YDYL

YDYL Food

  • Bread in Bread?

    Today I got offered a breadcake, a moist cake made with yeast, sandwiched in between a fried bun and it was seriously delicious. It’s called a Banh Tieu in Vietnamese and I wondered who comes up with these seemingly strange combos?

    Then I remember there is another Bread-in-Bread dish called Kai Mei Pau in Cantonese Chinese, the origin of this dish was invented out of necessity for waste control due to unsold bread items at a Hong Kong bakery, By processing it and adding sugar, coconut and other ingredients it became a filling for this delicious bread roll.

    We may never know exactly who came up with these ideas, but on behalf of everybody who have enjoyed these delicious dishes, Thank You! Your contribution is part of food history!

  • Dipping Ramen Noodles

    Here’s another Dry Noodles with the soup aside called Tsuke Men in Japan, the noodles are thicker so the broth has more surface to be clinging on

    It takes a bit of practice of getting the right amount of noodles with or without toppings and dipping it quickly, then slurp-chewing it all.

    The point of it, the noodles will not be continually soaking the broth like in a ramen soup, therefore it will be keeping its structure (bite). The broth is coating the noodle with flavor and also making it more silky when going in. Definitely a must try!

  • Dividing the pork

    Dividing the pork means dividing the loot, sharing the food, a pork analogy coming from Chinese villages.

  • With bubbles on Old Year’s Day

    Oliebol is a Dutch donut (literally oil bun) classically without any fillings or toppings, only powdered sugar. In the olden days it was a winter diet to fill up on the calories on the cheap.

    Nowadays its only eaten at the end of the year in December as a treat, the basics are now with or without raisins. Some have been experimenting with all kinds of fillings, cream, custard, nutella and loads of glazes, just to satisfy the insta worthiness seekers and sweet tooths.

    On Old Years Day we have it with bubbles, any sparkling wine with alcohol goes perfect with oliebol that we have bought or in my case fried in the backyard, keeping everybody dresses free of fried odours. Luckily it was nor raining or cold.

    500grams of Oliebollen mix from AH with 500ml of water, leave it for 30minutes to rise and start scooping and sliding into your fryer. Fry for 4 minutes, remember to flip to get it done all around. Take it out and let it drip out on some paper towel. Sprinkle powdered sugar and enjoy the crispy outer skin with a soft moist bread with pockets of air texture. Take a sip of your champagne and ask yourself, why do we only eat this at the end of the year?

    Happy New Year 2025!

  • HCM’s Expensive Banh Mi

    The Banh Mi from Ba Huynh and Huynh Hoa are one of the richest, tastiest and expensive sandwich I had in HCM. The price point was much higher (3x) than the “regular” Banh Mi’s, but it was also packed to the rim with cold cuts, liverpate and butter, every bite was a precision strike of keeping everything above and falling on to your plate.

    To be continued….

  • Finding Roti

    As the dish is more and more comforting, it seems to be also more difficult to perfect and achieve that comforting feeling with the scent of in ghee baked soft fluffy roti and the aroma of cumin and chilli with each bite.

    Ingredients:

    • 500gr Self raising flour
    • 60% Warm water
    • 2 tblsp Oil
    • 1 tsp Salt
    • Extra flour for dusting
    • Dhal Filling:
      • 200gr Split peas
      • 1 tsp Cumin
      • 1 tsp Salt
      • 1 tsp Chilli (Madame Jeanette chillis)

    For baking

    • Clarified butter and vegetable oil mixed

    Some recipes found online:

    https://watschaftdepodcast.com/recept/roti-plaat/

    https://surinaams-eten.blogspot.com/2010/02/roti-met-dahl.html

    https://de-keuken-van-suus.chef99.nl/a/291/roti-vellen-met-dahl

  • Evolution of Hu Tieu

    My first encounter with this dish was in Holland, a restaurant named Cambodja City. I thought it was OK, bit bland, nothing to write home about. After that first experience I had a few more times but again, nothing special.

    About 30 years later, I had this dish again, now in Vietnam, it blew me away, the clear broth from pork and chicken bones was so tasty and delicious. I had both the dry version and the wet version, the dry version had the soup aside (see photo) and the wet version was a noodle soup. When to get what? It depends on your mood, the weather, the time of the day or all of them. But I guess, should you feel under the weather, get the wet version and if you want a quick bite, get the dry one!

    So what is this post about, this dish seems to have its origins from China, the Chaozhou people, see the netflix special about GuoTiao (rice noodles). I asked the people there, they tend to lean towards the direction of Cambodia. That seemed so far fetched, but then I had to remind myself that people are not always staying in one place, they move for all kinds of reasons and they bring their belongings and culture with them. This dish looks different in China (sorry hadnt tried it yet over there), so this is the evolved version which had travelled from Cambodia to Vietnam and now into my memories.