Pho-Spiced Corned Beef Banh Mi With Purple Yam Fries

I really enjoy foods that are briny and pickle-y, so I was ecstatic when I read that this month’s CharcutePalooza challenge would be corned beef.  Simply making corned beef hash or straight up corned beef with braised vegetables would’ve been perfectly enjoyable for me, and although a Reuben is one of my favorite sandwiches of all time, those options all felt a little uninspired.

During a recent conversation with my mom, we got on the topic of pho as I told her about the mighty fine bowl I had at Pho Kimmy.  With the aromatic scent of star anise, cinnamon,  fresh herbs, and beef broth permeating her childhood memories, she recounted the times she spent at the pho place her grandpa owned and operated in Vietnam.  However, her fondest memory of the eatery was not of a succulent bowl of pho but of a comforting impromptu sandwich her grandpa would make for her whenever she visited.

The sandwich consisted of only four ingredients: tender brisket straight from a cauldron of simmering pho broth, Maggi, pepper, and a baguette.  Simplicity was the key to keeping his grandkids happy and satiated.  This story gave me the idea to make some sort of sandwich using pho-spiced corned beef as opposed to traditionally-spiced corned beef.  Rather than brisket, though, I decided to use beef tongue because I appreciate the amount of fat and flavor it has.

Despite the fact that I’ve worked with tongue many times in the past, I opted to try my hand at skinning it raw rather than cooked after seeing a video of someone doing it masterfully.  This probably wasn’t the best idea.  It took quite a while to do because I failed to skin the top part off in one fell swoop.  My enthusiasm for trying out a new butchering technique threw a wrench in what was otherwise a no-brainer recipe.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far from doing these CharcutePalooza challenges, it’s that basic charcuterie is really easy.  The amount of active time spent in the kitchen is very minimal, and the tasks required are not complicated.  Corned beef is no different: make the brine, stick the meat in the brine, wait a few days, cook.

When it came to making the brine, I used charred onion and charred ginger for the aromatics and yellow rock candy instead of sugar.  These ingredients are essential to any pho broth and help give it its distinct flavor.  After the brine worked its magic for a few days, I turned to Thomas Keller’s Under Pressure and put my sous vide setup to work.

After 24 hours in the water bath, the meat was super tender and moist.  The flavor was distinctly that of a cured meat, but the aroma and undertones were  undoubtedly that of pho.  In its chilled state, the amount of visible fat marbling found in the beef tongue was enough to make my mouth drool and my arteries cry.  Now that I had easy part done, I had to think of what I wanted on my sandwich.

When conceptualizing the sandwich, I tried to work in as many pho components as I could.  Thai basil, cilantro, green onion, and Sriracha were all shoo-ins, but without any hot pho broth, I needed something to cut the fattiness of the tongue.  Luckily, I still had plenty of pickled radish and carrot from when I made pancetta.  The acidity and crunchiness of the pickled vegetables also served as a substitute for the squeeze of fresh lime and bean sprouts that are commonly added at the table to a bowl of pho.

As for the hoisin sauce, I decided to force myself to find a way to incorporate its flavors into a side dish.  Setting constraints like this can lead to some great ideas that may have otherwise gone untapped.  However, I first had to figure out exactly what hoisin sauce was made of.  To my surprise, the main ingredient in hoisin sauce is sweet potato.  At first, I considered a sweet potato puree, but thought sweet potato fries would be a more appropriate accompaniment for a sandwich.  Furthermore, I opted for purple yams because I was curious to work with them; I’d only worked with the powdered form of purple yam in the past.

The sandwich as a whole came out well.  With each passing bite, I couldn’t help but think of it as a pho banh mi, hence I’m labeling it as one.  Although the purple yam fries didn’t taste exactly like hoisin sauce, the flavor was familiar enough and did a decent job of adding sweetness to the plate just like hoisin sauce does.

When it comes down to it, my pho banh mi simply can’t compete with my great-grandpa’s ad hoc sandwich due to the sentimentality surrounding his, but if it can evoke just a single cherished memory in my mom’s mind (or anyone for that matter) then I’d consider it a success.  The ultimate success would be if new memories are formed and those thoughts percolate into yet another inspired creation.

