To Eat and Remember

Beef in Betel Leaf + A Mendocino GSM worth looking for

The day after my father-in-law died, my husband and I went in search of bò lá lốt. I had landed in Saigon the night before, unaware that when I was somewhere over the Pacific, the same ocean my father-in-law traversed during WWII as a young seaman in the Navy, that he had finally passed. To honor Woody, a man of voracious appetite, we knew that to grieve would be to eat.

I was in Vietnam to meet up with my husband, John, at the end of a trek with a group of donors to Room to Read, the education charity he founded in 2000 with a mission to change the world through educating children. Woody had been part of the charity’s journey from the earliest days traveling with John and a team of yaks to deliver books to mountain villages in Nepal. There was no guilt from Woody that John was not by his side when he died, only love and pride for what they had built together. Woody wanted John to be exactly where he was, in Vietnam, helping more children.

John and Woody in Kathmandu delivering books to rural schools in Nepal, 1999

Woody’s life was long and illness was blessedly short, if cruel. Cancer is never kind but Woody loved to eat and his cancer of the esophagus quickly took away that singular pleasure. True to his trencherman spirit, even when he could no longer eat solids, he would wax poetic about the pleasures of soup, whether hot and sour from the local Chinese takeout or homemade sweet potato and butternut squash soup that we made in quantity and froze during our last visit together.

After the trekking group departed for Hong Kong, London, Singapore and Sydney, John and I set out for a day of eating and remembering Woody. I designed this self-guided tour with the idea that we would have one food at each stall or restaurant, seeking out some of the best examples of our favorite Vietnamese dishes. We had spring rolls wrapped in lettuce leaves, steamed rice flour rolls stuffed with minced mushrooms and meat, and ate crab four ways at a restaurant entirely devoted to the crustacean.

If there was one food we didn’t want to miss, it was bò lá lốt. It is the kind of street food that comes out when the sun goes down in Vietnam, vendors setting up their charcoal grills on sidewalks much the way you can find bacon-wrapped hot dogs on so many street corners of Los Angeles. Lean minced beef heavily seasoned with fish sauce, sugar, garlic and shallots is rolled inside fragrant betel leaves, skewered, and grilled. The result is a juicy, salty and sweet bite, fragrant with herbaceous smoke from the charred leaf wrapper.

On a recent shopping expedition to H-Mart in San Diego, I grabbed a bag of shiso leaves, sitting on the shelf near the chives, mint and Thai basil. Not quite the same as betel leaves but easier to find here, I immediately had visions of a home version of the smoky cigars - beef rolled in shiso leaves - an easy dinner over a pile of rice noodles or an unexpected appetizer for a weekend barbecue with friends.

That day of eating in memoriam, we ducked out of a rainstorm and into a café, quiet in the mid-afternoon except for the din of motorbikes from the road outside. A woman fanned the charcoal in a small grill near the front of the restaurant. We ordered one portion of bò lá lốt and two cold beers, toasting, remembering and making new memories, so easily conjured now with a leaf, some meat and a grill. I have to think, Woody would approve.

Recipe

Beef in Shiso Leaf (Bò Lá Lốt)

I’m going to consider this more of an homage to bò lá lốt as it is nearly impossible to find betel leaves (lá lốt) outside of Southeast Asia. It is easier to find shiso leaf - most Asian markets stock it in packs near the herbs. It has a taste somewhere between mint and basil. With that in mind, if you really can’t find betel or shiso, you can try large basil leaves, though you will have to use a smaller quantity of meat for each leaf.

I owe a debt in much of my Vietnamese cooking to Charles Phan of the Slanted Door who showed many Americans who visited his restaurant in San Francisco’s Ferry Building what it could look like to have elevated Vietnamese cooking with great wine pairings. His book Vietnamese Home Cooking is one of the most grease splattered and page thumbed on my shelf. The nước chấm is a staple, along with his caramel sauce and pretty much any other recipe in that book. But since he doesn’t have a recipe for bò lá lốt, I had to make my own. The nước chấm below is adapted from his book.

• 16 large shiso leaves

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• ¼ cup minced shallot

• 3 T. fish sauce

• 2 tsp. sugar

• ½ tsp. ground black pepper

• 1 lb. lean ground beef (or bison, elk, or any meat substitute like Impossible)

• Wooden skewers, soaked in water for several hours

• Vegetable oil

• Chopped peanuts, for garnish

Nước chấm

• ¼ cup fish sauce

• 2 T. sugar

• Juice of 1 lime

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• 1 Thai chili, minced

Rinse shiso leaves and pat dry laying them out in a single layer on paper towels. Meanwhile, mix garlic, shallot, fish sauce, sugar, pepper and beef in a medium bowl. Heat a bit of oil in a sauté pan and fry a teaspoon of meat to test the flavor. Add more sugar or fish sauce to balance flavors if necessary.

Work with one leaf at a time, placing the pointed end away from you, and the shiny side of the leaf on the bottom so that it will be on the outside once rolled. Place 1 – 2 T. of meat on each leaf spreading it out to form a narrow log that stretches from one end of the widest part of the leaf to the other. Roll the leaf up over the meat to form a tight cigar. Place with the tip of the leaf down to keep it from unrolling then repeat with remaining leaves until all the meat has been used.

Thread 3 – 4 rolls onto each skewer (you can use the double skewer method as in the photo for more stability when grilling if you prefer).

Heat the grill to high. While the grill is heating make the nước chấm mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside.

When the grill is hot, brush the beef skewers on each side with vegetable oil. Oil the grill grate. Grill skewers for about 3 minutes per side, using tongs to flip half way through.

Serve warm, sprinkled with peanuts and a side of nước chấm for dipping.

To Drink…

The Field Blend, GSM, Drew Winery, Mendocino Ridge 2020

I’m trying to recommend wines in this newsletter that are easy to find for most people in the United States and fairly easy to find in major wine markets abroad. I’m going to make a bit of an exception here for good reason: Drew is very good and a very good value. If you are a fan of cool climate Pinots (think Sonoma Coast) then Mendocino Ridge in Mendocino is home to some of the best price performers in California. Drew Winery, owned by husband and wife team Jason and Molly Drew is an 8 acre certified organic estate on the site of a former apple orchard, producing excellent Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah and a Syrah field blend.

I always love a Syrah with barbecue, particularly red meat. This grape often gives off its own meaty notes that can stand up to barbecue. New World Syrah in particular offers spicy notes that pair with a wide range of rubs and spice blends. The seasoning on the Beef in Shiso Leaf is a salty-sweet-herby combo that I thought could use a bit more fruit to balance out the spicy, brambly Syrah. I was happy to find a perfect complement in my cellar with the Drew Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre Field Blend.

So how do you get some of this for yourself? I found one wine shop still stocking this vintage. I’ve also sometimes come across their offerings on Wine.com or even in small wine shops like this one in Eagle, Idaho. Otherwise get on Drew’s mailing list so you can be the first to know when their new release is out, then you will be sure to get some before it is gone. For a lot of small production, independent producers in the United States, being on the mailing list (not the same as being locked into a wine club) is the best way to know when new wines are available.

From $43 at Stanley’s