Cooking from Vietnamese Food Any Day — July 2026

Vietnamese Food Any Day by Andrea Nguyen is built on one promise: proper Vietnamese flavour out of a regular supermarket. That is why we billed July as the Stress Free Edition. It was the middle of a Toronto summer, and nobody wanted to spend a Sunday hunting for ingredients.

Everyone already knows pho and banh mi. It was the quieter dishes that won people over.

Roasted Cauliflower “Wings”

Battered and baked rather than fried, then glazed in chile garlic sauce. We kept making these long after the recipe test was over.

• 1 to 1¼ pounds cauliflower florets
• Scant 1¼ cups rice flour
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• ¼ to ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 1¼ teaspoons paprika
• Brimming ⅔ cup water
• 2½ tablespoons neutral oil
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon Bragg Liquid Aminos, Maggi, or soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons chile garlic sauce (the book’s homemade, or store-bought)
• ¼ cup light corn syrup or brown rice syrup

Easy Soy Sauce-Glazed Zucchini

Six ingredients and one pan, which is the whole thesis of this book in a single side dish.

• 1 pound zucchini
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2 teaspoons neutral oil
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1½ teaspoons soy sauce, Bragg, or Maggi
• 1 teaspoon chile garlic sauce or sambal oelek (optional)

Vietnamese Iced Coffee with Condensed Milk

Made during a heat wave, which is the correct time to make it.

• 3 tablespoons ground dark roast coffee (Café Du Monde is the classic)
• About ⅔ cup hot water
• 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
• 4 or 5 ice cubes

Streetside Corn and Chile

Bắp xào, the buttery street corn with fish sauce and chile. The book cooks it in a skillet. Ours went on the grill, with Ontario sweet corn at the peak of its season.

• 1½ tablespoons unsalted butter or virgin coconut oil
• 2 cups fresh corn kernels
• 1 fresh chile (Fresno or jalapeño), seeded and chopped
• 2½ teaspoons fish sauce
• Rounded ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 green onion, thinly sliced
• 1½ teaspoons furikake or crumbled toasted nori

From the night

Thanks again to Jrew’s for the space. If you want to know which book is next, we announce it on Instagram and to the newsletter list first.