When people think of Vietnamese cuisine, our curry isn’t necessarily the first dish that comes to mind. We’re known for our phở and our Bánh mì, and stand by those as our specialties, but our Vietnamese curry is an often unsung hero on our menu, so we’re taking a minute to sing its praises.
Curry came to Vietnam with the migration of around 6,000 immigrants from another French colony at the time – the port city of Pondicherry, India. They brought incredible spices, aromas, and cooking techniques along with them, and soon the Vietnamese population was putting their own spin on Indian classic comfort foods, including curry.
As always, it starts with incredibly high-quality broth. At Việtvana we make our chicken broth from scratch using free-range, firm, non-processed and less fatty chickens. The curry takes a higher concentrated broth than other dishes like phở, so all-in-all it’s a four-hour process from start to finish. The next addition to the broth is carrots and sweet potatoes, which take about an hour to an hour and a half to cook down to the right level of tenderness. About half an hour before we take it off the heat we add in lemongrass, turmeric, and yellow curry – as is the custom for curries in the more mountainous regions of Central Vietnam, where our families are from. The finishing touch is the pure and thickening coconut milk, which rounds out the flavor and thickens the consistency of the curry to something more like a stew. The result of our labor? A deliciously aromatic, comforting and calming meal that you’ll be craving again as soon as you’re finished.