 

Spice Ratio For Brine

Mise En Place (By Weight)

1. Two units cinnamon
2. Two units star anise
3. Two units fennel seed
4. Two units coriander seed
5. One unit clove
6. One unit Sichuan peppercorn
7. One unit black peppercorn

Method

1. 40 g (1.41 oz) of spice for a 1.27 kg (2.8 lbs) beef tongue in 2.4 L (2.54 qts) of 5% brine

Aromatics Ratio For Brine

Mise En Place (By Weight)

1. Three units onion
2. One unit ginger

Method

1. Char onion and ginger over open flame or under broiler
2. 500 g (1.1 lbs) of onion and 167 g (0.37 lbs) ginger for a 1.27 kg (2.8 lbs) beef tongue in 2.4 L (2.54 qts) of 5% brine

Pho Banh Mi

Mise En Place

1. Pho-spiced corned beef, chilled and thinly sliced
2. Thai basil, stems removed
3. Cilantro, stems preferably removed
4. Green onions, diced
5. Your favorite pickled vegetable
6. Mayonnaise, preferably homemade
7. Sriracha (optional)
8. Hoisin sauce (optional)
9. Baguette

Method

1. Heat baguette in oven
2. Construct sandwich to taste.  Sometimes structural integrity can be improved by placing garnishes on the bottom beneath the meat.

Banh Mi-tyballs: Day 2

On Friday, October 15, the day finally came to debut the Banh Mi-tyball sandwich to the public, and I had the good fortune of being able to help prep, construct, and sell the sandwiches that day.

“Too long; didn’t read” Version of Day 2

• I had a lot of fun, learned some new things, and would gladly do it again given the opportunity.
• I was really excited to have people try something I had a hand in making.
• I learned that the person on this jar of chili is a woman and it says “old dry mom” on it.
• Most customers were freaked out by fish sauce and didn’t know what it was.
• I refrained from taking many pictures because everyone around me was focused and working hard.  The least I could do was try to stay as focused and work as hard as they did.
• Food truck laws in Chicago are insanely stupid and need to be revised.
• Phillip Foss wakes up really, really early, is very focused, and maintains a high level of attention to detail in his humble yet refined sandwiches.

6:10 AM

Foss and I arrive bright and early in the kitchen, and the first things that need to get done are mise en place and bringing the meatballs up to temperature.  He stresses the importance of mise en place and that we must remember to “clean, clean, clean as we go.”  This was the first sense I got of how focused Foss is in the kitchen, no matter if it’s a kitchen putting out haute cuisine or if it’s a kitchen putting out meatball sandwiches to be served out of a truck.

6:30 AM

Many restaurant kitchens will have a pot of stock going throughout the day.  This kitchen is no different.  We haul a large stockpot filled with bones onto the stove, fill it with water, and get it started.  By the end of the truck run, we’ll have a good amount of stock that is so vital and essential to cooking good food.

6:50 AM

The bread delivery arrives, I believe from Labriola Baking Company, and Foss takes inventory.  There seems to be less bread than he was expecting, but thankfully we have enough for the day.  I make some coffee for the both of us and clearly hear Foss tell me that 1 scoop of instant coffee will do as I pathetically have never made instant coffee in my entire life up until that point.

Despite this, the early morning haze that I’m still partially in affects my judgment and I put 1 heaping scoop of instant coffee into each cup and the coffee is obviously too strong for even the most hardcore coffee drinker.  Perhaps this screw up isn’t that big of a deal, but I tell myself to focus and try to draw from Foss’s precise movements around the kitchen and deliberate instructions he’s given me so far.

7:00 AM

I’m tasked with cutting the edges off of the bread; the excess is to be used for croutons.  After a simple demo from Foss, I get slicing and quickly realize how awesome an offset serrated knife is.  A few minutes later, Foss checks on me and notices that some of my cuts aren’t perfectly straight and advises me to line up the bread properly before cutting so it looks nice.  He reminds me that each piece of bread is handmade and thus each piece is different and needs to be handled differently from one piece to the next.

