Salt and Pepper — A Daa Laang Signature

Salt and pepper are the two most popular seasonings for a reason. They may be simple, but in the right ratio, they can elevate anything they touch. Raw tomatoes and cucumbers, fried eggs and even porridge* are transformed by a pinch of each.

“Salt and pepper” dishes (i.e. ones that are coated in the spices and then fried) are a league of their own. Nearly anything tastes good fried, but it’s only when the S&P are thrown in that the perfection of salt and pepper tofu or eggplant or (vegan) calamari can be achieved.

Any time I visit a Vietnamese restaurant, it’s likely I’ll order at least one of those. I know some other restaurants do serve it, but it’s Vietnamese cuisine that first turned me on to the simple pleasure of salt + pepper + oil and it’s what I primarily associated this cooking style with — Until I did a bit of digging.

It’s really only food that got me interested in history so I won’t call myself an expert by any means, but I was aware that Vietnamese fare is heavily influenced by China. What I didn’t realise was that roughly half of the Chinese people living in Vietnam are Cantonese and that much of Vietnam’s food is as well.

Which brings us back to salt and pepper, a traditionally Cantonese cooking method. It is most widely associated with Daa Laang, a cuisine from Hong Kong by way of regional China.

Also interesting is that most salt and pepper tofu dishes are made with “Japanese tofu”, a softer, silkier style. Yet tofu was introduced to Japan by China, indicating that perhaps the Japanese tweaked it and the Chinese reclaimed it, fried it up, and brought West to Vietnam.

Despite my newfound knowledge of salt and pepper tofu (or similar), I still maintain that the best executions (in Melbourne, at least) are from Vietnamese restaurants — But I welcome anyone to prove otherwise.

*I like a bit of sugar in there too.