Banh Chung

Recently, I learned eating banh chung is a traditionally eaten during the Lunar New Year.  Previously, banh chung was simply something my Vietnamese grandma would always make around the holiday season and sometimes during other parts of the year.  No matter the occasion or time of year, though, I could never get enough of her banh chung.

Her version is a vegetarian one: glutinous rice and mung bean wrapped in banana leaves.  Personally I don’t mind the lack of meat because for me it’s all about the rice.  When you boil glutinous rice for several hours as you do for banh chung, it takes on a unique texture when you eat it at room temperature and the aroma of the leaves comes through.  The texture is almost between that of onigiri and mochi.  Slightly chewy but yielding.

The texture can take on a drastically different profile when the banh chung is flattened and fried in a pan until golden brown.  In this form, the texture is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  After going back and forth between which preparation I prefer most year after year, I recently came to the conclusion that I prefer the non-fried version.  I find that frying the banh chung kills the subtle flavors of the rice and leaves.

So for my banh chung, I eat it at room temperature.  This time around, I filled mine with leftover pork rillettes from CharcutePalooza that I had in the freezer, and instead of wrapping the banh chung in banana leaves I used lotus leaves simply because that’s what I had in my pantry.

Banh Chung (makes about 3 individual servings)

Mise En Place

1. 200 g glutinous rice, soaked overnight in water and a few drops of pandan extract
2. 200 g mung beans, soaked overnight in water
3. 200 g pork rillettes or some other protein
4. 3 lotus leaves or banana leaves, soaked in warm water
5. Fish sauce

Method (for 1 individual serving)

1. Drain mung beans and place in a pot with enough water to cover.  Simmer until tender and mash, about 25 minutes.  Season with fish sauce and pepper.
2. Drain rice and season with fish sauce.
3. Fold the leaf in half so it is doubled.
4. Place 1/6th of the rice in the middle of a leaf in the shape of a rectangle.
5. Place 1/3rd of the protein on top of the rice.
6. Place 1/3rd of the mung beans on top of the rice.
7. Place 1/6th of the rice on top of the mung beans.
8. Shape into a rectangle by hand and wrap tightly with twine.
9. Wrap again in foil
10. Place in simmering water, weighted down, for about 6 hours.

Chinese Soy Sauce Chicken Galantine

One of the things I really enjoy about CharcutePalooza is learning to make new things while at the same time trying to figure out how to incorporate something familiar into each challenge.  That point of reference could be a flavor, a texture, an aroma, an ingredient, or a technique.  For the October CharcutePalooza, galantine, I drew from Chinese BBQ: soy sauce chicken and cold poached chicken with ginger-scallion oil.

Keeping with the Chinese influence, I decided to use the Chinese holy trinity of ginger, scallion, and garlic for the aromatics and shiitake mushrooms and wood ear fungus for the garnish.

When it came time to make the galantine, some parts were easier than others.  Thanks the previous challenges, producing the forcemeat was a breeze.  I was worried about skinning the chicken, though, as the recipe calls for keeping the skin in one piece.  However, it was surprisingly easier than I thought.  The only part I struggled with was separating the end of the drumsticks from the skin by pulling the drumsticks through “as if you were removing a tight shirt.”

Up until the point where I had the chicken breast laid out on top of the forcemeat, I was pretty confident that I’d be able to finish up this challenge without a hitch.  I was wrong.

Rolling the galantine into an even cylinder proved to be extremely difficult for me.  After a few tries, the best I could muster was a galantine shaped more like one of the Michelin Man’s appendages or Lumpy Space Princess.  I was afraid if I didn’t tie the support strings tight enough the forcemeat would spill out.

In order to make the galantine a true Chinese soy sauce chicken galantine, I poached it in the mother sauce I created about a year ago when I made my first soy sauce chicken.  The mother sauce is a combination of soy sauce, chicken stock, rock sugar, ginger, scallion, garlic, cinnamon, and star anise.  Each time it’s used to poach something, fresh aromatics are added and the meat being poached deepens the flavor of the liquid.  The soy sauce gave the skin that distinct brown hue that comes with every soy sauce chicken.

