Kitchen & Cooking

Cooking techniques from Vietnamese home kitchens plus hands-on reviews of the pans, cookers, and tools that actually earn their counter space.

My chef’s knives are the one kitchen expense I don’t skimp on, which is exactly why the cutting…

15 min read

If you’ve only ever cooked with a Western chef’s knife, a Chinese-style cleaver looks like overkill — a…

19 min read

Rice cookers get marketed like they’re all the same machine in a different shell. They’re not — not…

11 min read

Eating pho properly means holding chopsticks in your dominant hand for noodles and meat, a spoon in the…

6 min read

How you cut lemongrass depends entirely on what you’re cooking. Mince it finely for marinades and dipping sauces…

6 min read

The key to reheating pho well is never reheating it as one combined bowl. Heat the broth on…

6 min read

Cloudy pho broth almost always comes from one of four things: boiling instead of gently simmering, skipping the…

7 min read

Dip rice paper (bánh tráng) in room-temperature or lukewarm water for 2–4 seconds — not longer — then…

7 min read