What is agent orange used for

Phan Anh, founder and CEO of Esheep Kitchen

Ông Táo’s Kitchen introduces this recipe from Phan Anh, food blogger and founder and CEO of Esheep Kitchen and founder of YÊU BẾP, a Facebook community fanpage with 1.5 million members.

Phan Anh said she has made this at home and everyone loved it. The dish is made two days in advance and is great for family reunions.

Time: 2 days

Serves: 1 finished kilogram

Chef’s warning: The most challenging part of making this ruby-coloured salted salmon is how to control the red colour of the ruby red beetroot.

It’s super easy, but attention must be paid to the details. I also wanted to add a Vietnamese touch to the dish, in the form of chẳm chéo, together with a special Thai dipping mix and a pinch of orange peel.

– You’re advised to deep peel the beetroot, then use the same peeler to peel all.

– Press half an apple with its peel, mix the juice with the beetroot peel.

– Mix the orange peel with sea salt to flavour the salt.

– You can also add some flavour from coriander seeds and dill seeds to add some depth, and they pair really well with wine when served later. Phan Anh used mắc khén (popularly known as Sichuan pepper), hạt dổi, a wild pepper named Michelia Tonkinesis, and dried lemongrass.

– Fresh salmon fillet (the freshest you can get).

– Wash your kitchen utensils and your hands thoroughly, because you’re not going to use plastic gloves as they leave a smell on the delicate dish.

Ingredients:

– Fresh salmon fillet: 1 kg

– Rock salt: 100 gr

– Crystal sugar: 100 gr

– Northwestern chẳm chéo dipping mix: 2 tbsp.

– Ground pepper: 1 tbsp.

– Peel from 2 oranges (I used 2 imported oranges from Australia)

– Juice of half an apple with peel (I used an Ambrosia apple)

– Beetroot peel: 200 gr (do not use more for 1 kg of salmon)

– A bunch of fresh dill

Tools:

– Food wrap, a tray for the salmon, and a heavy dish or tray

– A sharp knife

Ruby salted salmon. Photo courtesy of Phan Anh

Method:

– Cut the salmon fillet into two equal pieces of 500 grams, do not peel the skin.

– Mix the chẳm chéo with pepper, orange peel, salt and sugar.

– Soak the beetroot with apple juice, then mix it with the orange peel seasoning mixture.

– Finely chop the dill leaves, then add to the mixture.

– Put the salmon in a glass tray, dab the final seasoning mixture evenly on top, and leave for a few minutes, for the juice to drain out and soak the salmon completely.

– Cover with food wrap and place the heavy dish or tray on top.

– Put in the fridge at zero degrees for 48 hours.

– After 48 hours, take out the salmon, clean it with de-ionised water, then dab with a paper towel to fully dry.

– Dab the fish with some olive oil, wrap it and put it back in the fridge for 1 hour before slicing.

This ruby salted salmon is best as an appetiser or served with assorted bread and a glass of chilled white wine.

Bon appetit!

Walking their dog after dinner has always been a favorite daily activity of Tho Pham and his wife, a Vietnamese couple who live with their 39-year-old son in Garden Grove City, California.

But not in the last few months as the wave of anti-Asian violence and harassment has terrified him.

“I do not dare go out without my children because I am afraid someone will knock me to the ground or stab me to death just because I am Asian,” he laments, adding that the hate crimes have disrupted his daily life.

Many other Vietnamese share his apprehension, especially older people.

Wally Ng, a member of the Guardian Angels, patrols with other members in Chinatown in New York City, New York, U.S., May 16, 2020. Photo by Reuters.

Violence and hatred directed at Asian Americans, which also includes mugging, have surged across California since the beginning of the Covis-19 pandemic as Asians are blamed for its origin in Wuhan, China.

Videos of an Asian woman being punched in the face on a subway platform and a Thai man being pushed to the ground in San Francisco have sparked fears, and the Vietnamese community is traumatized.

Hoai Nguyen, a housewife in San Jose, home to the largest Vietnamese population in America, says: “It is annoying and scary when you go out and have to keep looking behind your back to see if you are being followed by someone suspicious.”

She has been called “coronavirus” several times while walking and shopping, but she had not expected the discrimination and hatred to turn violent and even murderous.

Last month the Vietnamese community in San Jose was shocked after a 64-year-old woman was robbed in front of Dai Thanh Supermarket during the Lunar New Year holidays.

Nguyen says with a sigh: “I cannot do that (go out) on my own because they may kill me. How weak I am and how cold-hearted those people are.”

Since older people are targeted, no one is comfortable letting their parents or grandparents go out alone though the first month of the lunar new year is typically filled with activities like meeting relatives and going to pagodas.

This year most had a subdued New Year also because of the pandemic.

Hong Nguyen, who is always accompanied by her children on the streets in Oakland these days, says: “It should be a time for celebration, we should meet our families and friends instead of being targeted or attacked.”

Solidarity

The potential threats have brought the Vietnamese diaspora together.

On Facebook groups, they post videos of Asians being assaulted or robbed to warn others about the growing threat in places like California and New York, home to many Vietnamese-Americans.

