Shadowing Practice: How To Make Authentic Banh Mì - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Banh mi is called the best sandwich in the world for a reason.
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We'll start off by making our bread.
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Banh mi actually translates to bread, and it's the only sandwich named after its bread, which should tell you how important the bread is here.
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I've started by combining yeast and sugar with some warm water, and once that yeast is activated, we'll add in our flour, lime juice, and salt, hook this up to our mixer with the dough hook attachment,
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and mix over medium speed for about 10 minutes until the dough pulls together like this.
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Now, grease a large bowl and shape your dough into a ball, then drop it in and cover it up with plastic wrap
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and let it rise for two hours at room temperature until it's doubled in size.
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Then very lightly flour our work surface before laying it down.
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Once again, shape it back up into a ball and then divide into four even pieces.
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If you wanna be really accurate, you should probably use a scale here.
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And then one ball at a time, shape them by rolling them around until they create tension and shape up nicely like this.
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To prepare them for baking, add a bit more flour, then flip each ball upside down and press it down into an oval about this size, then fold one side about two -thirds of the way up like this,
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fold the other side over that piece there, and then pinch hard all the way down to create a seam on the bottom.
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It's okay if this part here doesn't look pretty, because we're going to flip it over into our baguette tray for baking.
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Before covering them with plastic wrap, we'll give them one more light spray with oil, and after resting for one hour at room temperature, they'll now have doubled in size.
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Carefully remove that plastic wrap, and then, using a razor blade, create three small slits on the top of each loaf of bread, add a light misting of water.
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This is what gives the iconic thin, crisp banh mi crust.
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And don't forget, before you put this into the oven to bake, we need to create our own steam oven by adding some
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boiling water to a preheated cast iron pan that's sitting on the bottom rack of our oven.
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After eight minutes, we'll remove the steam and let them bake about five more minutes or until they look like this.
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Like I said, banh mi doesn't happen without great bread.
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If you listen carefully, it should sound almost hollow on the inside.
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and that crust should be shatteringly thin and crispy, almost like an eggshell.
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And I'm willing to sacrifice this one just so you can hear the crunch.
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Now that we've made our bread, we're going to make a Vietnamese liver pâté.
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Liver pâté in banh mi is a must.
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If you skip it, all you have is a pork sandwich.
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These are chicken livers, one of my absolute favorites.
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In fact, I have them at least once a week for breakfast.
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To clean the livers, we'll cover them with milk, then cover them up with plastic wrap and place them in the fridge for at least two hours.
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And after straining them, we'll move over to the stovetop and over medium heat, we'll add a bit of butter along with a few sliced shallots and a couple cloves of crushed garlic.
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Stir for just a couple minutes until softened and push them off to the side and add in the livers, spreading them around to try to leave space between them so they can hopefully get some kind of caramelization.
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When I cook them at home for breakfast, I almost cook them like a steak, where I try to get a really hard sear on either side.
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But here, we're just looking for a little color and caramelization.
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We don't want to overdo it.
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Once we've gotten that initial color, we can mix everything together
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and now the goal is to cook them most of the way through deglaze with shaoxing wine
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and scrape off all the flavor from the bottom of the pan then turn off the heat
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and bring in your blender add in the liver
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and onions along with some fish sauce sugar chinese five spice white pepper salt
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and softened butter
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and blend adding a few splashes of water as needed to
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bring it all together into a smooth paste i know this crazy looking liver puree may not look like something
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that should come from the number one rated sandwich in the world but if you look it up online, banh mi is rated by most experts as the number one sandwich.
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Once you've let it fully cool down, cover it up and place it in the fridge until you're ready to use it.
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We're going to make the pork in the most incredible way.
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I'm starting in a pot with some sugar over medium high because the first step is to make caramel.
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Once it reaches this beautiful color, we'll add in our pork, shallots, fish sauce, soy sauce, coconut water, and a few aromatics.
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And once this comes to a simmer, we'll turn down the heat and let this braise for one
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and a half hours or until the pork is nice and tender.
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I have a hard time looking at these without drooling at this stage, so I'm just going to let you look at them for a moment.
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Now we're going to use a few forks to shred everything apart.
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And yes, we're keeping all that pork skin in there because it's turned into this beautiful, gelatinous, sticky texture.
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Oh, this sandwich is going to be crazy.
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That's probably the best pork I've ever tasted.
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And with that, our pork is done, which means we can move over to the final step, pickling our radish and carrot.
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In Vietnam, this is called dough chua, and it's a mix of pickled carrot and daikon radish.
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They use the radish for a peppery, fresh crunch and the carrot for sweetness and color.
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As you can see both vegetables are also shredded into super thin strips.
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The next step is to add in some sugar and salt and start massaging it into the vegetables.
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Now put them in a jar and cover them with water
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and rice wine vinegar and place them in the fridge for at least a couple hours
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or until you're ready to use them.