This is the first, and definitely not last, time that I notice Foss’s attention and dedication to detail.  Not only would a lazier person not bother trimming the bread, but a less dedicated person  wouldn’t even bother making sure each piece of bread was trimmed perfectly straight.

7:25 AM

I finish trimming all the bread and at this point I’m not sure how many I’ve trimmed, but it’s enough to fill the bin above at least 3 times (maybe a lot more) from what I recall.  Clearly not the speediest, but I felt a decent sense of accomplishment.

My next task is to measure out ingredients for Foss’s BBQ sauce.  I spend what seems like an eternity looking for rice wine vinegar only to realize that the “r. wine vinegar” in the recipe stands for red wine vinegar which there an abundance of.

7:35 AM

We go outside to move the truck into position and get the hot box, for lack of better term, fired up to ensure that it’s warm enough by the time the sandwiches are loaded up.

7:45 AM

Foss assigns me the task of coating a sheet tray full of chocolate balls with melted chocolate and adding a couple grains of salt to make chocolate salty balls.  He demonstrates how to do this: put 4 balls into the bowl of chocolate, coat, lift all 4 with spoon, salt, and use tongs to put the balls back onto the sheet tray one by one.

I confirm to Foss that I understand what to do, but apparently the super strong coffee that I mistakenly made earlier does little to sharpen my cognition.  On my first try, I screw up.  Somehow I completely forget that I have tongs at my disposal in order to place the coated balls back onto the sheet tray and instead use my hand.  I proceed with the second round of balls, only to come to the deflating realization that I can’t grab a pinch of salt without ruining the entire container of salt with my chocolate-covered fingers.

Bewildered and flustered, I can’t comprehend how I even got into this predicament.  I call Foss over and ask what I did wrong, and as soon as he picks up the tongs, I know.  After a few rounds, I get the hang of it and the rest of the balls get coated and salted without much fuss.

(Photo by @ChicagoFishGuy)

8:05 AM

Foss opens the oven and pulls out a pan filled with super tender pork shoulder that’s been slowly braising overnight and gets me started on harvesting and shredding the meat for his BBQ balls.  This is something I’ve done before, and I’ve even harvested meat from a pig’s head on a couple of occasions, so I tell myself that I can’t possibly screw this up.

After the meat is harvested, Foss shows me how he adds smoke to the meat using a smoking gun from PolyScience.  It’s pretty cool, and the process will repeat a few times throughout the day until the meat attains just the right amount of smokiness.  This is yet another moment where I’m impressed with Foss’s attention to detail.  He could easily skip the smoke and most people wouldn’t care, but his drive to put out a quality product is again very apparent here.

9:00 AM

Nine AM.  Yes, nine o’clock in the morning is how early we start constructing sandwiches in order to have the day’s allotment ready to go by 10:45 AM.  The fact that Chicago laws prohibit the selling of anything but prepackaged food from a food truck is simply ludicrous and it’s the reason why we’re in a kitchen making sandwiches so early and not on a truck doing prep and constructing the sandwiches to order.

What’s equally crazy is how Foss is able to maintain a high level of quality despite the fact that the sandwiches must be constructed ahead of time and not as customers order.  There’s no doubt that the Meatyballs Mobile could serve up an even better product if the food truck laws in Chicago were revised.  Every other major metropolitan city has sensible food truck laws that allow for preparation of food on the actual food truck.  Why Chicago, arguably one of the best gastronomic hubs in the country, is so strict about food trucks makes little sense in the year 2010.

9:05 AM

The first thing that must be done during the sandwich construction process is to toast the bread, another little thing that Foss does that improves the overall quality of the final product.  We construct my Banh Mi-tyballs sandwiches first, and I remind him that I’d like the meatballs caramelized and he gladly obliges.  We debate about whether it would be best to put them on the flattop, in a pan, or straight onto the grill.  Ultimately, we choose the grill, which happens to be the traditional way of preparing Vietnamese meatballs.

I get to helm the grill and try to learn its hot and cool spots as quickly as I can.  Some meatballs aren’t caramelizing as fast as I hoped they would and I become slightly afraid of falling behind schedule.  The bread has been toasted, the pickled vegetables have gone down, and we’re now waiting for the meatballs to caramelize before topping the sandwich with aioli and cilantro.

