Banh Xeo, A Crispy Vietnamese Crepe Recipe

Banh Xeo, A Crispy Vietnamese Crepe Recipe

One of our favorite recipes, is the super savory and crispy Vietnamese Banh Xeo. A popular street food snack in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh, the yellow tinted crepe has gained popularity throughout many Southeast Asian countries because it can be a cost effective way to feed a big family. This makes it a great recipe for use to teach, as we reach out to families in need in Bangkok.

The Courageous Kitchen is a place where aspirational young people like Alina learn to thrive and contribute to recipes we share with you online, and in our cooking classes.

“I grew up in Vietnam, but we lived in a remote village in the countryside. I never had a chance to have banh xeo until learning to cook with Christy. I can’t wait to try making it for my family.” – Alina, CK Trainee

Just like Alina, there are lots of people who may not have had the joy of enjoying these deliciously crispy crepes. They are more fragile and more deeply savory when compared to western crepes. To master the perfect crunch, you need to steam a thin layer of batter until golden brown and it naturally releases from your pan.

However, the real fun part begins when you see what’s inside. Typically bahn xeo can be stuffed with a choice of chicken, shrimp, ground pork, and bean sprouts. But there’s not reason they can’t be vegan, gluten free, or cooked with whatever ingredients you have in the fridge.

Master making these Vietnamese crepes, and then get creative with what you use for the filling them.

Enjoy Christy and Alina’s rendition of the renowned sizzling crepe below. Remember you can request this dish in our charitable cooking classes, and the proceeds from your cooking class and donations will help us to teach and train more young people to be leaders in the kitchen, and their community like Alina.

Banh Xeo Recipe

Recipe by Christy Innouvong & Alina Xiong

Yields: 10-12 crepes

Batter Ingredients

  • 2 cups soda water
  • 1 bunch of green onion, chopped into centimeter pieces (aka scallion, roughly about 200g)
  • 125 ml of coconut milk (a tap more than half a cup)
  • 140 grams rice flour
  • 1-2 tsp of turmeric powder
  • 1 tsp salt

Filling Ingredients

  • 200g shredded chicken breast or protein of your choice
    • Tip: Some versions call for you to stir fry your protein with a tbsp of garlic and onion. This is optional.
    • Just be sure you cook your filler protein in advance, so you don’t need to overcook your crepe while waiting on the meat to finish cooking.
  • 1 carrot, shredded thinly
  • 300g bean sprouts

Veggies for Wrapping (optional)

You’ll want to wash all your leafy greens well because you will eat them raw. Be sure to leave some extra time for removing them from the stem if needed.

  • 1 bunch of Vietnamese mustard greens
    • Tip: This can be hard to find. Substitute Vietnamese coriander, perilla leaf, or heart leaf if possible.
  • 1 bunch of mint
  • 1 bunch of cilantro
  • 1 head of romaine or similarly leafy lettuce for wrapping  
This simple Vietnamese dipping sauce (nuoc cham) can add some flavor intensity to your crepes and other crispy snacks.

Vietnamese Dipping sauce

Nuoc cham (pronounced NEW-uk jham) aka Vietnamese dipping sauce is traditionally poured over each crepe, or alternatively used for dipping bites of your banh xeo or fried egg rolls.

Here’s a simple recipe for nuoc cham:

  • 1/2 cup of soda water
  • 1/3 cup of fish sauce
  • 1/4 cup of vinegar
  • 3 tbsp of white sugar
  • 2 tbsp of lime juice
  • 2 cloves of garlic chopped
  • 2 spicy red chili chopped
For this Vietnamese recipe it’s helpful to have a nonstick skillet brushed with oil, and a soft spatula you can use to maneuver the crepe once cooked.

Instructions

Prepare Your Batter

Combine all batter ingredients except scallions in a large mixing bowl for at least 30 minutes before cooking. You can leave refrigerated up to one night before cooking. Add scallions only right before making the crêpes.

Prepare Your Filling

Cook your protein and slice or shred small, so it can easily be eaten when biting into the crepe.

Wash bean sprouts and leafy greens. Keep your leafy greens large and intact, they will be used to wrap bites of your stuffed crepes.

Scallions add color and are a great contrast in color with the turmeric tinted crepe batter.

