Back in business!

Pink Cat's Bakery is open again!  Let's get rolling with some egg-rolling!  These are traditional Vietnamese egg rolls, called chả giò.   To be honest, this is one of the only Vietnamese food that's not good if you make it vegetarian.  Has to be made with PORK and has to be crispy!  Or else, it's not even worth eating.

Here's a secret if you're making them:  Roll these egg rolls ahead and freeze them in a single layer.  After they're hard frozen, you can stack them up and wrap in foil paper.  Then when you're ready to eat, SLOWLY and carefully drop the still frozen egg rolls into hot oil.  Once they float up, and golden brown.  They're ready!

Best part- The egg rolls will stay crispy for a long time if you fry them this way.  Because, who wants to eat a soggy egg roll?

Chickpea and Black Beans Wrap

 Homemade chickpea patties, black beans, rice, and hummus wrap.  This was suprisingly very good, especially with a bit of hot sauce and pickled jalapenos.

Pan-fried chickpeaa patties, with garam masala, garlic, onions, cumin, and lots of parsley!

Lunch: Rolls, rolls, roll it up!

Crisp apples, creamy avocado in maki rolls.

I want some more now!

Sticky Rice Cake- Baby Banana Filling

This cake is called 'banh tet' and you have it with tea during the Vietnamese New Year (Tet). However, I felt like drinking chai, so I made a REALLY spicy chai to have with the sticky rice cake. Even though I used regular Tazo chai mix, the brewing, the milk, and the ginger made it into a great drink. The sticky cake had a banana/tea flavor on the outside, and had freshly grated coconut and black beans mixed into the sticky rice part. Baby bananas made up the filling, and it became red from braising for hours.

This is one of my favorite things about Vietnamese New Year- making AND eating sticky rice cake. I prefer this sweet banana filling to the dense savory filling of mung beans and pork.

Though, the savory version is also very good when pan-fried up and served with pickled shallots, thai chili peppers, and pickled crunchy cauliflower. Mmm!

Soft Pretzels

(＞＊Pretzels!＊＜)

I love pretzels! Yes, these may look like some weird twisted buns, but this was my first attempt at making pretzels! Yay! I'll have to practice my rolling skills. The ones above are scallion-ginger pretzels (in the dough, as well as on top of the dough itself.) I topped some with chili flakes, hoping for a spicy kick, but I guess I need to dip them in mustard or Sriracha to taste something spicy.I also made some miniature normal pretzels too, below. These have an egg wash and then topped with sea salt. I think I may have sprinkled on the salt too much, because I scrapped off some on top when eating. These are good chewy soft pretzels- definitely a recipe keeper. What I would change is using less baking soda in the poaching water.

Since I also tested a few pretzels with cinnamon sugar on top, I learned a very important matter... that is to put the cinnamon-sugar after the baking, after brushing on yummy melted butter. Because my sugar was almost burnt. (￣〜￣) Hehe
So if you have a free afternoon, make some pretzels! I made the dough a night ahead, and kept refrigerated. One thing you need to remember is to use less yeast. Because the yeast would eat up all the food and wouldn't make your dough rise the next day. I'd say, use 1/2 of the yeast called for, and stick the dough in the fridge. The long fermentation would actually make the dough taste better.

I wish I have some pretzels now, but I gave them all away. (` - _ -` )

Cucumber Apple Roll

Snacking: Cucumber, apple, horseradish hummus and red rice roll. Hey, it tasted good to me! ^_^ Though I think avocado apple combination would be much better.

(And yes... Very shitty cutting on the pieces.)

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Unlike Chinese spring rolls, Vietnamese spring rolls, or summer rolls are not fried. Although you can use the rice wrapper to wrap things like shrimp, pork, or crab meat, and dry them. They'll have a different kind of crispiness to them, compared to Vietnamese chả giò.

Many VN restaurants have adopted the wheat flour wrapper, in place of rice paper, to make the rolls crisper for a longer period of time. This makes it confusing for people to know between chả giò and egg rolls.

Anyway, whatever the name, just use the one that you'll remember easily and eat the ones you like.

I think I like to eat things that are colorful. Even though there are no carrots in summer rolls, I like the orange color peeking through, in place of shrimps, for the vegetarian version. The sauce is simply a mix of fried minced garlic, hoisin sauce, chili, soy sauce, and a bit of sugar. Then topped with some crushed peanuts. You can do a fish sauce combination too, of fish sauce, boiling water, garlic, sugar, lime, and Thai chilies.

Zesty Spinach Feta Rolls