“Please help if you see anyone being verbally or physically attacked,” one person wrote in a group for people living in West Hills, California.

Some people give a helping hand to elders in their Vietnamese and Asian communities. In Oakland, for instance, there have been community initiatives including patrols by volunteers who escort seniors around the city.

“From our Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese elders to our youth, our Asian-American communities are traumatized, afraid and outraged during a time when we are also experiencing disproportionate impacts of the pandemic,” according to a joint agreement by Asian-American organizations in the Bay Area said, calling for non-police safety measures like volunteer neighborhood patrols.

Hong Nguyen’s sons and daughter, who are in their 20s, have joined many other Asians to protect elders in public places.

“Someone threw rocks at my sister’s house twice last week, and so five of us stand in front of her house in the evenings to see if those thugs come around again,” Hong Nguyen says, adding solidarity is their recourse now.

A 91-year-old Asian man is shoved to the ground from behind by a suspect in Chinatown in Oakland, California, January 31, 2021. Photo courtesy of Reutters.

Some people have taken a further step, gun ownership.

“I decided to buy a handgun this spring after seeing a series of mugging of Asians,” Nguyen Duc Phuc, 45, says. Owning a gun gives him and his wife peace of mind amid the senseless violence, he says.

“When I was in line waiting to buy the gun, two white guys called me ‘chin*’ and made fun of me because I wore a mask.”

The New York Times quoted David Liu, owner of Arcadia Firearm and Safety in the predominantly Asian city of Arcadia in California, as saying there is an uptick in Asian-Americans buying firearms though admittedly interest has been skyrocketing among “basically everybody.”

In a survey by the National Shooting Sports Foundation last year gun retailers estimated there was a nearly 43 percent increase in sales to Asian customers in the first half of 2020, the Times added.

But people like Pham, Phuc and Nguyen know that violence is never the correct response to violence.

On February 26 senior officials of the U.S. Justice Department claimed that the recent surge in violence and hate incidents against Asian-Americans is unacceptable, and promised to investigate those cases and other hate crimes.

These “horrific attacks on Asian-Americans across the country” have “no place in our society,” Deputy Attorney General John Carlin said while speaking about domestic terrorism, adding that the Justice Department is “committed to putting a stop to it.”

Agents and prosecutors at the department would “look at recent footage from New York and California to see those horrific attacks directed at Asian Americans, to realize how dire the threats are,” he said.

But in the meantime, Pham knows he needs his children with him if he wants to venture outside home.

“I just want to feel safe and not fear for my life when going out without disturbing my children.”

The information was announced by Senior Lieutenant-General Tran Don, Deputy Minister of National Defense at a meeting with the south-central province’s authorities Friday.

In 2009, the government approved a plan to build Phan Thiet airport in beach town Phan Thiet of Binh Thuan, which lies more than four hours east of Ho Chi Minh City and currently has none.

The plan said the airport would span 543 hectares (1,340 acres) to serve both civilian and military purposes and invested under the build-operate-transfer format by Hanoi-based Rang Dong JSC.

It also said work would start in 2015 for the project to be finished in 2018. However, nothing had been carried out as scheduled.

In 2017, Binh Thuan proposed to upgrade the civil rating of the planned airport from 4C to 4E as regulated by International Civil Aviation Organization.

In specific, the province wanted to extend the airport’s runway from 2,400 meters to 3,050 meters in order to raise its capabilities toward the 4E rating. The increased rating would allow it to handle Airbus A320s or equivalent sized and advanced military aircraft.

The government agreed with the proposal within that year, which means the cost for the airport will stay at around VND10 trillion ($434 million).

The problem with investment capital had prevented the plan to be executed. Now, the problem has been solved, said Deputy Minister Don.

He said the Ministry of National Defense had previously relied on a plan to auction former Nha Trang airport in central Khanh Hoa Province to raise funds for building Phan Thiet airport.

However, the government has recently agreed to build Phan Thiet airport using the state budget in the form of public investment. “The government has allocated the fund for the ministry and work on the joint-use airport should be carried out soon.”

If everything is to happen as planned, construction should be finished in 20 months so the airport could start operation next year, Don noted.

Rang Dong JSC will continue to work as investor for the civilian part of the airport. As assigned by the ministry, the company has to soon complete adjustments to the re-feasibility study report for the project so work on the civilian side could be carried out at the same time as that for its military equivalent.

Vietnam currently has 22 airports, including eight in the northern and north-central regions.

The master plan for airport development the Ministry of Transport is drafting envisages building five new airports, all in the north, by 2030.

It is now in the process of collecting feedback from other government agencies and local administrations before submitting the plan to the government for approval.

This achievement can be attributed to the determination and effort of all sectors, most notably science and technology.

Ten national science and technology projects were approved during the COVID-19 outbreak, including the cultivation and isolation of SARS-CoV-2, test kit production, studying COVID-19 vaccines, and using robotics in hospitals and quarantine camps.

Scientists have not been alone in innovation during the COVID-19 fight. They have been backed by the Government and enterprises. Many people, even those without any academic qualifications, have contributed science and technology innovations to help the country fight the pandemic./. VNA