Making the Banh Xeo Crepe (Each takes approx. 5-7 mins)

In a skillet, heat to medium and then turn the heat to low. This is important because if the skillet is too hot, it will burn your crepe before it is fully cooked. Brush some cooking oil (a teaspoon will do) on your skillet and add your batter (approximate ½ a cup). You can pick up the pan and tilt so that the batter covers the entire skillet.

Tip: If you add too much batter, simply pour the excess back into your batter bowl.

Add a little bit more batter if it wasn’t enough to cover the pan, but to achieve a thin, crisp omelette the less batter the better. Add your filling ingredients and cover for 4-5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, the bean sprouts should appear slightly cooked and the batter should also be transparent and crispy around the edges. You can brush a touch of oil around the edges to help lift your crepe.

Remove the lid and fold in half (omelette style), transfer to a plate and serve immediately with greens and dipping sauce on the side.

Be patient and be sure your crepes are crispy and lightly browned before serving.

How to Eat Banh Xeo

Roughly tear your fresh herbs and place on top or inside of crepe. Generally people will chop the crepe in several pieces and eat inside of the large leaves as a wrap. Decide whether you prefer the leaf wrap version, or just want to eat it like a taco. Whatever you choose, be sure to drizzle your nuoc cham sauce over the entire banh xeo crepe. Enjoy!

The Best Pad Thai Recipe for Kids

The Best Pad Thai Recipe for Kids

Hey parents! Welcome to the Courageous Kitchen, we’ve got a fun recipe to share with you today. If you haven’t been on our site before, we’re a charity helping marginalized youth in Bangkok, and funded by guests taking our cooking classes and tours. Today we’re taking Thailand’s iconic pad thai recipe from our classes, keeping the dish’s Thainess intact, while making it fun for kids (and easy for parents).

When you book our cooking class, it funds fun, educational learning and food supplies for those in need.

One of the classes we offer is a cooking class for kids and families, and pad thai is often a favorite of our visitors. However if we want everyone to enjoy their own plate of pad thai, we’ll usually have the parents making a traditional pad thai recipe, but do a simplified version for the kids using instant noodles. So today’s recipe has been battle tested both with the refugee kids we serve as a charity, and with many of you who stop by during your travels in Bangkok to support us.

Why is Cooking Pad Thai so Difficult?

We make a lot of pad thai with our guests, so you can be sure we’ve tested and retested this recipe!

For those unfamiliar, pad thai is the iconic Thai dish most famous as the ambassador of Thai food to countries in the west. For example in the US, newcomers to the cuisine often make this steamy hot plate of noodles their first stop. The sticky noodles are delicious when hot, eye pleasing, especially when decorated with shrimp, and unlike some Thai dishes, not going to burn you with spice.

Pad Thai recently made our list of Thailand’s best noodle dishes, but we must admit recreating a delicious version at home is a challenge. This is largely because of ingredients that are hard to find, or misunderstood. When you search the internet you also have a barrage of recipes, many of which look and taste nothing like the delicious plates you may have tried in Thailand.

pad thai cooking class bangkok
For newcomers to Thai food, pad thai can be a friendly landing spot, because the dish combines well with seafood, and isn’t too spicy.

Today we want to offer you an easy pad thai recipe, that’s appropriate for kids and really tasty. To make it we’ve omitted much of the long list of ingredients, including components like the toasted peanut garnish, which many children may have an allergy to anyway.

Your focus, instead of giant shopping list of exotic ingredients, is instead on making a delicious sauce. If you can master the sauce below, that’s half the victory already claimed! Later we’ll stir fry it with instant noodles, but if you keep some of your soon-to-be-famous pad thai sauce stocked, it can be an easy dish to whip up in a pinch.

Kid’s Pad Thai Sauce Recipe

Enjoy this easy pad thai recipe, suitable for kids and adults alike. We recommend cooking it as a family!

Ingredients

This sauce recipe is enough for 4-5 portions of noodles. If you’re happy with the first round, make it in a larger batch and keep refrigerated for whenever pad thai cravings may strike.

