28 September 2017
Vietnam has many delicious and sometimes exotic cuisines. The best way to appreciate the local cuisine better is to experience cooking some of the dishes. I don’t normally cook at home and the last time I took a cooking class while on a vacation was in Chiang Mai. I enjoyed that experience tremendously. Hence, joining a cooking class was in my 4 days Hoi An itinerary.
There are many cooking schools providing half day classes in Hoi An. I signed up with Thuan Tinh Island Cooking School, partly because of good reviews and partly because of recommendation from my relatives who visited Hoi An before.
We were picked up by taxi from our accommodation in Hoi An, the Tea Garden Homestay at 8.30 AM and met up with the rest of the group near the Hoi An’s morning market. Including us, there were 6 persons.
Like most cooking classes in Hoi An, the first activity was a visit to the morning wet market to purchase all fresh ingredients needed for the cooking later. I enjoy visiting local markets! Here I could see, smell, hear and experience the life of a local. For a while, at least. With a local guide bringing us around, it was less intimidating for me to snap photos of the happenings and people in the market.
The seafood in this wet market is so fresh that some of the sea critters are still alive. Jumping shrimps, live snails or escargots, prawns and fresh fish with glassy eyes. Most of the seafood are probably caught or harvested on the same day and brought to the market in the early morning before sunrise.
Colourful tropical fruits of South East Asia at the Hoi An wet market including rambutans, papayas, pineapples, bananas, jackfruit, guavas and limes.
I was amazed by the varieties and colours of the local fruits even though I live in South East Asia and had seen these fruits before.
Large assortment of fresh herbs, gingers, chilli, roots and vegetables at the Hoi An wet market.
This is where we board a boat to take us to Thuan Tinh Island.
The Hoi An wet market is located by the river. After shopping at the wet market, we boarded a wooden boat for a relaxing 30 minutes ride to Thuan Tinh Island where the cooking school is located.
Scenes on way to Thuan Tinh Island.
We walked through the local village, chancing upon a water buffalo staring fiercely at us for disturbing its morning grazing. I was glad to find that it is tied up.
Young water coconut trees growing at the banks of a river in Thuan Tinh Island.
We also saw a local villager scaling up a tall betel nut palm tree. I wondered if this was part of a staged show but then probably not, since our chef continued walking and did not stop. I reckoned he was anxious to get the class going.
Motorbike laden with harvested betel nut palm fruits.
We were served ice cold passion fruit drinks once we arrived at the cooking place. Our chef explained and demonstrated how rice flour is made the traditional way using a stone mill.
We each get a chance to have a go at using the stone mill. Using the stone mill to grind the grains of rice, mixed with water, into milky liquid was a good exercise! This milky liquid is the ingredient used to make the edible rice paper for the Vietnamese spring rolls.
Our chef prepared 4 traditional Vietnamese dishes for us to learn. He demonstrated how to prepare them, and then it was our turn to prepare our own tasty Vietnamese lunch!
We each have our own cooking stations, complete with gas stove, cooking pan, and utensils. We need to do some chopping, slicing and dicing but most of the ingredients and sauces were already laid out for us by the assistants.
This was what we cooked.
Banh Xeo - Crispy Vietnamese Crepes filled with pork and shrimp, bean sprouts and green onion. Served with lettuce leaves, fresh herbs and dipping sauce.
Cooking the Banh Xeo was most fun. The procedure included a step where we had to toss the crepe into the air to flip and catch it with the frying pan. None of us dropped the crepe.
We also learnt the secret to making the fried crepes crispy. Hint: Have to keep draining the oil from the crepe every 20 seconds by tilting the pan and allow air to enter into the batter during frying.
Draining the oil from the crepe every 20 seconds by tilting the pan and allow air to enter into the batter.
Finished Banh Xeo, ready to eat with dipping sauce.
Bun Bo Nam Bo - Herbed salad with rice vermicelli and saute beef, topped with roasted peanuts and hot soy sauce vinaigrette.
We were asked to be creative and decorate and garnish our dish the way we like.
My Bun Bo Nam Bo dish with a “gold-fish” design.
Pho Bo Hanoi - Beef rice noodle soup infused with beef bones, cinnamon, ginger and star anise.
Pho Bo Hanoi - Beef rice noodle soup infused with beef bones, cinnamon, ginger and star anise.
Traditional Vietnamese Spring Roll or Goi Cuon - Fresh Rice Paper Salad Rolls with Pork and Shrimp with a Tangy Peanut Hoisin Dipping Sauce.
Goi Cuon
After every dish, we sat to enjoy what we cooked before attempting the next dish. This is one tour that should be done with an empty stomach as there is quite a lot of delicious food to eat and free flow of cold passion fruit drink.
At the end of the class, we were each given a simple kitchen tool as a souvenir and the recipes of the dishes we learnt. We were then transferred back to our hotel by van. We could have come to the cooking place by van instead of boat but I think the boat ride was a nice way to see Hoi An.
The weather in Hoi An was unbearably warm in the afternoon during September. The best thing to do after a hearty meal was to take a short nap in our air-conditioned hotel room before heading out to explore Hoi An ancient town and riverside in the evening when it is cooler.
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