Vietnamese cuisine encompasses the foods and beverages originated from Vietnam. Meals feature a combination of five fundamental tastes : sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and spicy. The distinctive nature of each dish reflects one or more elements, which are also based around a five-pronged philosophy. Vietnamese recipes use ingredients like lemongrass, ginger, mint, Vietnamese mint, long coriander, Saigon cinnamon, bird's eye chili, lime, and Thai basil leaves. Traditional Vietnamese cooking has often been characterised as using fresh ingredients, not using much dairy or oil, having interesting textures, and making use of herbs and vegetables. The cuisine is also low in sugar and is almost always naturally gluten-free, as many of the dishes are rice-based instead of wheat-based, made with rice noodles, papers and flour.
Salami is a salume consisting of fermented and air-dried meat, typically pork. Historically, salami was popular among Southern, Eastern, and Central European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for up to 45 days once cut, supplementing a potentially meager or inconsistent supply of fresh meat. Countries and regions across Europe make their own traditional varieties of salami.
Glutinous rice is a type of rice grown mainly in Southeast East Asia, the northeastern regions of India and Bhutan which has opaque grains, very low amylose content, and is especially sticky when cooked. It is widely consumed across Asia.
Laab / Larb is a type of Lao meat salad that is the national dish of Laos, along with green papaya salad and sticky rice. Laab in the Lao language is a noun that refers to meat or other flesh that has been finely chopped and pounded. It is also considered a food of good luck in both Laos and Thailand because it has homonyms that mean 'lucky' in both languages, derived from लाभ in Sanskrit. Laab is of Lao origin, but is also eaten in other regions, most prominently the neighboring former Lan Xang territory, or modern day Laos and the northeastern and northern areas of Thailand, Isan and Lanna where the Lao have extended their influence. Other local variants of laab also feature in the cuisines of the Tai peoples of Shan State, Burma, and Yunnan Province, China.
Phở or Pho is a Vietnamese soup dish consisting of broth, rice noodles, herbs, and meat, sometimes chicken. Phở is a popular food in Vietnam where it is served in households, street-stalls, and restaurants country-wide. Residents of the city of Nam Định were the first to create Vietnamese traditional phở. It is considered Vietnam's national dish, and is said to be influenced by Cantonese and French cultures.
Assamese cuisine is the cuisine of the Indian state of Assam. It is a style of cooking that is a confluence of cooking habits of the hills that favour fermentation and drying as forms of preservation and those from the plains that provide extremely wide variety of fresh vegetables and greens, and an abundance of fish and meat. Both are centred on the main ingredient — rice. It is a mixture of different indigenous styles with considerable regional variations and some external influences. The traditional way of cooking and the cuisine of Assam is very similar to South-East Asian countries such as Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and others. The cuisine is characterized by very little use of spices, little cooking over fire, and strong flavours due mainly to the use of endemic exotic fruits and vegetables that are either fresh, dried or fermented. Fish is widely used, and birds like duck, pigeon, squab, etc. are very popular, which are often paired with a main vegetable or ingredient; beef used to be eaten before British colonialism, and some continue to do so. Preparations are rarely elaborate. The practice of bhuna, the gentle frying of spices before the addition of the main ingredients so common in Indian cooking, is absent in the cuisine of Assam. The preferred oil for cooking is the pungent mustard oil.
Gỏi cuốn, nem cuốn, salad roll, summer roll, fresh spring roll, or rice paper roll is a Vietnamese dish traditionally consisting of pork, prawn, vegetables, bún, and other ingredients wrapped in bánh tráng. Unlike other spring roll dishes, which are believed to originate from China, Vietnamese gỏi cuốn is a national creation using bánh tráng.
Bún bò Huế or bún bò is a Vietnamese rice noodle (bún) dish with sliced beef (bò), chả lụa, and sometimes pork knuckles. The dish originates from Huế, a city in central Vietnam associated with the cooking style of the former royal court. The dish has a mix of spicy, salty, and savory flavors. The predominant flavors is that of lemongrass and shrimp paste. Compared to phở or bún riêu, the noodles are thicker and cylindrical.
Bánh cuốn is a Vietnamese dish originating from Northern Vietnam.
Nem refers to various dishes in Vietnamese, depending on the locality.
Bánh hỏi is a Vietnamese dish consisting of rice vermicelli woven into intricate bundles and often topped with chopped scallions or garlic chives sauteed in oil, served with a complementary meat dish. The strings of noodles are usually only as thin as a toothpick; the texture is firm enough so the noodles do not fall apart but is not at all sticky to keep the dish light.
Chả giò, or nem rán, also known as fried egg roll, is a popular dish in Vietnamese cuisine and usually served as an appetizer in Europe, North America & Australia, where there are large communities of the Vietnamese diaspora. It is ground meat, usually pork, wrapped in rice paper and deep-fried.
Nem nướng is Vietnamese grilled pork sausage or grilled meatballs, and a popular Vietnamese food item, sometimes served as an individual appetizer or snack, or served with rice noodles or rice as a main course. Nem nướng is a specialty of Khánh Hòa Province . Nem nướng is a rustic dish, originating from Ninh Hoa, a northern district of Khanh Hoa province, about 30 km from the coastal city.
Naem is a pork sausage in Lao and Thai cuisine. It is a fermented food that has a sour flavor. It has a short shelf life, and is often eaten in raw form after the fermentation process has occurred. It is a popular Southeast Asian food, and different regions of Southeast Asia have various preferred flavors, including variations of sour and spicy. Naem is used as an ingredient in various dishes and is also served as a side dish.
Salads that are internationally known as Thai salads with a few exceptions fall into four main preparation methods. In Thai cuisine these are called yam, tam, lap and phla. A few other dishes can also be regarded as being a salad.
Bánh tét is a Vietnamese savoury but sometimes sweetened cake made primarily from glutinous rice, which is rolled in a banana leaf into a thick, log-like cylindrical shape, with a mung bean and pork filling, then boiled. After cooking, the banana leaf is removed, and the cake is sliced into wheel-shaped servings.
Sabahan cuisine is a regional cuisine of Malaysia. As in the rest of Malaysian cuisine, Sabah food is based on staples such as rice with a great variety of other ingredients and different methods of food preparations due to the influence of the state's varied geography and indigenous cultures that were quite distinct from the regional cuisines of the Peninsular Malaysia. Sabah along with its neighbour of Sarawak is famous for their multi-ethnic population.
