Homemade Banh Mi

I can't get the smell of banh mi out of my mind sometimes. And at the back of my mind, there is always this challenge to try making it on my own. Well last weekend, all the stars were align: 1) The same picnic library book that I mentioned in my previous post have a recipe on banh mi, 2) I was at a Christmas Factory food sale, and they were selling baguettes for SGD1.50, 3) I have lots of pate at home from my recent trip to Vietnam, 4) I suddenly feel like I could picked some vegetable! So let's do it!

Above are all the ingredient I used. The recipe calls for caramelised pork, I took a short cut and bought some roast pork from the market instead. It was also my first time buying cilantros. OMG, I don't even like those smelly vegetables! Age must be catching up on me cause they tasted great in the end product!

In case you are interested, the above is the recipe reference I use. I use it mainly to see how to make picked vegetable. In terms of assembling the banh mi, I have spend enough time in the queue in HCM to know how it was made. I knew I was gonna made it the HCM way no matter what the book says.

Look how pretty the picked vegetable look! I took some shortcut here as well but bypassing the turnip since this was my first try and I didn't want to make too much in case it turned out bad. I also peel the carrots and cucumber instead of slicing them cause - laziness. Added some chilli cause I recall how spicy the banh mi was in HCM. The whole picked thing took the most time, in terms of sitting in the fridge that is. A whole 3 hours. So I could only have a go at my banh mi as afternoon snack. 

And above is the end product. It tasted so wonderful! I now know that I don't ever have to crave HCM banh mi ever again cause I can always recreate it at home. The smell of the pate when I opened up the can brought back so much memories of the first time I had these. My version consist of: spreading mayo on one side of the bread, and a thick layer of pate on the other side. I skipped the butter cause I was on diet (lol). I also added tomato slices cause well, tomatoes are my fave vegetables. I think I also added raw onions cause well, I love raw onions. After that I top it with slices of roast pork, a generous helping of picked vegetable, and cilantros. And when you put everything together and took a bite of it, they just felt like they all belong together, and that they were all just meant to be! It was symphony in my mouth. I love it so much I'm gonna go make another one now for supper!