Yes, the galantine looked like a piece of poop as a whole, but when sliced it was hard to tell.  Although the slices did come out a bit oblong, the flavors and textures were spot on.  The wood ear fungus provided crunchiness and the shiitake provided a little more meatiness to the soft forcemeat.  As is traditional in Chinese cuisine, I garnished the cold chicken galantine with ginger-scallion oil which was a nice refreshing contrast to the dark flavors imparted by the mother sauce.  Overall, the dish was new yet familiar at the same time.  Overlooking the failure to roll the galantine perfectly, I felt pretty good about how this month’s challenge ended up.

 

Ginger-Scallion Oil

Via my recipe previously posted here

Chinese Mother Sauce (makes about 2 kg)

Mise En Place

1. 1 kg chicken stock or water
2. 0.5 kg soy sauce
3. 0.5 dark soy sauce
4. 100 g vermouth
5. 100 g ginger, sliced and smashed
6. 100 g scallion, roughly chopped
7. 100 g garlic, smashed
8. 100 g rock sugar
9. 10 g black peppercorn
10. 2 star anise
11. 1 cinnamon stick

Method

1. Simmer for 2-3 hours, tasting every now and then and adjusting accordingly
2. Strain

Galantine Forcemeat Aromatics

Mise En Place

1. 18 g ginger, minced
2. 18 g scallion, minced
3. 18 g garlic, minced

Galantine Forcemeat Garnish

Mise En Place

1. 20 g dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes
2. 20 g dried wood ear fungus, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes

Pate Chaud: Vietnamese Pork Pie

As challenging and fun making pate en croute sounds, I sadly didn’t have enough time this month to take a stab at it.  Thankfully, English pork pie was offered as an alternative for the September CharcutePalooza challenge.  I didn’t know what an English pork pie consisted of until I read the recipe in Charcuterie.  Once I read the recipe, though, I was completely familiar with it and realized that I’d been making pork pies for the past few years and eating them since childhood in the form of pate chaud.

Pate chaud is essentially the Vietnamese version of a pork pie.  Instead of Western seasonings, the pork is typically seasoned with fish sauce.  Depending on the cook, miscellaneous things like wood ear mushrooms may be added for a crunchy texture.  However, my grandma’s vegetarian version that I grew up on consisted of Morningstar Griller soy meat, mushrooms, peas, carrots, and Maggi (sort of like soy sauce) baked inside a handheld puff pastry shell.  The soy meat never bothered me because to this day I still prefer her version over any meat-based pate chaud I’ve ever tried.

My goal for this month’s challenge was to use the English pork pie recipe and technique in Charcuterie as a foundation and impart my grandma’s influence on it in order to make a respectable pork pate chaud.  Typically my grandma uses frozen peas, but I saw some nice snap peas at the market and had to use them.  Also, my grandma and I usually use premade frozen puff pastry dough, but making my own pastry dough from scratch this time was a good experience.

With the exception of a slightly soggy bottom (probably due to underestimating the amount of water released from the mushrooms) the pate chaud came out pretty good.  The pastry was understandably less flaky than the puff pastry that I’m used to, but it was flaky enough to hold its own.  One regret was not forming the pate chaud into its traditional handheld portions.  This would’ve made freezing and reheating portions much easier.

In all honesty, though, I still prefer my grandma’s vegetarian pate chaud.  There’s just something about the combination of soy meat, mushrooms, peas, carrots, and Maggi that I just love.

 

Pate Chaud Meat Filling

Mise En Place

1. 675 g pork, freshly ground
2. 100 g peas, diced
3. 100 g carrots, diced
4. 100 g shiitake mushrooms, roughly chopped
5. 5 g black pepper, freshly ground
6. 80 g mushroom-pork stock, reduced slightly more than normal and chilled
7. 40 g Maggi, European version with red top is preferable

HEADCHEESE – parsley root, doenjang mustard, smoldering cinnamon

Having been exposed to headcheese at a young age through banh mi, I fortunately don’t have an aversion to it.  I also have no qualms about handling a pig’s head as I’ve cooked with it in the past.  Although I’ve used pig’s head for tamales, congee, and barbeque in the past, I’ve never made headcheese.  This month’s CharcutePalooza challenge provided a great excuse to finally make some.