However, Foss’s dedication to quality reassures me as he says that if we have to wait for the meatballs to get a good amount of caramelization on them, then we’ll wait.  Right before the last Banh Mi-tyball sandwich is wrapped, we go outside for a photo op of me with my sandwich next to the truck.

9:45 AM

As we construct the other Meatyball sandwiches, I again notice Foss’s keen eye for detail.  His crab meatballs, affectionately named “crabby balls,” are ever so slightly flattened on one side.  I don’t notice this at first, and place a few crabby balls flat-side-up.  Foss quickly sees this and again reminds me that we want these sandwiches to look nice, and I correct my error.  Throughout the entire day, attention to little details like this surely add up and amount to a better end product.

10:20 AM

Sandwich construction is nearing completion I hear a strange man in the kitchen inquiring about the sandwiches.  At first, I honestly think the man is a homeless man who wandered in looking for a free bite to eat as his speech is somewhat slurred and hard to comprehend.  It’s not until I’m able to take my eyes off of garnishing sandwiches that I realize that he’s simply delivering something to the kitchen and English is not has native language.  The deliveryman seems fairly excited about the sandwiches and happily buys one.

After all the sandwiches are constructed, we take a few seconds to grab some scraps of bread and sop up some Meatyball cheese sauce to get us fueled up before heading out.

10:50 AM

A few minutes behind schedule, we’re finally packed up and ready to head out to the Loop.

 

11:15 AM

After a slight hindrance with the parking, we land at Monroe & Wells.  There’s already one customer waiting for us to open the hatch and dish out Meatyball sandwiches.  Foss gets to writing a description of the Banh Mi-tyball on his whiteboard.  Unfortunately, the inclusion of “fish sauce” in the description scares people away from my sandwich throughout the entire day.  Most customers have never tried fish sauce and automatically assume it will give the sandwich an off-putting fishy taste, which is completely wrong.

Shortly after, one of my friends stops by and is our second customer of the day.  He hangs around until our former coworkers show up.  Until then, we get a few customers here and there.  As Foss is taking orders, I open up the paper bags and get them ready for him but he’s not used to having help with this menial task.  It takes him a few customers before he can refrain from instinctively going for an unopened bag and instead grabbing the bag that I have prepared for him.

11:35 AM

About a dozen of my former coworkers show up for sandwiches, but sadly only 2 of them get the Banh Mi-tyball sandwich.  The rest are frightened by the fish sauce.  I feel somewhat disappointed and can only hope that other customers don’t feel the same way about fish sauce.

11:45 AM

One of my former coworker’s husband shows up and it’s a nice surprise.  We talk for a few minutes and I notice that the line has grown pretty long as business has started to pick up.  We’ve been talking outside the vicinity of the line, and I’d feel really bad if he ended up going to the end of the line because it was fairly short when he got there.

Up until now, Foss has been handling all the orders.  I ask him if we can get Greg squared away with his order, but Foss is being swamped with customers and is too busy to respond.  After a couple more inquiries, Foss tells me that I can handle the sale myself.  Feeling empowered, I grab 2 Banh Mi-tyball sandwiches, make change, and Greg is on his merry way.

12:00 PM

At this point, I’ve handled a few sales and explained my sandwich to curious customers.  Despite the fact that many people are turned off by the fish sauce, my sandwich seems to be selling well, along with all the other sandwiches.

Then, a customer comes up to me and mentions that she’s read my blog and has an interesting piece of information for me: the person on this jar of chili is an old woman!  The kind customer ends a debate that I’ve had with my family for at least a couple years: whether the person on the jar is a man or a woman.  She explains to me that the text on the jar translates literally to “old dry mom.”  I can’t stop beaming with glee about the fact that I finally learned who the person on the jar is and about the fact that someone actually read my rant about it.

12:10 PM

We’re sold out.  A journalism student approaches Foss about filming his thoughts on the absurd food truck laws in Chicago, to which he happily agrees.

