The uninitiated, banh mi is a French-style baguette filled with various meats, vegetables, and condiments, striking a balance between contrasting textures and temperatures. Its flavour profile is equally impressive, featuring a harmonious blend of salty, sour, savoury, sweet, and aromatic notes.

Baking banh mi at home is great convenient for everyone who's not living close to the Vietnamese community.

From the fresh baked baguette all the way through the delicious sandwich filling, the banh mi is a unique blend of French and Vietnamese cuisine.

Banh mi is a baguette with thin crisp crust and airy texture. Like a submarine, banh mi cut to lengthwise and filled with savoury ingredients such as cold cut, pate or vegetarian with fresh herds and pickle.

But don’t worry, it is not that complicated. Baking baguette or any type of bread uses only a few simple ingredients: flour, salt, and yeast

It takes time but it is worth it.

This simple recipe gives you a perfect banh mi that you can enjoy at home. This banh mi will make you happy with every bite.

Just follow these instructions and get perfect results.

Yield :

Make 4 small baguette (230g each)

Prepare time 4 hours

Suplies:

· Scale

· timer

· stand mixer with dough hook - if you have strong hand there is

no need to use the stand mixer.

· spray bottle of water

· sharp knife

· any size baking dish

· extra flour for dustingBanh Mi

Ingredients

200 g bread flour
350g all-purpose flour
385g water
7g yeast
5g salt
5g sugar
Option 2 tsp dough enhancer

Steps:

First the Mixing and fermentation stage:

1. Combine flour and sugar in the mixing bowl

2. Dissolve yeast in a small bowl of water, set aside 5 minutes

3. In a separate mixing bowl combine the sugar, salt and flour.

4. Add the yeast and water mixture and mix using the dough hook for 10 minutes. This process distributes the yeast evenly throughout the dough and develops the gluten.

5. When the dough form does not stick and begins to pull together remove the hook, cover with plastic wrap and rest 30 minutes.

6. After 30 minutes, mix the dough again to deflate about 2 minutes

7. And then rest again for 30 more minutes.

8. Repeat the steps 2 times. After Approximately 2 hours, the dough will become smooth, elastic and flavorful. This is the process of dough fermentation

Next the pre shape and proofing stage

1. divide the dough into 4 (230g) chunks

2. roll the dough into balls

3. rest for 10 -15 minutes to allow the dough to relax so it is easier to shape later

Shape the baguette

1. Add flour to a clean work surface

2. Flatten the dough, you can use rolling pin if needed

3. Use your hand to pick up the dough on each end and stretch the dough into a rectangular shape

4. Fold and roll the dough inward and press down to seal the side as you roll

5. Leave the seam side down

6. Use two hands to roll the dough out starting from the middle moving to the end. add more pressure toward the end.

7. Place dough on the flour cloth and dust with flour

8. Proof for 40 - 60 minutes, it might need longer if the room temperature is cold.

9. If your oven has a proofer set the proofer timer for 40 minutes.

10. If you don’t have proofer, proof in a warm place or warm oven at 70-80 F also place in the oven a baking dish with ¼ cup of hot water.

After 30 minutes and waiting for the dough to rise

11. Pre heat the oven to 425 - 450 Fahrenheit

12. Be sure to keep spray bottle ready.

13. When the dough is developed enough double in volume, it’s ready to bake. Another way to test is to press your finger lightly in the dough if it springs back proofing is complete. If it is still firm, it needs more time.

14. Transfer the dough onto the baking tray, score the dough

¾ inch deep.

15. Place the tray in the oven on the higher rack

16. spray five times to steam the oven for the best result.

17. bake for 20 minutes.

Making the filling

A few simple key ingredients such as fresh herbs, green onion, cilantro, red chili, pickled carrots and daikon, and home-made mayonnaise complement the light airy fluffy bread to make a perfect Vietnamese sandwich. The amazing smell of freshly baked bread coming from the oven will accompany you while you make the sandwich filling. For protein, I tend to use leftover grilled pork or roasted chicken sometime cold cut and pate.

However, vegetarian banh mi is highly pleasant to taste using the tempeh as the main protein

The first thing to do is marinate the tempeh for at least 30 minutes,

if you bought an already marinated tempeh, you can skip this step.

Marinated tempeh

For one package of tempeh

Steps

Slice tempeh to ½ cm thick

in a container mix together.

3 tablespoon of Soy sauce

1 tablespoon of honey. Then add the sliced tempeh. Make sure they are evenly coated

On the grill pan or frying pan brown both side of the tempeh slices

Homemade Mayonnaise

Ingredients:

2 yolks

200 ml canola oil or sunflower oil

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vinegar

¼ teaspoon fine ground white pepper

Steps

I like to use a hand mixer, if you don’t have one you can do this manually.

Start with only the yolks, salt, pepper, and vinegar in the bowl at first. start drizzling a little oil in slowly at first until about a quarter of the oil has been added, then gradually add more oil until the mixture is creamy and thickened.

Pickled vegetables

Ingredients

Cut carrot and daikon into matchsticks and mix together in a mason jar.

Into a sauce pan add,

100 ml sugar

100 ml vinegar

150ml of water

½ teaspoon salt

Steps

Bring to boil, take off heat and pour into mason jar with the vegies, let sit for 2-3 hours for the pickling process to complete.

Now assemble!

Prepare some fresh herbs

Julien 1-2 stalks of green onions.

Wash and pick cilantro. Cut cucumber into batonnet sticks. Slice some fresh chilli for color.

Cut the bread open on one side
Spread mayo on both sides
Add the Tempeh
Add the raw and pickled Veggies
And add soy sauce to taste

yum !

Banh Mi Vietnamese - Vegetarian