The Four Traditional Days of Buddhisim #4 (Bun bo Chay)

Seiten (mi can) and tofu are the main ingredients for meatless recipes. Seiten is a mock meat very common in Asian cooking. It takes quite some time to make mi can. Since more Americans are becoming vegetarians for healthy living, seiten has been introduced to this diet's recipes. You can make all kinds of meatless recipes by mastering the making the seiten first.
Here is a website that shows how to make seiten: http://vegetarian.about.com/od/cookingtipstools/ss/HowToSeitan.htm

Beef noodle soup or Bun bo chay is one of my favorites, and the secret to creating good soup always comes from the broth. Because this soup is not "real" beef, the seiten needs to cook in flavor broth with a lot of lemon grass, garlic and ginger. After the seiten is cooked, the broth drained can be used later.

Ingredients to cook seiten::
3 cups water + 2 cup vegetable broth
3 cloves garlic mashed
1 knob of ginger (about 1 inch)
2 stalks of lemon grass bruied
1 tsp salt
3 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
Add seiten to this broth. Cover and simmer for 40 minutes or until the seiten floats to the surface. Now you have the mock beef. Slice the beef and set aside.

Ingredients for beef soup:
10 cups of good vegetarian broth
4 stalks of lemongrass about 10 inches each, bruised
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs mushroom seasoning

Ingredients to make color:
2 tsp Korean chili powder
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
2 shallots chopped
3 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 hot dried chili
3 tbs oil

Ingredients for a bowl of soup:
Cooked rice noodles (follow direction from the package)
fried tofu
Fried  bean curd ( tau hu ki)
Vegetarian sausages(cha lua chay)
Thinly sliced onions
Green onions

Salad plate (dia rau song) with variety of fresh herbs such as: fish mints, basils, mints and cilantro

Directions:to make beef broth
Bring the vegetarian broth and lemon grass to a boil. Season with soy sauce, and then simmer for 50 to 60 minutes.

To make color for the soup:
In a 5 quart pot over low heat, add oil, shallots and dried chili powder. Sauté' for a few minutes. Add chopped tomatoes, sugar and salt. Let it cook until tomatoes release their color. Add sliced beef. Sauté' this mixture for another 5 minutes.

Assembling the soup:
Remove the lemon grass from the broth. Add the beef mixture to the broth, and let it simmer for another 10 minutes. Season again with soy sauce and salt before serving.

Assembling for a bowl of soup:
On the bottom of a bowl, put the cooked rice noodles. Top with a few slices of beef, fried tau hu ki, vegetarian sausages, thin- sliced onions and green onions. Ladle the broth and serve.