12:45 PM

Foss finishes filming and we head back to the kitchen.  Having only had time for a piece of bread slathered with sauce for nourishment earlier in the day, I break out a snack that I packed just in case I got hungry: Vietnamese yuca cake.  I offer some to Foss and to my delight he responds “mmm…good.”

1:00 PM

The stock that’s been going since the morning gets strained and the pork shoulder for the BBQ balls gets another round of smoke.  We taste some, and the amount of smoke is almost getting to just the right level.  I hang around the kitchen for a little while longer, but head out before any heavy congestion builds on the roads.

All in all, the day turns out to be a great experience.  I had fun, learned, and hopefully made some people happy with my Banh Mi-tyballs.

Banh Mi-tyballs: Day 1

I first met Phillip Foss, former chef of Lockwood at the historic Palmer House Hilton, at Sarkis’ in Evanston.  For a couple nights at the end of September, he took over the cafe to showcase his Meatyballs concept (@FossFoodTrucks) in the guise of a pop-up restaurant.  My first impression of his refined meatball sandwiches was positive.  I was impressed by the moisture and delicateness of the meatballs as well as his Thai-inspired sauce that was served with turkey meatballs.  The freshly fried truffle dusted chips and chocolate salty balls were also memorable.

The following week, Foss ran Meatyball deliveries as his food truck was out of commission.  Luckily for my coworkers and me, he delivered to the Loop on the day we were all working in the West Loop.  After my second helping of his Meatyballs, Foss humbly asked for constructive criticism.  At that point, I had tried all but one of his sandwiches and gave a fairly detailed breakdown of each one and offered some suggestions for potential menu items.

Foss responded to my extremely verbose evaluation of his Meatyballs quite unexpectedly: he asked me if I’d like to come in and work on one of the sandwich ideas I suggested.  Of course, I was really excited and jumped at the opportunity to work him.  I would be the first guest to be featured on the Meatyballs Mobile, and the concept of crowdsourcing a menu item is a novel idea that can ultimately lead to a great connection between Foss and his customers.  For anyone interested in getting involved, email your Meatyball idea to thepickledtongue at gmail dot com.

The week before we got together, I made practice sandwiches and tested them on my coworkers.  Thankfully, they enjoyed the sandwich and gave me some good feedback.  That weekend, Foss and I got together at his kitchen to work on a banh mi inspired Meatyball sandwich that I’ve made in the past.  After a few iterations, we got the meatballs to our desired taste, consistency, and moisture level.

The meatballs were somewhat traditional in terms of ingredients (pork, fish sauce, sugar, salt), with a couple additions and a subtraction.  Foss added a couple ingredients to keep the meatballs moist, and I thought it would be a decent idea to take transfer the garlic from the meatball to an aioli.  I was hoping to get a little heat out of the raw garlic in order to replace the typically overwhelming raw seranos/jalapenos.  Traditional garnishes of pickled carrots/daikons in addition to cilantro rounded out the sandwich.

Throughout the entire process, I was surprised and thrilled by how it turned out to be a true collaboration rather than me writing down a few ratios for Foss and him implementing them as he saw fit.  He continuously sought my feedback after we tasted and tweaked something and reminded me that this was my sandwich.  After all our prep was done, we had about 100 Vietnamese meatballs ready for service, and I eagerly awaited Day 2 of my Meatyballs experience where I’d get the opportunity to help out with a day of service and ride along with the Meatyballs food truck.

Meatball Banh Mi

There was a time when I strongly considered naming this blog “Beng, Me.”  It was a play on banh mi, but I quickly realized that most, if not all, non-Vietnamese speaking individuals pronounce banh mi as “bawn mee” rather than the correct pronunciation that most closely sounds like “beng mee” or “ben mee.”  For the linguist, the official IPA pronounciation is [ɓǎːɲ mî].  I find it funny how the Western world can get the pronunciation of pho down pretty well (approximately “fuh”), but butcher banh mi.

Pronunciation aside, my favorite style of banh mi is the classic combo typically filled with cold cuts, headcheese, pate, homemade Vietnamese mayo, and the standard fixings.  However, I was craving some Vietnamese meatballs and decided to make meatball banh mi and use the bretzel that I made that day instead of a baguette.

