Recipe: Chef Huong?s Dalat Ragu

This Week’s Film: The Quiet American

Cuisine: Vietnamese

This week?s recipe is excerpted from Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam by Kim Fay. In her essay The Secret World of Ragu, Kim describes her first taste of the dish:

?I thought about the surrounding farms, the wonderfully short distance these vegetables had to travel to reach my bowl, ?They?re definitely fresh. I wasn?t sure if I?d be able to tell the difference, but I can.? I took another bite. The broth was lustrous, a satiny consommé rather than a thick gravy. ?Mine?s so buttery,? I said.?

She goes on to say, ?A few days later, cooking with the head chef of the Dalat Palace, we would learn that the irresistible flavor was a combination of fish sauce and tomatoes, the former used sparingly, the latter completely reduced so not a trace of their flesh remained.?

Contrary to my usual habit of improvising and reinterpreting recipes to formulate my own, I have followed Kim?s recipe to the letter (well almost, as I couldn?t find taro root, so I omitted it). I?m pleased to say that my rendition of Chef Huong?s Dalat Ragu turned out exactly as Kim described, and I served it with a crusty French baguette, just as she recommended. Hoàn toàn ngon! Absolutely delicious!

Here is a link to the Recipe and Photo on ThingsAsian.