Vietnamese Pancake

Bánh xèo

from Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi, Ebury Press, 2010

Just from the name I had no idea what this was. It turned out to be a Vietnamese pancake.

I’m still trying to become more familiar with Asian cooking. It is so different from my usual style, but I do enjoy the food so want to succeed with cooking it for myself. So, since I have learnt to be comfortable with Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes, I saw this as a chance to improve my repertoire.

The ingredients included mooli which I had never come across before. A bit of googling showed it to be the white radish I knew as daikon. No trouble here.

The three elements of the recipe (pancake mixture, sauce and filling) all proved easy to make.

The pancakes were easy to cook although I believe mine turned out to be a little thicker than they should be.

Asian sauces have usually been my downfall but I felt that with this one I had got closer than I had 

before.

All in all it was a tasty dish: crisp, crunchy vegetables wrapped in a rice pancake and flavoured with a tangy sauce.

This is one I’ll go back to.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