The meatballs consisted of freshly ground pork shoulder seasoned to taste with garlic, fish sauce, and sugar.  If you’re unsure about the seasoning levels and don’t like the idea of licking or consuming raw pork, simply take a small blob of meat and microwave it a little until its cooked and taste it.  The meatballs can be grilled or broiled in the oven on a broiler pan.

In addition to the bretzel, another departure from tradition was the use of giardiniera in place of jalapenos, pickled daikons, and pickled carrots as I love giardiniera and sometimes find raw jalapenos overpowering.  Also, I garnished the sandwich with avocado to add a rich creaminess in lieu of fresh Vietnamese mayo.  Unfortunately, I was out of eggs that day and unable to make Vietnamese mayo.  If you’ve never had Vietnamese mayo, it tends to be eggier and richer than your typical mayo.  I personally much prefer Vietnamese style mayo.

So in the end, my Vietnamese-German-Italian hybrid banh mi turned out well.  Usually the hard crust of a baguette tears the roof of my mouth up when biting into the sandwich.  The bretzel totally eliminated this problem and added another layer of sweetness to each bite.  The giardiniera and avocado were worthy substitutes for classic fixings, but I there is just not competition when it comes to using fresh Vietnamese mayo versus something from a jar.

Bretzel

 

I have a minor complaint to file against Hannah’s Bretzel.  I can get over their hipster/yuppie-friendly “organic” marketing plastered everywhere because they do make some pretty good sandwiches, albeit at a premium due to the organic hype machine.  What really annoys me is the slogan on their signage: “Twisted and tasty since 1477.”

Now to most people, I would imagine that translates to something like “founded in 1477 and operating ever since.”  Well at least that’s what I thought, but I was skeptical that a German sandwich shop (I assumed it was of German origin) of such longevity would bother opening up an outpost in the Chicago Loop.  I googled and found out from their website that 1477 actually corresponds to the year that their style of bretzel was founded, and not the actual shop.  I’m not really sure how you can “found” a bread, but apparently you can.  Misleading marketing if you ask me.  I liken it to if I opened up a Chinese restaurant that served grilled meats and had the slogan “Peking and primitive since 400,000 BC.”

 

In any case, I’d never had bretzel before going to Hannah’s, but after my first bretzel sandwich, I became a fan.  The flavor and texture are much like a soft pretzel, but the form typically takes the shape of a roll or baguette.  My coworker’s attempts to replicate bretzel as good as Hannah’s inspired me to give it a shot as well, following the same recipe with the intent to use the bread for banh mi.

As part of my ongoing experimentation with bread, I departed from the recipe a little and decided to allow for delayed fermentation of the dough and added salt directly into the dough.  Obviously from the picture, I could’ve done a better job storing it in the fridge.  I wrapped it way too tightly, and as it slowly expanded overnight, it busted out of the plastic wrap and formed a funny, monster-looking shape (the 2 small balls are the eyes and the big ball is the nose).

Similar to bagels and soft pretzels, the dough is boiled slightly before baking to give it a dense and chewy interior.  The recipe called for boiling the dough in baking soda, and I made the mistake of dumping the baking soda in boiling water all at once, which produced a huge overflow of bubbles.

   

The bretzel came out with great texture.  Dense, chewy, and soft on the inside with a yielding crust.  The flavor, while still pretty good, was no match for Hannah’s.  For one, I don’t think I added enough salt to the dough and had to add salt to the bretzel on the outside to bring out more flavor: something I wanted to avoid since I was going to use the bretzel as a sandwich vessel.  Also, the delayed fermentation did little to add any flavor.  Hannah’s is simply tastier than what I could produce on my first try.

On the plus side, it made a good vessel for the banh mi that I made.  The natural sweetness of the bretzel did well to compliment the general banh mi flavors, and the yielding crust of the bretzel alleviated my main gripe against banh mi: the hard crust of a baguette tears up the roof of my mouth when biting into it in sandwich form.  I’ll definitely be playing around with baking more bretzel in the future as it’s pretty tasty, even when baked by a novice like myself.