Vietnamese food: how to cook like a local

Vietnamese cuisine

Sài Gòn is a sweltering mayhem of organised chaos with colonies of Hondas alerting their approach with a continuous sing song of beeps in all directions. Along the pavements towered by high phoenix and flowering mimosa trees seat tightly parked bikes slanted among street vendors peering in shade, fanning sweet treacle lemongrass meat skewers over a smoky charcoal grill. Everyone stops for a bit of self-care within the balanced bowls of cold noodle salads served with a sweet, sour, hot and umami nuoc mam.

Food culture is ripe along the streets with dominoes of vendors selling their season’s harvest, pre-steamed sweet snacks wrapped in banana leaf, bánh mì specialities, air-conditioned noodle soup restaurants and cafés where everything slows down for a blast of caffeine, slowly dripping robusta bean coffee scenting the heat-filled air with bitter and sweet aromas of pandan cake.

‘Have you eaten yet?’ This phrase echoes around the walls from outside and bounces within homes and doorways. Answers will vary depending on how well or poorly they are feeling. Feeders gather a large tray of rice, homemade soup, ferments and braised or fried fish to display their kindness, love and affection. The food chatter of eating and working, eating and sleeping, eating and selling, eating and looking after kids, eating and playing, and so on, often leads to ‘eating for fun’ – a daily ritual to be with someone and snack with them. Everyday life includes an enjoyment of living to eat and frequenting vendors and cafés that sell chè, soupy desserts resembling bubble tea with all sorts of toppings from grass jelly to lychees, mung bean paste and seaweed, to cool you down, cheer you up and fix any ailments.

In the cooler early mornings, the orange sun rises to a hungry population who gather, slurp and hunch on low plastic chairs over bowls of steaming hot fragrant pho, various other noodle soups or a crispy bánh mì dipped in chicken curry soup and glasses of beautiful coffee. Then it all starts again, eating and living.

Uyen Luu's Vietnamese recipes

Lemongrass meat skewers

I often crave this street food treat. The whole city of Sài Gòn is filled with the smoky vapours of lemongrass chicken or pork skewers sizzling and hissing over charcoal fires. I love their sultry, velvety texture served with vermicelli noodles, fresh leaves and zingy pickles. To me this represents so much of what Vietnamese food is all about. It is heaven and earth, yin and yang, a balance of opposites.

Rice flour and coconut vegetable pancakes

Similar to Korean jeon pancakes or Japanese okonomiyaki but even crispier, these gorgeous pancakes are filled with the kinds of vegetables I always have in the refrigerator. You can use any veg you like but be mindful that vegetables with a higher water content, like mushrooms or courgettes, can make your pancake less crispy.

Coconut, jelly and fruit cocktail bubble tea

This is a great dessert to serve after a feast as it can be made in advance and left in a punch bowl for everyone to help themselves. Or it can be a lovely and simple thing to make using as much or as little of whatever you have around. I love making agar jelly because it sets really quickly. I get this going first and then get on with creating a whole meal. By the end, the jelly is ready to add to the tea. If you want to add matcha powder to the tea, use 1 tsp of matcha powder mixed with 1 tbsp of water. Feel free to mix and match with fresh ingredients, and whatever you have in the pantry. Sometimes I use just mango, or I add bananas in with the tapioca.