Vietnamese Crepes- Banh Xeo

If you'd like to know what the word "xeo" mean, it means "sizzling". Hence, the name of this dish is Vietnamese Sizzling Crepes.

When the batter hits the hot pan, it has the sound 'xeo! Xeo! xeo!!' or 'sizzle! sizzle! zizzle!' in English. Well, that is what I hypothesize where the word xeo comes from. :D

If you cook these crepes, you should really chop all the ingredients into small pieces, even the shrimps. They'll be more evenly distributed.

Typical ingredients would be pork, shrimps, bean sprouts, mung beans, and green onions. Of course you can make it vegetarian like I did- tofu, jicama, bean sprouts, and mung beans! Mung beans, you have to cook separately and add to the batter, or else they're not going to cook thoroughly.

Crepes is a very quick cooking dish, so you'll burn it if you don't keep an eye on it! Burnt crepes are bad bad bad!!

And of course what's essential to this dish are good dipping sauce and good herbs! You have to eat it with soft lettuce, like a bib lettuce, and different herbs like mint, Vietnamese coriander, purple perilla, fish mint, spearmint, and VN balm.

What I also love to do is add a leaf or two of fresh mustard greens, which gives a different kind of spiciness to it. Mmm wasabi flavor!

A good lemony-spicy fish sauce or soy sauce for dipping is needed! To eat, cut a piece of the crepe, put it on a lettuce and add herbs you like, then wrap it up and dip in the fish sauce. It is kind of messy to eat, so most of the time, it's better to eat at home (get someone to make it for you!) rather than in a restaurant.