Banh Mi

Banh Mi is a Vietnamese sandwich that can be made from a variety of different ingredients. The first time I had one was from a street vendor in Portland, Oregon last August and I've wanted another ever since. Then, last weekend, we went to the Brewer's Art in Baltimore city for dinner. They had two different banh mi on their bar menu. My husband ordered the beef banh mi and I got something else entirely. He gave me one bite and I had such food envy! That night I really didn't sleep well because I was literally dreaming about this sandwich. When I finally got up the next morning I started doing some research and found that I would have to travel quite a ways to get an authentic banh mi, so I started thinking about making my own. Finally, this weekend we went and bought all the ingredients, brought them home and made our own sandwiches. We had them for dinner on Saturday, lunch on Sunday, and I plan on bringing one to work for lunch tomorrow (Monday).

I found a really great website that had a lot of great information. You can go to Battle of the banh mi to check out pictures, recipes and links to find a banh mi shop near you.

This is the meat recipe we used. When we make it in the future I will alter it a bit. The fish sauce does create a really strong odor that drove my brother out of the house. I didn't think it was really that bad, but I felt bad about driving him away. It did taste great, so that was the really important thing to me. Viet World Kitchen is another great site that includes the history of the sandwich and more recipes. We used the pickled daikon and carrot recipe from the second site. We bought a French baguette at the grocery store,  but we went to Hmart in Catonsville, Maryland for all the other ingredients.

We used cilantro, pickling cucumbers, Sriracha hot chili sauce, Jalapeno (cut in half, seeds removed, thinly sliced), red onion slices and two kinds of thinly sliced pork in the recipe above. Put it all together and you have a sandwich that hits all of your taste buds. Spicy, sweet, sour. It's awesome! The spice of the Jalapeno and hot sauce is nicely balanced out by the coolness of the cucumber and cilantro, plus the sweet and sour flavor of the pickled veggies. I'm already starting to brainstorm using steak, chicken or even tofu.

This is my new favorite sandwich. I hope you all enjoy it as well!