bánh phở.

Well, we were about due for a new Vietnamese thrust around here anyway, but a couple days' worth of inexplicable queasiness (or possibly explicable via changing mirtazapine brands again) made the demand for comforting rice products unpostponeable.

Bánh phở are the non-round rice noodles that go in phở, and like most noodles they come in various thicknesses. Somehow we'd never tried the thicker end of the spectrum, and that unfortunate tryinglessness came to an happy end last night, and yes the thicker ones are better, or at least to this noodle-deprived mother, more satisfying.

Last night we et them (Scrabble artifact) up with a homemade peanut sauce very close to this one, but with grated ginger and sugar instead of bakgember, no fish sauce or coconut, and a dash of tamarind at the end. Soon the other half of the noodle package will be et up with a recipe that will then appear somewhere in this post, or maybe just something based on this.

Noodle cooking method: soak for 45 minutes in cool water then boil until there is a chewiness level that is tolerable, that took about 5 minutes for us. If you let them go beyond chewy they'll end up gummed together in clots or they'll start falling apart when you try to pick them up.

And, as has been our custom lately, we finish with a totally unrelated recipe from another cuisine entirely: this is something I should try as a healthy-ish GF dessert. Apples are on sale at the moment, and we have a lot of them. This is a Saveur recipe at the moment, but I'll fix that, just you watch.

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bratäpfel mit walnusseis.

¾ cup raisins
¾ cup walnut halves, chopped
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup dark rum
4 tsp. kosher salt
6 tart apples, such as Gala
1 cup dry white wine
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed
⅓ cup honey
1½ tbsp. ground cinnamon
whipped cream, for serving

Heat oven to 350°F (150°C on our oven). Combine raisins, walnuts, sugar, rum, and salt in a bowl; set aside. Core apples, and place right-side up in a 9" x 13" baking dish. Fill each apple with ¼ cup walnut mixture, add wine and butter to baking dish, and drizzle each apple with honey; cover tightly with foil, and bake until apples are tender, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with cinnamon and let cool slightly; serve in bowls with pan sauce and a dollop of whipped cream on the side.

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