  • 1 cup tomato ketchup
    • Tip: Unlike sour tamarind juice, this is likely already available in your fridge!
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
    • Tip: If you’re using another type of sugar such as palm, agave, or natural sugar, simply add to taste.
  • 1/4 cup fish sauce
    • Tip: Go meatless and substitute in high quality salt or soy sauce to taste.
  • 1/3 cup vinegar
  • 1 tsp paprika

Instructions

  1. Grab a non-stick pan and put it on low heat.
  2. Add all of your ingredients, mix, and reduce on low for 30 minutes.
  3. Remember to stir as it reduces, and when ready, it should be thick enough to easily coat any type of noodles you use.
  4. Allow to cool and store in the fridge. If refrigerated, this easy pad thai sauce should last a few weeks.

Tip: Use the sauce for other things! If you’re happy with the sauce and the kids like it, use it for whatever suits you. Dip chicken nuggets, use to flavor your kid’s fried rice, or instead of plain ketchup on french fries.

Kid’s Pad Thai Recipe

This kid’s pad thai recipe was built for a tested with kids. Typical pad thai can be heavy on seafood, peanuts, and other ingredients children may have allergies to eating.

Ingredients

  • 1 pack of instant noodles
    • Tip: The size of the noodle packs may vary by brand, but typically they are 60-80g per pack. That’s filling portion for kids 9 and up, so adjust as necessary.
  • 100g chicken
  • 50g tofu, chopped into small squares
  • 1 egg
  • 1 handful of blanched Chinese kale, broccoli, or the veg of your choice
  • Small handful of bean sprouts
  • 2 tbsp of pad thai sauce
  • 1 tbsp of oil for stir frying
  • 1 lime
    • Tip: Our kids don’t like lime. Do yours? If so, make this an optional garnish, along with a few more bean sprouts on your child’s plate!
Using instant noodles instead of rice noodles isn’t a mistake! The instant noodles cook fast, are less sticky, and are easier for children to gather on their forks. Remember to cut or chop them even smaller for young kids.

Instructions

  1. Blanch any vegetables you want to add by dipping into boiling water for a few minutes (for Chinese kale this usually takes about one minute in boiling water).
  2. Remove from the boiling water and add to ice water to stop the vegetables from cooking, and preserve the fresh color.
  3. Use the same boiling water now to quickly boil your noodles. Most instant noodles will only take 1-2 minutes to become soft. Set aside.
  4. Add oil to your wok or non stick pan. Follow with your chicken and cook until the color changes.
  5. Add your vegetables to your cooked chicken, along with tofu. Stir quickly to heat the vegetables up.
  6. Now add your cooked instant noodles and mix well.
  7. Add bean sprouts and your pad thai sauce.
  8. Mix everything and push to the side of the pan, away from the heat. In the hot portion of the pan crack and scramble your egg, stirring vigorously until cooked.
  9. Once the egg is cooked, mix with all of the other ingredients and turn off the heat.
The same way we simplified the recipe for kids, you can easily upgrade with a squeeze of lime, sauteed shrimp, chili flakes, or another protein of your choice.

Now that you’ve mastered the sauce, you’re ready to get to the stir frying. Once your ingredients are prepared, this should go rather quickly. Follow the instructions below, and remember not to feel as though you can’t improvise the recipe to slip in more veggies, or even to omit meat in the dish entirely.

Thanks for trying out the Courageous Kitchen recipe for kid’s pad thai. We hope you have an opportunity to cook it together as a family, and enjoy a taste of Thailand wherever you are around the world. Please take a moment to get to know us better, by following our food and charitable adventures on facebook and instagram. As always, happy cooking!

Bangkok’s First Plastic Free Cooking Class!

Bangkok’s First Plastic Free Cooking Class!

We’re proud to announce our Bangkok cooking classes have banned the use of single use plastic. Thailand is among the worst plastic polluters in the world, and we hope being the first cooking class to go plastic free will challenge other businesses and people to do the same.

The signs of global climate change can be felt in Bangkok. The temperatures are rising, the city is sinking, and flooding becomes worse every year. The climate crisis is just the backdrop to a culture wide preference for cheap plastics used for on the go food, especially street food, of which Bangkok is known world wide. In fact, we’re still recovering from our cooking class space being flooded last month. This is a problem that can feel overwhelming, so the key is making small changes that can empower us to rethink our impact, and inspire others at the same time.

