Rising up, I spent many childhood summers with Ah Ma, my paternal grandmother, in Montreal. I used to be all the time a bit too chatty as a child, so she taught me origami and find out how to cook dinner to occupy my consideration (and provides her some peace and quiet).
I cherished consuming every part she made, from her pâté chaud (or Vietnamese pastry pie) and mooncakes to her mushroom hen and summer time rolls. Generally, nevertheless, I simply didn’t have an urge for food for all of the Vietnamese meals the adults loved. I particularly didn’t prefer to eat white rice, which was a relentless at each dinner. Wanting again now, it is the one factor I miss most—her rice was one of the best.
How My Grandmother Made Superb White Rice
To whet my palate, Ah Ma would add a butter dice (a few tablespoon) to a freshly cooked rice bowl, treating the rice like a baked potato. The butter would soften into somewhat golden puddle above the rice. I might stir the melted butter into the rice and eat down the bowl to the final buttery grain. Ah Ma used unsalted butter, however should you do this, be at liberty to make use of salted butter to present the rice a pop of salinity.
If you slowly savor rice, the grains reveal a delicate sweetness that the butter enhances. The fats and creaminess of the butter additionally add an expensive and comforting layer to rice, which is usually a vessel for sauces and gravies or a facet dish (and thought) to mains. With the addition of some butter, steamed white rice turns into a star.
Whereas growing and curating recipes for my second cookbook, Trendy Asian Kitchen, I found that different Vietnamese grandmothers add butter to rice. It’s probably a French-inspired hack from when the French occupied Vietnam and launched butter and different dairy merchandise into Vietnamese cooking. Generally, you’d additionally discover fish sauce or soy sauce blended into the butter, then added to the rice for extra taste. My good friend, Tres Truong, graciously shared her Vietnamese grandmother’s (or Ma Ma’s) fish sauce butter recipe, which I included in my cookbook.
Merely Recipes / Adobe Inventory
Ma Ma’s Fish Sauce Butter
4 tablespoons unsalted butter2 tablespoons fish sauce, regulate to taste1 tablespoon granulated sugar3 garlic cloves, minced
Brown the butter, then combine in the remainder of the substances. Serve instantly over rice, mashed potatoes, or baked potatoes (and even toast!). Retailer leftover fish sauce butter in an air-tight container within the fridge for as much as one week.
Whereas testing this recipe, I remembered how Ah Ma would typically add drops of Maggi or Kikkoman soy sauce to my buttered rice. The rice was wealthy, buttery, umami-laden, and as a baby, I craved that rice greater than I craved quick meals.
Now, as I mourn her passing on November 9, 2024, my reminiscences and her meals hacks and recipes are my eternal connection to her. She’d all the time inform me to complete each grain of rice, reciting the well-known Chinese language poem in Cantonese, “Tilling the earth within the noon solar, sweat drips down and seeds the soil. Who knew that every grain of rice in your plate comes from a farmer’s toil?”悯农李绅
锄禾日当午，汗滴禾下土。谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆幸苦。
When she added butter to my rice and a contact of Maggi, I savored every grain, by no means leaving a single one behind. Right now, I cross this custom on to my son, guaranteeing Ah Ma’s love and knowledge reside on by each chunk and grain of rice.
