Hanoi food with Mr Hung at the Hanoi Cooking Center...

What a fun night, I was invited to participate in an evening learning to prepare and then enjoy a selection of regional dished from Hanoi.  There were three other eager cooks so Mr Hung gathered us up and we dutifully followed him into the markets for a quick lesson in what and how to buy...
I didn't take my camera so you'll have to take my word about the sights on view...huge live fish in constantly freshened water, massive frogs (farmed I'm told), loads of fresh fruit, veg and herbs, meat of indeterminate cut, meat very easily identified as cooked dog, eggs - free range chicken, duck, goose and egg with baby chicken inside (no, I didn't eat one).
Mr Hung bought what we needed for the nights class and a couple of extra things, some bitter herbs (wild cosmos?) and a frog!!!
My cooking buddy Nick ( a pom who now lives in Auckland) volunteered to try the frog - he's a brave man!
 Apparently he'd done the previous Saturday's class too and been game enough to try the 'egg with baby inside'...crunchy!
The menu consisted of Seafood spring rolls (with a twist), caramel pork cooked in a claypot, banana flower salad, and a dessert of black sesame and peanut che.  Plus frog and an omelet made with the bitter herbs.
I think I'll just show you the photos...you'll get the picture.

frog...in the pan

banana flower salad ingredients

caramel pork ingredients

our culinary captain in action

the pork marinating in fish sauce, garlic, shallots and pepper

Red fruit (no idea of what it would be called in English) used to color rice for Tet

filling for Hanoi Spring Rolls - squid, prawn, fish, caramelized onion and....mayo! yes, mayo!

rolling....

Mr Hung was made to produce 800 spring rolls every day of his work experience at a large hotel that will remain nameless...so now he's an expert!

baby bananas

slicing the banana flower

banana flower salad ingredients minus bean sprouts and coriander...

sprouts and coriander

slice the prawns lengthwise...

slice the pork...Mr Hung does it quickly...action shot...

mix all ingredients except dressing and peanuts for garnish..

ingredients for black sesame and peanut che

process the nuts and seeds...

cook with water, sugar, coconut cream and nuts and seeds...

he scared the crap out of us all with this little conflagration....

banana flower salad and caramel pork

Nick filling the banana flower boat....

The spring rolls - that had been crumbed!  Talk about French influence...

close up of the yummy caramel pork...

After the class we relocated to the warm and comfortable dining room upstairs to enjoy the fruits of our labors.  The spring rolls were so rich it was almost unbelievable, the banana flower salad was crunchy, tasty and refreshing, the caramel pork was my personal fave...tender, sweet and salty and so moreish.  I did try the frog...somewhere between fish and chicken but a bit strong for me. The dessert was a warm soup and had a great flavor, however it didn't blow my bubbles but I'm thinking of using the combination of black sesame and peanut in either a cookie or a cupcake...yummy!

Birthday cake....

On Friday I was told that a cake was needed for Monday, a cake to feed 160 people.  It's Jimmy Pham's birthday next week but the staff and trainees wanted to celebrate his birthday with him early.  Doan, Thu and I made the cakes on Friday.  A bottom tier of chocolate mud, a middle tier of carrot and green apple and a top tier of Donna Hay's lemon flavored butter almond cake.  We made some royal icing run outs of the koto logo...(remember the little abstract figures that I made xmas hats for in the restaurant?)  It was the first time I've ever made run outs as well as Doan and Thu's...but they turned out OK.  We also did some pink and white two tone piped flowers which were set aside to dry harden over the weekend.
This morning Doan and I iced the three cakes with white royal icing.  We made cake boards out of bits of wine boxes wrapped in tinfoil and cling film...you do what you have to do.  The tins were donated by Frazer and Hughes in Sydney (thanks guys) so we were limited to making the cakes that size.  I would have liked to have made the tiers more balanced but it's OK if a little solid.
Anyway, we used the runouts, the flowers and the finished result was quite pretty in the end.

a very happy Mr Doan after we finished...

it wasn't as wonky as it looks...

the run-outs turned out really well in the end...

and the flowers too...though I'm sure the ladies cake decorating guild would be horrified...

best of all...every skerrick was polished off later in the evening.

This is the gingerbread house I produced in the class I had run during the afternoon.  I put the roof on then decided to show them how great the houses can look with a tea light candle inside...but there weren't any tea lights.  We decided to try cutting up a normal candle...so I did...I lit it...the kids all applauded because it looked great.....then they started laughing and shouting hysterically because they'd noticed smoke coming out of the roof!!!!  The bloody candle was way too high and had almost set fire to the bloody cake!  The icing melted and one of the the roof panels slid off  but we quickly blew out the candle and I managed to fix the damage pretty well - next gingerbread house will have smoke alarms installed.

Hue Spring Rolls....

On the afternoon of Sunday 16th the staff of the HCC invited me to pop in to show them how to pipe icing flowers in return for a quick session teaching me how to make Hue Spring Rolls...or lacy spring rolls. 
Rosemary and I had ridden round West Lake (twice) and she had a report to finish before Tet so I jumped at the chance to fiddle with food!

We had a ball with the royal icing...you've seen the piped flowers, we also tried to do drop flowers and leaves too...

leaves....

everything is set aside and hardens beautifully so they can be stored for ages

little drop flowers with sugar pearls...

Icing session over then it was onto the spring rolls.....I think I will just show you the pictures rather than waffle too much...