Herbal butterfly pea teas served in our Bangkok cooking class with sustainable straws.

It started with straws…

We have been weening off of single use plastic for the past year. If you’ve attended our class then you know, we’ve never served plastic straws since our cooking classes started in 2017. Instead guests drink their cooling herbal teas through morning glory (a water spinach that has mostly hollow stems) straws that we provide. They’re not only a better alternative than plastic straws, but have a better mouthfeel than the metal ones, and can be stir fried or thrown in a soup in a pinch. The edible straws have gotten good feedback from our guests as well, and we’ve been building off of this enthusiasm in our war on plastic. We’ve even been bringing our green straws to teach about sustainability in Bangkok’s international schools.

When you learn to make pomelo salad, you plate your creation in the pomelo itself!
Don’t throw that watermelon out too quickly!

From straws we moved to bowls, probably the most important plate-ware in a Thai household. Here we use a variety of solutions from plain ol’ regular bowls to biodegradable palm wood bowls, and as often as possible plating your food in a natural bowl. This means that pineapple fried rice is served in, well, a pineapple. Your pomelo salad? Dished up in the beautiful carved pomelo bowl. From everything we’ve observed, Thai culture already has the local knowledge to use less plastic. Part of our job is recognizing this wisdom, and turning back the clock to bring some of these trends, such as cooking and packaging food in banana leaves, to our classes and outreach.

thai cooking class bkk-2
Using biodegradable plating, like this areca palm plate, is one the more expensive alternatives we have explored for our cooking classes.

There are challenges to going green…

One misconception is about what we mean by refusing to use single use plastic products. We don’t want anyone to think you’ll come to our class and won’t see any plastic present. We do still use reusable plastic containers and plates, as many of the alternatives are considerably more expensive. This is something we want to be transparent about, because ‘plastic free’ seems to mean different things to different people. We’re anti single use plastic and strive not to even accept plastic or styrofoam from vendors in the local market. This means even on our street food tour in Bangkok, you’ll catch our staff bringing our own containers and silverware for you to use to eat!

pad thai cooking class bangkok
Pad thai in our cooking class Bangkok, beautifully wrapped in a banana blossom petal, a common pad thai condiment in Thailand.

Also, for many restaurants and food providers like us, there are real food safety concerns when switching from plastic. For example, how do you naturally clean your morning glory straws before giving them to people? These are real challenges we have to spend energy on remedying, and training our staff as we abandon plastic. The hardest thing to give up? Plastic wrap and plastic gloves! We don’t want not using them to increase the chances someone will become sick from what we’re serving. This means being thoughtful about preparing for each class, and making sure our entire team is cognizant about food safety concerns that come along with these changes.

Our mission to be more environmentally friendly isn’t over. We’re learning, growing more of our own food, and doing our best to share what we learn as well. Let’s all strive to do better together!

Make Your Own Thai Rice Noodles for Pad See Ew!

Make Your Own Thai Rice Noodles for Pad See Ew!

Thai noodle lovers rejoice! We’ve got a brand new cooking class in Bangkok we’re hoping you’ll love.

Are you ready to deepen your knowledge of how to cook Thai food at home?

Are you looking forward to move beyond pad thai, to other delicious noodle dishes?

How about needing a delicious, but vegetarian, vegan, or gluten free Asian dish to wow your friends?

Learn to make your own Thai noodles in our latest Bangkok cooking class.

We’re excited to announce our brand new class to teach you how to make your own Thai rice noodles. This isn’t your average cooking class in Bangkok, where a tour company squeezes as many tourists into the kitchen as possible. Instead we’re aiming to deepen your knowledge of Thai food, and boost your kitchen confidence, by focusing in on one of Thailand’s most beloved ingredients, rice noodles!

You’ll learn to master mixing a rice flour batter for your noodles, and steaming the batter to create the noodles with us. Once your noodles are looking good, we’ll let them cool before cutting them to your preference. We prefer wide noodles that aren’t overly thick, making them perfect for stir frying into a steamy plate of pad see ew.

Our kitchen manager Alina helps Danielle with her noodles. Read more about Alina here.
Guests have their phones ready to share their Thai noodle making experience.

