Ever since my aunt and I backpacked through Vietnam during my Gapyear, I loved Buhn Mi. What is Buhn Mi/Bun Mi? A traditional French inspired Vietnamese sandwich.
That's a right. This delicious sandwich is a crusty baguette filled with meat (depends on your preference), pickles, vegetables and sauce. The marriage between the traditional sandwich form and the Asian flavored fillings make this a unique and delightful meal.
As you can imagine, I was thrilled to try some of the recipes in the Buhn Mi handbook! We started with the basic bread. I'm usually a good baker, but there were multiple kitchen disasters (my fault, not the author's--that should teach me to stick to simple things after my night French class). However, dispute, under and over baking the bread and letting it rise for less than half the recommended time (again, I'd like to reiterate that I am usually quite a competent chef...) it was still surprisingly tasty. If I managed to mess up the bread that much and it still tasted good, it's got to be an absolutely amazing recipe. Time consuming, but great.
The basic chicken, marinated chicken, homemade mayo and pickled beets also worked well. Altogether, it was an amazingly delicious sandwich. We have a Bun Mi restaurant near campus (I love the diversity of food in Minneapolis) and this tasted like something you'd get from there, minus the problematic bread.
The only criticism I have of this book is the cooking times. READ the recipe, when I glanced over the recipes I decided to make, I went with the estimate at top. However, there were a couple surprises, like the extra 8 hour refrigeration necessary for the tofu.... Also, Andrea can be bit overly descriptive in her steps, so prepare for some wordy instructions. Overall, this was a great Book and I can't wait to try it again, perhaps with some other toppings.
My rating: worth it if you like Bun Mi, but be prepared to spend some time making it!
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review. However, all the opinions are entirely my own.
