The Urban Forager. Elisa Callow
to cook vegetables without stress. Cut thick slices of root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, beets, onions, or potatoes), mix with a coating of olive oil and salt, and spread over a parchment-lined half-sheet pan. Bake until done—a bit caramelized and browned—for 35 to 45 minutes in a hot oven (about 400°). Another great way to cook vegetables without fussing is to cut carrots, turnips, onions, and potatoes into quarters and place under a chicken for roasting. They act as a rack for the chicken, which flavors the meat. I love symbiosis.
AND LAST, BUT NOT LEAST, USE YOUR SENSES AS WELL AS TIME TO KNOW WHEN FOOD IS “DONE”
Ovens vary in temperature; the freshness of vegetables can change cooking times; a hot day can mean a faster rise for bread. Trust your eyes, nose, and touch when cooking—not just the timer.
“If the plate is a canvas, ingredients are like paints to me. I seek, I mix, I match, I make companions of enemies. Delivering a thought- and soul-provoking canvas is always my goal. I make complicated things look easy and easy things interesting.” Minh Phan, with a basket of inspiring ingredients gathered from a favorite community garden in Pasadena.
PROFILE: MINH PHAN
Minh is a committed outlier, someone who has straddled cultures, communities, geographies, and a carefully balanced space between business expertise and idealism. She came to this country as a one-year-old, leaving South Vietnam with her father, a member of the South Vietnamese navy, and her mother, then twenty-four. Her father’s prescience about the South’s changing political fortunes ensured that the Phan family was safe and settled in Wisconsin immediately after the fall of Saigon. The leave-taking was dramatic, with little time to pack or say good-bye.
Wisconsin’s food culture of brats and beer may be the diametric opposite of Vietnamese food, known for its complexity, refinement, and intense flavors. Both parents worked, and the various bits and pieces foraged from the refrigerator gave their preteen latchkey daughter even more license to experiment with unlikely food pairings—an experience that served Minh well as a chef in later years.
Minh describes her mother, Lanh, as a phenomenal cook, managing a full menu of exquisite food every night even after a full day at work. For Vietnamese families, this means five elements: rice, soup, stir-fry, braised protein, and a vegetable that is boiled, pickled, or raw. A favorite food included the simplest—a porridge after Thanksgiving, inspired by the richness of a broth from the turkey carcass or ham bone.
After a career in marketing, Minh attended the California School of Culinary Arts and the New School of Cooking in Southern California. She trained in some of New York’s finest restaurants, admiring the exacting requirements of technique but despairing over the waste of so much good food. Despite nearly twenty years in her profession, she remains an intentional learner. Her nomadic forays into pop-up kitchens through a network of colleagues’ restaurants have contributed to the ongoing innovation of her cooking.
A return to Vietnam revealed the diversity of its food culture, based in part on geographic location. The north is more austere; its ingredients are of high quality but limited in quantity and variety due to climate. Central Vietnam was home to the last imperial family, with its food reflecting the elegant small bites of ancient Vietnamese royal cuisine. And South Vietnam has a more gregarious food scene, with layers of flavors and a greater variety of ingredients, as its growing season is much longer than that of other parts of the country.
At porridge + puffs, her restaurant in Historic Filipinotown, Minh has turned her prodigious energy and inventiveness toward two of the world cuisine’s simplest and most universal food types: porridges and fried bread, or puffs. Each element of a porridge—the broth, the rice, the aromatics, the proteins, and the vegetables—gives her license to draw upon her wide-ranging food heritage and experience. It is a freeing form of experimentation, whose structure is based on technique, an unusually sensitive palate, and interchangeable, carefully crafted pantry ingredients. Her refrigerator-foraging instincts as a young child now find expression in urban gardens, where the produce acts as inspiration. Have you ever tasted the yellow flower buds of fennel? Trust me, they are as Minh describes: “heavenly candy.”
MINH PHAN’S FOOD INFLUENCES
| Braised tofu with picklesA childhood favorite prepared by her mother, Lahn, Minh’s first cooking inspiration. | |
| Tuna and riceA typical lunch food pairing that embarrassed young Minh in Wisconsin, far from her Vietnamese roots. | |
| Koda Farms RiceHigh-quality, heirloom rice; a key ingredient in Minh’s porridge dishes. | |
| Geranium Pickled Baby OnionsAn example of Minh’s sensitive and adventurous palate (see page 51). | |
| AmaranthA weed transformed into glorious food—amaranth or citrus tempura. | |
| Lemongrass, shallots, and gingerMinh’s Asian mirepoix, an essential flavoring. | |
| Proof Bakery in AtwaterProof, owned by friend and collaborator Na Young Ma; site of a Minh pop-up kitchen. | |
| Farmer MaiDescribed by Minh as truly inspirational and “the future of farming”; grows heirloom, ethnic crops using sustainable and drought-tolerant methods. | |
| Nasturtium + fennel + cherries + tangerinesOne of Minh’s sources for quality food foraging is the Hollywood Farmers’ Market, home of her late, great café, Field Trip. | |
| Edible flowersMore creative food ingredients and flavors. Mustard flowers are a favorite—spicy and beautiful. | |
| StockA carefully prepared stock is the foundation of a delicious porridge. | |
| PorridgeA signature dish, which Minh has redefined as fine cuisine. | |
| PuffsLight, crispy, airy pastry, another of Minh’s signature dishes. |
The Basics