For the headcheese challenge, I wanted to focus on texture because headcheese typically lacks in that department.  Placing some headcheese on top of a cracker didn’t sound very fun, so I thought about battering and deep frying pieces of headcheese.  However, I wanted to preserve the integrity of the gelatin in the headcheese and prevent it from melting in the fryer.  After all, where’s the fun in eating headcheese if it doesn’t have any gelatin?

The use of agar-agar came to mind as a way to keep the gelatin from melting under high heat.  My mom used to make jasmine-coconut agar jelly when I was young, so working with agar wasn’t too foreign to me.  The application of agar in a hot preparation, though, was a first.  I already knew agar-based gelatins held their gel state at room temperature, and a little research revealed that agar-based gelatins melt at 85 Celsius.  I decided to use agar threads as they’re readily available at most Asian grocers and 3 times cheaper than agar powder found online.

Since I received some negative responses about showing a pig’s head in previous head-related posts, I’ll spare readers the sight of the suckling pig’s head I bought from Marketplace Oakton.  I feel pretty spoiled having suckling pig’s head so readily available and for only $0.99/lb.  After poaching the head and separating the liquid, I added enough agar to bring the liquid to a 1% agar solution.  I’m not sure how apparent it is in the picture above, but I think I added too much liquid to the mold.

During my research into how much agar to use per unit of liquid, I stumbled upon Grant Achatz’s pheasant with burning oak leaves and sweet potato with smoldering cinnamon stick recipes.  I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to eat at Alinea a few times, so I was familiar with the “tempura on a skewer that serves as an aroma source” style of preparation.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that preparing the headcheese in a similar fashion would be interesting and fun.

When thinking about what to pair the headcheese with, I looked to classic combinations like pickles and mustard.  Initially, I wasn’t sure what I’d use for the pickle, but upon seeing fresh parsley root at Marketplace Oakton I knew I had to use it.  It was only natural to use the leaves in the poaching liquid and make a quick pickle out of the roots.

The previous week I worked with doenjang (a fermented soybean paste akin to miso) for the first time and made some doenjang jigae.  Being on somewhat of a doenjang binge and with mustard on my mind, I was reminded of my cousin’s miso salad dressing I had as a kid.  The miso salad dressing tasted like honey mustard, so I figured an agar-based doenjang mustard gel would work nicely.

A common element between the mustard, pickled parsley root, and headcheese was allspice.  Since allspice and cinnamon go hand in hand, the choice of a cinnamon stick skewer made sense.  The tempura batter specified by Achatz was super light and when fried provided a nice crispy texture.  Using a blowtorch, I set the top of the cinnamon stick ablaze to release its aroma.

To plate the bite, I used an old wire whisk (a great idea from Martin over at Alineaphile) to achieve some semblance of the original served at Alinea that comes nestled in the “squid” by Crucial Detail.  The squid is “designed to hold a delicate course in an upright position.  Six thin wires distribute weight evenly and allow air flow around the dish.”

Overall, the tempura headcheese was a success and a lot of fun to research and implement.  Deep frying headcheese and having the gelatin not melt tickled me pretty good.  I also achieved my goal of highlighting texture for this challenge.  The fried tempura batter provided crispiness and the pickled parsley root provided crunchiness.  Everything worked from a flavor standpoint as well.  The combination of headcheese, pickle, and mustard was immediately familiar, and the addition of doenjang added a sweet note to the bite.

I don’t know if I’ll be making these again any time soon due to the amount of time required, but I’m confident enough to try Achatz’s pheasant and sweet potato recipes now that I’m familiar with the general strategies.  I’m also walking away with a great tempura batter ratio.  Out of all the CharcutePalooza challenges thus far, this one has been my favorite as I’ve learned the most from it.