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To build the sandwich we'll start with our homemade baguette
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and find a spot slightly above the center line
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that we will then cut most of the way but not all the way through.
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Now on the top half we'll add a generous spread of Vietnamese mayo.
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It's different than normal mayo in
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that it only uses egg yolks instead of whole eggs and rice wine vinegar for a little kick.
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And then on the bottom half, we'll add our chicken liver pate.
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On the pate, we'll add a few ribbons of cold cucumber for freshness and crunch.
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Then of course, as much of that caramelized pork as we can possibly fit.
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I can't stress enough how unbelievably good this is.
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Even if you don't make the whole recipe, I'd recommend making just the.. pork.
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Then the pickled daikon and carrot, which I'm going to squeeze and drain in a paper towel.
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Look how much liquid comes out of this.
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We don't want it ruining our sandwich.
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The acidity in those is going to be so good at balancing out the sweetness in that pork.
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Then some cilantro, only if you like it.
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If not, you could also use parsley.
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A few slices of bird's eye chili, if you're feeling bold.
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And last but not least, a few drippings from that pork mixture.
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This is absolutely the most excited I've ever been in my entire life to try a sandwich.
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i might cry oh it's so good it's so so good it's
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because it's the only sandwich in the world that's in perfect
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perfect balance you've got hot versus cold with the caramel pork
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and the pickled vegetables you've got rich versus sharp with the pate
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and the egg yolk mayonnaise you've got soft versus shattering with
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the bread developed versus fresh with the slow braised meat against the raw cilantro
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and chili you even have sweet versus salty and so much more it's a uniquely perfectly balanced sandwich, and I never understood the hype, but now I get it.
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That's my new favorite sandwich.
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It's so good.
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So, so good.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “How To Make Authentic Banh Mì”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: pork, sandwich, add, liver, bread. This video has 93 sentences and 1442 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:01. The speaker talks fast, about 240 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sandwich noun | /ˈsæn(d).wɪd͡ʒ/ | A dish or foodstuff where at least one piece, but typically two or more pieces, of bread serves as the wrapper or container of some other food. |
| versus | /ˈvɝsəs/ | Against; in opposition to. |
| wrap verb | /ɹæp/ | To enclose (an object) completely in any flexible, thin material such as fabric or paper. |
| bake verb | /beɪk/ | To cook (something) in an oven (for someone). |
| dough noun | /doʊ/ | A thick, malleable substance made by mixing flour with other ingredients such as water, eggs, or butter, that is made into a particular form and then baked. |
| carrot noun | /ˈkæɹət/ | A vegetable with a nutritious, juicy, sweet root that is often orange in colour, Daucus carota, family Apiaceae, especially the subspecies sativus. |
| thin adjective | /ˈθɪn/ | Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite. |
| liver noun | /ˈlɪvɚ/ | A large organ in the body that stores and metabolizes nutrients, destroys toxins and produces bile. It is responsible for thousands of biochemical reactions. |
| oven noun | /ˈʌ.vn̩/ | A chamber used for baking or heating. |
| flour noun | /ˈflaʊ.ə/ | Powder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, or other foodstuffs such as soybeans and potatoes, and used to bake bread, cakes, and… |
| vegetable noun | /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ | A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice… |
| crunch verb | /kɹʌnt͡ʃ/ | To crush something, especially food, with a noisy crackling sound. |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| butter noun | /ˈbʌtɚ/ | A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk). |
| hook noun | /hʊk/ | A rod bent into a curved shape, typically with one end free and the other end secured to a rope or other attachment. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| cool down verb | /kuːl ˈdaʊn/ | To become cooler; to be reduced in temperature. |
| pull together verb | To unite for a common objective. | |
| start off verb | To begin. | |
| turn down verb | To refuse, decline, or deny. | |
| turn off verb | To power down, to switch off, to put out of operation, to deactivate (an appliance, light, mechanism, functionality etc.). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- We'll start off by making our bread.
- We don't want to overdo it.
- That's probably the best pork I've ever tasted.
- I can't stress enough how unbelievably good this is.
- We don't want it ruining our sandwich.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've started · have doubled · we've made |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is called · is activated · is rated |
| Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea | should tell · should probably use · should sound |
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the best · the most incredible · the most excited |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 45 contractions and reduced forms, such as we'll, we're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, smooth /smuːð/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sharp /ʃɑɹp/, tension /ˈtɛnʃən/, crush /kɹʌʃ/, massage /məˈsɑ(d)ʒ/, splash /splæʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: acidity /əˈsɪd.ɪ.ti/, aromatic /ˌɛɹ.əˈmæt.ɪk/, caramelize /ˈkaɹ(ə)məlʌɪz/, gelatinous /d͡ʒəˈlæt.ɪn.əs/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like sandwich, versus, wrap.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.