at 8:58 amThat’s a pretty detailed description…
veronika
February 11, 2016 at 9:02 amI’ve never eaten bo kho with curry though, but it was similar. The dish is called ca ri ga – chicken curry — and apparently is a Southern dish. Mom never made any curry dishes that i can recall nor have I ever seen curry dishes on a standard Viet resto menu so I thought they were making their own fusion recipe! Ha! I guess I don’t know squat about Viet food.
Our friend’s version was so tasty, though maybe a tad sweet. The taro root was a good call for the stew. Need to get her recipe…
Kevin
February 11, 2016 at 11:55 amIt took awhile. I’m not sure that those flowers in the picture are even loti.
Keeping Good Thoughts…
JJ
February 11, 2016 at 12:57 pmSilly, bo kho IS a curry…! =D
Like that ca ri = curry though… Like how ga ro ti is rotisserie/roasted chicken and ca phe is café/coffee.
veronika
February 11, 2016 at 2:53 pmHuh I guess so. I’ve never made it myself or I guess even associated it with curry which I tend to think of as having more Thai or Indian flavors and being brightly colored like ca ri ga. Mom puts curry in her bo kho? Why does it seem odd to me that she would have curry?
JJ
February 11, 2016 at 8:25 pmMost use a seasoning packet to make bo kho instead of creating a spice mixture themselves, but yeah it’s a curry. With carrots, potatoes, bread. No other Viet dishes like it…or that use potatoes…
veronika
February 11, 2016 at 9:33 pmMakes sense now that I think of it. Guess I never really did before.
Remember the tomato, beef and french fry dish? That had taters.
JJ
February 12, 2016 at 5:41 amDon’t think I remember that dish, hrmm…
veronika
February 12, 2016 at 8:12 amYou don’t? It was one of our favorites made by Auntie’s live-in cook! I even bought a Viet cookbook specifically bc it had that recipe in it. It’s basically a beef stirfy with french fried potatoes. Mmmmm
veronika
February 12, 2016 at 1:44 pmIt’s called thịt bò xào khoai tây chiên. It’s similar to lomo saltado in Peru.
Great now I’m craving beef and french fries.