 

Doenjang Mustard Gel (adapted from here)

Mise En Place

1. 30 g yellow mustard seeds
2. 30 g brown mustard seeds
3. 60 g doenjang
4. 1 g white peppercorns
5. Pinch allspice
6. 70 g white wine
7. 70 g vinegar
8. 45 g shallot, minced
9. 3 g agar

Method

1. Combine all ingredients and refrigerate overnight
2. Transfer all ingredients to a saucepan or pot over high heat and bring to boil
3. Quickly transfer all ingredients to a blender and blend for ~2 minutes
4. Quickly transfer mixture into a small mold (must set to at least 3 mm thickness) and refrigerate until completely set, ~2 hours

HEADCHEESE – pickled parsley root, doenjang mustard, smoldering cinnamon (adapted from here)

Mise En Place

1. Headcheese, cut into a 2 cm cubes
2. Pickled parsley root, cut into 2 cm X 2 cm X 3 mm rectangular prisms
3. Doenjang mustard gel, cut into 2 cm X 2 cm X 3 mm rectangular prisms
4. Cinnamon stick, pared down thin enough on one end to skewer the ingredients
5. Flour for dredging
6. Tempura batter

Method

1. Skewer the pickled parsley root onto the cinnamon stick, followed by the doenjang mustard gel, and lastly the headcheese
2. Dredge the ingredients in flour and shake off any excess
3. Coat the ingredients in tempura batter and let any excess drip off
4. Holding onto one end of the cinnamon, dip ingredients in 190 Celsius oil until golden, ~2 minutes
5. Drain on paper towels and season with salt
6. Take a flame to one end of the cinnamon until smoldering

Homemade Ramen With Hot Dogs & Corn

Often times when my dad was too busy to cook a proper meal, he would make a bowl of Sapporo Ichiban instant ramen and fortified it with a hot dog and canned corn.  The corn my sound odd, but its sweetness goes well with the saltiness of the hot dog and instant ramen broth.  Once I became old enough to boil a pot of water and make instant ramen by myself, I carried on his tradition whenever I needed something to eat in a pinch.  Eventually, I’d come to add my own personal touch to instant ramen by using Mexicorn instead of plain canned corn.

With this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge being hot dogs, I was motivated to make one of the most treasured fast foods from my childhood completely from scratch.  Not only would I make the hot dogs from scratch, but the noodles, broth, and Mexicorn as well.

By now, grinding meat has become second nature.  However, emulsifying meat was new territory.  I was pretty paranoid when the meat was being blended in the food processor.  Fears of the emulsification breaking ran wild through my head as I’ve broken a mayonnaise once.  Thankfully the emulsification came together without a hitch.

I did have issues stuffing the hot dogs, though.  I lost the small plastic propeller from my sausage stuffer Kitchen Aid attachment which caused the meat to extrude unevenly.  Although I was successful in the end, stuffing was a bit harder this time around.  To smoke the hot dogs, I again used the method of starting the stovetop smoker on the stove for 10 minutes and then transferring it to the oven for about an hour until the hot dogs came to temperature.

The task of making the ramen noodles from scratch seemed ambitious at first, but once I got started I realized how easy it is to make a basic noodle (as long as you have a pasta roller and cutter).  Making the noodles simply amounted to mixing the dough in a stand mixer, portioning the dough, running the dough through a pasta roller, and running the dough through a pasta cutter.

One notable thing about the ramen noodles was the addition of xanthan gum.  Inspired by Tom’s modernist ravioli, I added 3 grams of xanthan gum to my 300 gram batch of flour.  True to his word, my noodles didn’t stick together at all even in the absence of a dusting of flour.

When I gulped down my first spoonful of soup and happily slurped the chewy noodles, I was taken back to my childhood.  I could picture myself sitting in the kitchen in Southern California filling my stomach with instant ramen packed with umami.  Only this time, the umami came from a broth consisting of homemade dashi and homemade pork stock rather than an MSG-laden packet of soup base.  Also, the smokiness of the bonito flakes in the dashi complimented the smokiness of the hot dog quite well.

