I got to know this traditional Vietnamese sandwich when I did volunteer work in Hanoi, two years ago. Vietnam is known for her street food and on the streets, you see stands everywhere or simply people sitting on a plastic stool selling food.

One of the things that you see most often is banh mi. Banh mi literally means wheat bread but over the years it became the name for the famous Vietnamese sandwich.

Bread is actually a product that is not used often in Asian cuisine but at the time that Vietnam was a French colony, the baguette was introduced in the country and it never went away again.

The Vietnamese baguette is made slightly different than the French one because it consists of wheat and rice flour.

A banh mi is built up out of different components:

• Pork meat, chicken, tofu, eggs or paté. The most well-known version is with paté and pork meat.
• Pickled carrots and daikon (a kind of radish in the shape of a carrot)
• Mayonaise
• Cucumber
• Fresh herbs, such as cilantro
• Pieces of jalapeno or another pepper
• Soy sauce

I made a sandwich with paté because that was the banh mi that I ate in Vietnam, but I couldn’t find a paté in the Netherlands that was entirely low FODMAP. Therefore it is not recommended to use paté if you are still in the elimination phase (unless you can find a low FODMAP paté).

Instead, you can use pork shoulder, pork cuts or chicken breast. In the recipe, I explain all the different variants.

I couldn’t find daikon either, therefore I made pickled carrots only.

Pickled vegetables are very simple to make. All you need is white vinegar, sugar and salt and a jar to put it in. You need to leave the carrot in the jar for at least 30 minutes, for it to soften.

It is best to make it at least a day in advance, but if you are in a hurry you can simply make it on the day you want to use it. You can store the pickled carrot in the fridge for about a week.

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