Yep, MORE BANH MI. I am nuts about banh mi, in case you couldn’t already tell. The above was my first attempt; I went to Paris Sandwich (because I love their Paris Special banh mi best; I totally play favorites!) and picked up cha lua (pork roll), pate, Vietnamese mayo, and pickled carrots/daikon… along with one of their baguettes. Crisp, chewy, just amazing, I daresay this is the bread of my dreams. So I spread a little pate on one side, a little Vietnamese mayo on the other, topped with with the respective toppings and went to town. It was delicious as is – I could spread as much pate as I wanted! – but I realized I was missing two key ingredients!
Cilantro and cucumber! Ok, probably also a dab of Sriracha and some jalapenos, but I can live without those, so I did. (Well, I did put a little Sriracha on my banh mi once, but I didn’t take photos. Oops!)
My sandwich in all its glory!
I don’t know if there’s a reason it’s always a long stick of cucumber, but this makes it a little harder to eat as it tries valiantly to squish out (I don’t know why this doesn’t happen when I buy banh mi; maybe I’m doing it wrong or slicing the cucumber too thick?).
Get in muh belly!!! Okay, this wasn’t a recipe at all, since if you don’t live in NYC or an area populated with a fair number of Asian/Vietnamese people, this may be impossible for you to just pick up the appropriate ingredients. HOWEVER… I was recently alerted to a blog that created many of the components from scratch, and posted about the process for each one! You have to go see… if only to drool at the wonderful photos and the amazing step-by-step tutorial… but maybe you will also try to make this from scratch!!! I am eyeing that pate topped with bacon 😉 Gorgeous!
Happy eating!!!
Aimee S. says
Looks freaking awesome!
Monique says
i am OBSESSED with Banh Mi.
Would you make me one? or tell me where i can find all these lovely ingredients???
Feisty Foodie says
Hey Monique! As mentioned in the post, I bought all of the ingredients from Paris Sandwich (on Mott St.). You can get most of these ingredients also from Banh Mi Saigon on Mott as well, except the bread – I like Paris’s bread the best anyway. Hope that helps!
Robin says
Maybe they salt the cucumber first, like you do for certain cucumber salads? You salt the cucumber and let it sit for a bit, then rinse off the salt and dry. The bahn mi by my office isn’t very good, but they do julienne the cukes as they do the carrots, which is a nice touch, I think.
Hungry says
I like to pickle my vegetables a little with rice wine vinegar. The vegetables soften a little but still retain a crunch. Plus, using rice wine vinegar doesn’t make it super sour. Add mirin to make it even more sweet if you like that.
Gastro888 says
Looks yummy! You gotta try it next time with some Maggi sauce. That’s the secret ingredient for a great banh mi.
Kelly says
Looks amazing! I love the idea of being able to control how much pate is on my sandwich. And being able to add some extra veggies!
ravenouscouple says
thanks for the link and great looking banh mi! it’s really great to make your own banh mi, and not too terribly hard, just putting the a few components together 🙂