Behind the Southeast Asian Market Lemongrass Cheesesteak

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Welcome to Just One Dish, a Foobooz series that takes a look at a standout item on a Philadelphia restaurant’s menu – the story behind the dish, how it’s prepared, and why you should go out of your way to try it.

In 2022, Pidor Yang and her husband Yen were up all night hand-skewering cubes of lemongrass-tinged beef onto about 1,000 sticks.

They were preparing the next day for a Cambodian New Year festival at a Philadelphia temple, where they planned to sell grilled beef sticks. But shortly after creation, it became clear that no one was buying. The Yangs were new vendors at the temple and found themselves next to a regular selling the same thing. Many festival-goers had also brought their own food, and to make matters worse, it was 90 degrees outside – an unusually warm temperature for April – and less than ideal weather to stay with a pile of meat that could get spoiled. By mid-morning, the Yangs packed up and left, beef sticks in tow.

Pidor didn’t know what to do with all the leftovers, but she thought it didn’t make sense to take them to the Southeast Asian market, where she had started selling Cambodian dishes like chicken meatballs. curry and pepper chips through his business. Sahbyy Food, and where she knew she would only be competing with the many other grill vendors in South Philly’s FDR Park.

Feeling defeated, Pidor went to a friend’s house to decompress and Yen returned home. Then, when he was hungry, he had the idea of ​​making a sandwich with the beef. “He called me really, really excited,” Pidor recalled. “He said, ‘Baby, you need to come home now. I just made this sandwich and it is phenomenal.

He later made the sandwich for her, frying chunks of beef and arranging them on toast, along with cheddar sauce and papaya salad his mother made, before sprinkling a handful of pepper chips from Sahbyy Food. Pidor took a bite and was impressed. “I think we have something here,” she said.

Lemongrass cheesesteak / Photography by Roland Bui

She was right. More than two years later, the sandwich – now known as lemongrass cheesesteak and made with beef or chicken – has become one of Sahbyy Food’s most popular products in the South Asian market. East. And on May 4, when the market opens for its 2024 season, the cheesesteak will appear for the third year in a row.

Controversially, I’m not a big fan of cheesesteaks. But last summer I tried both the beef and chicken versions and was pleasantly surprised to find a cheesesteak that I actually liked. The meat is cooked just right – tender to the point that it almost falls apart with a bite, and flavored with Pidor’s tangy, home-grown lemongrass – while the papaya salad adds a welcome crunch in contrast to the gooey cheddar sauce and the gently toasted hoagie roll. all served. Then there’s the pepper chip garnish, which adds a bit of spice to the mix, and a pinch of cilantro to bring out the freshness of the lemongrass and give the cheesesteak an elevated look.

I arrived at the market in the morning, so I didn’t have to wait long for my cheesesteak, but one day in 2023, Pidor tells me, people waited in line for two hours to get their hands on one. She estimates she sold about 300 per weekend last year. “It was insane,” she says of the attention, noting that Instagrammers posting photos of the cheesesteak helped it take off. At one point, Pidor says, she had to switch to a ticketing system rather than calling out people’s names like she did when she started selling the cheesesteak in 2022.

Before selling the sandwich at the market and after Yen dreamed up his creation, Pidor tinkered with some components of the recipe.

“There was a lot of technique just for the papaya salad itself,” says the owner of Sahbyy Food, who learned how to make it from her mother-in-law. Yen’s mother showed Pidor how to wash the papaya to reduce its bitterness: first, shredding it, then rubbing it with salt until it withered, then washing it, repeating the process until tasty. She also taught him how to identify the type of ginger to use (Pidor prefers the subtler taste of the younger variety to the more pungent flavor of older ginger) and how to prepare the garlic, which must be “sliced ​​and cut into diced in a certain way” to enhance the flavor. Pidor, however, was alone when it came to determining the quantity of ingredients since her mother-in-law did not measure them. Now Pidor considers it all a science and weighs everything in advance. “I will follow my recipe to the end,” she says.

Pidor Yang at the table of Sahbyy Food at the FDR Park SEA Market. / Photography by Roland Bui

Of course, lemongrass is the key ingredient in Sahbyy Food’s cheesesteak. Pidor started growing his own lemongrass at home by using market stems and cutting off about 1.5 inches from the bottom, then placing that part in water to root before planting it in a pot or at outside in his garden. “Whatever survives, I replant,” she says of her propagated lemongrass, which she will use again the following season. “Whatever doesn’t survive is thrown away and I start the process again. »

Earlier in the growing season, before lemongrass leaves appear, Pidor should use the core of the plant for the paste; As the season progresses and the leaves grow, she cuts them and uses them. “Each part of lemongrass has its own characteristics, flavors and tastes,” says Pidor, noting that she prefers to use lemongrass leaves for her paste because they are “brighter in color” and give a stronger flavor to the lemongrass. . cheesesteak.

As with the papaya salad, Pidor was inspired by family recipes for its lemongrass paste. “Everyone has their own technique for making it,” she says. The Sahbyy Food founder developed her kreung (Khmer for lemongrass paste) recipe by combining the methods she learned from her mother, sister and mother-in-law, as well as “the traditional way of preparing it ”, which involves cutting all the ingredients into small pieces by hand and pounding them with a pestle and mortar (as Pidor has to prepare large quantities, she uses a blender instead). Without giving away her secret, she adds that the order in which each ingredient in lemongrass paste – usually made from kaffir lime leaves, galangal root, turmeric and garlic – is ground is important. “I kind of put it together to try to make my own,” she says.

A packet of Roasted Sesame Chips and Garlic Fried Peppers from Sahbyy Food. / Photography by Roland Bui

While the lemongrass paste gives the sandwich its signature flavor, Pidor says the pepper chips are “the most special thing that comes with the cheesesteak.” Naturally, the company owner won’t share how she makes them — it’s a product she wants to continue building Sahbyy Food around, with the goal of putting her pepper chips on the shelves of mom-and-pop stores across Philadelphia. She says the pepper she uses isn’t something you can find in just any store. “I buy this in bulk from a small company in New Mexico,” she says, adding that everything else that goes into making her pepper chips, from the sesame to the garlic, comes from local sources .

As for the other elements of the cheesesteak, they are a little less involved. Pidor says she buys the meat at a restaurant depot and the bread and cheddar sauce at the supermarket. But what makes this cheesesteak so delicious is how simple and comforting it is, but with deeper, more complex flavors than you’d get from a traditional version – although Pidor enjoys them too and doesn’t Don’t hesitate to get a cheesesteak at Pat’s or Geno’s. .

Unlike the ones you’ll find at Pat’s or Geno’s, Sahbyy’s cheesesteak isn’t about trying to be better than someone else down the road. It’s a labor of love: a clever, ingenious dish created with the aim of improving a bad day. I would say it was successful.