Vietnamese mint/laksa leaf
I can't quite remember now how I came to have some Vietnamese mint in my garden. I probably saw it in Bunnings, thought it looked pretty and planted it. I think the plant I have in my garden is about my third attempt. It's my third attempt because I didn't water enough. It just loves water - indeed I once saw it in a nursery as a water plant and I gather it will grow in water and bogs. So water it if you have it in your garden. It doesn't flower but the leaves are very pretty. It's a sort of all or nothing plant because if it does thrive it spreads and will take over. It's easy to get out though - or you could do like me and just stop watering it and it will die!
It is like coriander - not in taste - in that you either love it or hate it I think. People say it is spicy, hot, peppery, though I'm not quite sure about this. Tangy perhaps. It really is a bit unique. To begin with I was not sure, but now I really like it. Mostly I just add it to stir fries - we had one yesterday which is why I am writing this - but really, in Vietnam it is mostly eaten raw in salads and spring rolls. Not that Vietnam is the only country where it is used a lot. Cambodia and Laos use it and Thailand does a bit too but in Malaysia and Singapore where laksa is a thing it is so essential to that dish that it is called laksa leaf.
Nowadays you can buy it in your local supermarket. You don't have to go to a special Asian supermarket. Or you can grow it. Bunnings always has some plants. And believe me, if I can grow it (as long as I water it) anyone can. However, when I looked at my early - 1976 - version of Charmaine Solomon's Asian Cookbook I saw that she really didn't mention it at all, and indeed her Vietnamese section is very small. She also mentioned that there was 'a' Vietnamese restaurant in Sydney. There must be hundreds by now. Obviously the Vietnam war had only just ended and Australia was only beginning to get used to the flood of Vietnamese refugees, and those refugees had not yet set up the myriad of restaurants, markets and shops selling Asian produce that exist now. Also of interest is the fact that the UK barely knows of its existence. Not much in the Guardian there - nothing from Ottolenghi and co though Felicity Cloake has a go at spring rolls, though I notice she calls them summer rolls - which I think says something about England's weather. I'm not sure that you would be able to get it in the supermarket there. France might be different of course, considering that France used to 'own' Vietnam and that the French influence is still apparent in Vietnam - particularly in the baguettes. And interestingly, here - at least in Coles - you can buy Vietnames bread rolls - which are like mini baguettes. Crispy rather than soft like frankfurter rolls.
Which brings me to Luke Nguyen who is Australia's Vietnamese guru - at least as far as cooking programs and celebrity chefs go. I only have one of his books - Luke Nguyen's France: a gastronomic adventure - I think it was one of Readings bargain books and I was intrigued. I always am by books about the mix of cultures. I also have another such book called From Provence to Pondicherry by Tessa Kiros which has a section on Vietnam. I'm not about to include any of her recipes because none of them really featured the Vietnamese mint which is the topic of this post, although it did appear in a few of her recipes, most of which are 'authentically' Vietnamese. Luke Nguyen on the other hand is more of a 'fusion' chef in this particular book - and elsewhere too. Here is a selection of his dishes that feature Vietnamese mint. They are (from left to right, top to bottom): Tiger prawns wrapped with pork belly and Vietnamese mint, Sesame salmon rice paper rolls, Cream of watercress and Vietnamese mint soup and Lamb cutlets with Asian salsa verde. There are videos of the spring rolls and the lamb cutlets to watch too. And the SBS website has several other recipes, although some of them may not necessarily feature Vietnamese mint.
Not every Vietnamese dish contains Vietnamese mint, but an awful lot of them do it seems. Particularly the national dish of Pho, in salads and the spring rolls, and it is also mostly used fresh rather than cooked.
But what I didn't know was that it is a basic ingredient of the Malaysian/Singaporean dish of laksa - so much so that there it is called laksa leaf. There are hundreds of recipes on the net.
And no - it's not a mint at all. It's something quite different and not related to anything I know. Try it.