Overall, the dish and challenge was a resounding success.  Not only did I get to relive a moment of my childhood, but I learned how to make an emulsified sausage, ramen noodles, and dashi (which I will be using a lot in the future) from scratch.

 

Ramen Noodles

Via norecipes.com (with an addition of 3 grams xanthan gum)

Ramen Broth

Via citrusandcandy.com

Mexicorn

Mise En Place

1. 250 g corn, cut from the cob
2. 130 g bell peppers, skinned and diced

Method

1. Melt a pad of butter in a pan over medium heat
2. Add corn and bell peppers to pan and saute for a few minutes
3. Salt to taste

Goi Ga (Vietnamese Chicken & Cabbage Salad) Sandwich

This month’s CharcutePalooza challenge had the least specific parameters thus far.  The task was to simply create an encased poultry sausage.  Initially, I thought the lack of strict parameters would be nice as I’d be able to be more creative than usual.  However, I quickly realized I hadn’t eaten many poultry sausages and lacked interesting ideas for what to make.  The only poultry sausage that came to mind was the duck sausage topped with foie gras served at Hot Doug’s.  Since I copied another Chicago sausage eatery’s menu item last month, I felt obligated to create something original this time around.

With only one poultry sausage to work off of as inspiration, I turned to poultry dishes I liked to eat.  A few came to mind, but the one that stuck was goi ga: Vietnamese chicken and cabbage salad. The bright and refreshing nature of the dish would be a welcome treat in the sweltering summer heat.

Typically, goi ga consists of shredded cabbage, shredded carrot, shredded chicken, pickled onion, Thai basil, mint, cilantro, and lime & fish sauce vinaigrette.  I tend to prefer regular basil over Thai basil and only a small amount of mint for this dish.

I decided to make the sausage consist of marinated chicken, pork fat, basil, cilantro, mint, and garlic.  The sausage would then be nestled between a bun lubricated with mayo and topped with a Vietnamese cabbage slaw taken directly from the source dish.

Stuffing the sausages was pretty easy since I had experience stuffing merguez last month.  This time around, though, I used salt-packed hog casings rather than fresh lamb casings.  According to Michael Ruhlman, this type of casing provides the best snap-factor.  However, the brand I bought must not have been the best quality.  The snap-factor wasn’t there at all and in fact the texture was slightly chewy and tough.

Aside from the disappointing casings, I was happy with the sausage and sandwich as a whole.  It definitely reminded me of traditional goi ga, but it was different enough to taste like something new.  Until I can find quality hog casings, though, I think I’d rather have this sausage cooked as freeform patties or links.

 

Marinade

Mise En Place (for 900 g / 2 lbs chicken)

1. 42 g (2 Tbsp.) honey
2. 45 g (3 Tbsp.) fish sauce
3. 40 g (~2 limes) lime juice

Method

1. Combine all ingredients and mix until homogenized

Goi Ga Sausage

Mise En Place

1. 900 g (~ 2 lbs) dark meat chicken, cut into strips for grinding
2. 300 g (~ 2/3 lbs) pork fat, cut into strips for grinding
3. 127 g marinade
4. 9 g garlic, minced
5. 16 g basil, chopped
6. 16 g cilantro, chopped
7. 5 g mint, chopped

Method

1. Combine chicken, herbs, garlic, and marinade and marinate overnight
2. Drain marinade
3. Follow standard sausage grinding and stuffing procedures

Lime & Fish Sauce Vinaigrette

Mise En Place

1. 105 g oil
2. 10 g (~1/2 lime) lime juice
3. 15 g (1 Tbsp.) fish sauce
4. 21 g (1 Tbsp.) honey

Method

1. Combine lime juice, fish sauce, and honey
2. Slowly whisk in oil until incorporated

Goi Ga Slaw

Mise En Place

1. 250 g (~1/2 lbs) cabbage, shredded
2. 100 g (~1/5 lbs) carrot, shredded
3. Pickled shallots
4. Fresh basil
5. Fresh cilantro
6. Fresh mint
7. Lime & fish sauce vinaigrette

Method

1. Combine cabbage and carrot
2. Add pickled shallots, herbs, and vinaigrette to taste

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.