To help you replicate the delicious Thai rice noodles at home, we’ll share our tips for making them with as little hassle and mess afterwards. This includes making a versatile stir fry sauce that you can use with any noodle you make. This is a must do course for Thai food fans who love wok fried noodle dishes like pad see ew!

If you’re not already familiar with pad see ew, this Thai Chinese dish combines wide ‘sen yai’ noodles with soft scrambled egg and Chinese kale. You can find the full recipe for this dish in our mini cookbook (you can download it for free or give a small donation), and when you take our class, our team we will walk you through exactly how to make them. After returning home from your adventures in Thailand, we’re confident you’ll be able to put on a tasting the whole family will enjoy.

Pad see ew noodles are a popular Thai dish but, few have tried it with hand cut noodles!

Unlike egg noodles, Thai rice noodles are gluten free and vegan. This makes it easy to customize your noodle dishes for anyone with special dietary preferences. The mild tasting, slippery texture, also makes these homemade noodles the perfect backdrop for your favorite Thai flavors. You can even mention to our team that you love spice, and we’ll help you make the spicier pad kee mow (drunken noodles), as long as you’re sure you can handle the heat. The versatility of these rice noodles is unmatched!

Alina serves up a plate of spicy drunken noodles, or in Thai, pad kee mow!

We’re pumped to welcome you to Courageous Kitchen for our new noodle class. As with all of our food experiences, proceeds from your participation will help our efforts to reach and teach marginalized youth in Bangkok. So we’re looking forward to sharing a plate of noodles and making a difference with you soon!

Miss Teen Puerto Rico Visits Our Cooking Class in Bangkok!

Miss Teen Puerto Rico Visits Our Cooking Class in Bangkok!

Last December, we had a special guest in the kitchen who has not only made a tremendous impact on our young women, but on many of her peers across the globe. Sixteen year old Lara Cortes, who was traveling Southeast Asia for the first time with her parents, stopped by for a market tour and Thai cooking class!

Holding the 2018 title of Miss Teen Puerto Rico, Lara is an accomplished athlete, artist, and musician. She loves swimming, and is often found snorkeling in her beach hometown of Isabela, PR. Here we ask her what her favorite part of hanging in the Courageous Kitchen was and how she enjoys giving back to her community in Isabela.

CK: Did you have any expectations of Bangkok before your arrival?

LC: Not really, once I found out I was going to Thailand I was just ecstatic to travel and broaden my horizons. I wanted to fill my mind with experiences and stories to learn and tell to others.

CK: How did it live up to that?

LC: Thailand surpassed my expectations, everything was just amazing and so filled with culture, beautiful sights to see and especially amazing, friendly people.

CK: Can you tell us a little bit about your experience with Courageous Kitchen?

LC: It was an amazing experience meeting the girls who run the class. I believe they are capable of amazing things if they keep working as hard as they do.

Lara learned to make mango and sticky rice in our cooking class in Bangkok.

I also enjoyed going to the market and learning about the vegetables and fruit we were going to cook with in the class. My favorite dishes to make were Tom Yum and Mango Sticky Rice.

CK: What was your favorite memory from your trip?

LC: My favorite memory of the trip would be when we went to Chiang Mai and spent the whole day at the elephant sanctuary, feeding them, walking with them and of course bathing them.

Lara at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai

CK: Any advice for first time young travelers to Bangkok? 

LC: The best advice I can give any young traveler like myself is do your research and have fun! Things will inevitably go wrong, but if you’ve done your research, it’s easier to keep your cool and focus on getting past big obstacles young travelers face like homesickness, fatigue, and culture shock.

CK: What’s the best part of holding the ‘Miss Teen Puerto Rico’ title?

LC: The best part of holding the title is being able to use it to inspire others while giving a helping hand to those in need. I give back to my community by visiting children with down syndrome and I encourage other teens like myself to give back by helping the less fortunate. 

The best part of holding the title is being able to use it to inspire others while giving a helping hand to those in need…

We want to thank Lara and her parents for taking our cooking class and volunteering with our young women. We appreciate Lara’s courageous spirit, and are confident that if she continues to be so passionate about giving back, great things await in her future!

Follow Lara’s journey on her Facebook Page.