Ingredients, carrot, daikon, shallots, dill tips, mackeral...that's it!

julienne the carrot

and the daikon...

finely slice the shallots

The batter is a mix of rice flour, tapioca flour, egg and water...you dip your fingers in and quickly drizzle them over a hot pan...it's harder than it looks...you have to keep the bin close by when you're learning so you can quickly hide the stuff ups!!!

one of Mr Hung's ...mine were no where near as good...thankfully it didn't matter in the end...

when it's cooked you simply lift it from the pan...

a pile of wrappers...looks like spaghetti doesn't it?

it took intense concentration to roll these filmy little numbers...

after rolling - before cooking...

start off shallow frying over a moderate heat...

once cooked enough to become firm turn the heat up a bit to brown...

drain on kitchen paper...

display artfully round the dipping sauce....

crispy on the outside, a multitude of textures on the inside...crunchy soft and juicy...yummy!

It was great fun and a real education to see how simple something so wonderful could be...apart from marinating the carrot and daikon in a little sugar, pepper and rice wine vinegar there was nothing ..extra added.  Just fresh veg, herbs and fish!

a strange week...

Through a combination of misunderstandings and apathy on my part (I got tired of forcing the issue) I've not had a lot to do lately.  Mr Doan has been working full time at the restaurant and up till Thursday the oven in the training kitchen still wasn't working so I've had nothing much to do.  So on Wednesday I went for a reconnoiter of the city.  I had a list of things to achieve.
1. Find the shop that sold the flower embosser - 100,000vd here, about $17 in Oz.
2. Return to the DVD shop with my computer so I wouldn't buy anymore dud movies (that simply wouldn't play or were dubbed out of sync).
3. Find and write down the address of the movie theater that Rosemary and I had been to once and never found again.
4. Take the books I had already read back to Bookworm to part exchange for some new ones.
So I rugged up...it's still pretty cold here, and set off; map in hand.
Taking the scenic route over the causeway I had no problems getting to the place I thought the movie theatre was meant to be...one street over and hurrah...there it was 20 Hang Bai (near the corner of Hai Ba Trung) only a block from the lake.  We like it because it's a lot cheaper than the big Megamovie theatre and there's a funny little restaurant nearby where we can eat inside (on these cold dark nights that's a drawcard).

When I got to the lake I saw that some of the Tet decorations were up.  Huge balloons that look like beach balls were bobbing over the lake, suspended by filament lines. 

It looks quite whimsical; all the balloons dancing with their vibrant red tails flowing in the breeze.

It doesn't matter how often I see this tiny pagoda in the middle of Hoan Kiem lake, I still stop and admire it's miniature perfection.

Entering the Old Quarter of Hanoi is not an experience for the faint hearted.  The traffic is compressed into the tiny streets but dosn't seem to want to slow down.  There is no space on the footpaths; they are for parking motorbikes on.  Between the locals and the wandering tourists it's heaving with people.  I've been lost in there so often that now I walk with my map in hand and stop and check it almost every cross street.  My navigating served me well this time and I found my cake decorating shop in record time.  Last time I was here with Doan the woman quoted me 110,000vd for the flower embosser.  This time I found a young woman eating lunch with her mates.  I was pretty much ignored outside so I went in and had a poke around.  I've been watching You Tube instruction videos of how to pipe flowers.  You need a flower pin, which is a thing that looks like a huge drawing pin.  You hold onto the 'pin' part and pipe the flower onto the 'head' of the pin.

Our first attempts with the piping pin

Even the stuff  ups look quite pretty

   Well, I found one, made of plastic.  I took it outside and asked how much.  The young woman's pal translated my crappy Vietnamese and I was told 10,000vd (50c), fine, I got two.  Then I reached for the embosser.  I was told 90,000vd ($4.50)... a saving of 50c from last time.  I countered with an offer 0f 100,000vd for the embosser and both flower pins.  The young woman had such a fierce frown on her face... no...110,000vd.  I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud and making a frowny face too...she really was laying it on with the grimace.  At that she and her pals couldn't help themselves and all cracked up giggling too.  We all had a good laugh and she smilingly let me have my little victory.  Just in case you think I'm being a miserable cow you can rest assured that the price I paid would still have been well in excess of what she would have asked of a Vietnamese.  The average price we are asked it about 5 times the usual price.  So while I'm happy to pay double or even triple it's always good to bargain...provided you do it with good humor and accept that there are times when the price is the price ( I've found that fabric sellers don't do much bargaining unless you buy large quantities ).  So I went on my way, smiling and happy that I had checked off two of my objectives.

I popped into Dong Xuan markets as I went past to check out material (I'm getting some stuff made up)...happened to glance over the banister as I was climbing the stairs and saw this wonderful angle...it's the dried fruit...looks great.

Look at what's holding up the second tier...

Number three was ticked off also - DVD shop found and DVD's checked before buying (out of 8 that I checked 3 worked).   Then I headed for Bookworm.  This wonderful little place is at the back of the Hanoi Cooking Center.  They sell new and second hand books, but they also pay 1/3 of the marked price for your old books.  I've been three times now, it's a great way to keep overheads low and yet still have plenty of reading material.
Tracy noticed me as I passed the kitchen window and we had a nice catch up.  When she heard that I had quite a bit of free time she offered me her Vietnamese cooking classes in exchange for presenting classes to her staff.  I'd mentioned the croquembouche class I'd done at Koto so we arranged to do another the next day.
It was a great success,  Tracy's business partner Mr Linh took some amazing photos of the class but I've yet to get hold of them so please be patient.
By the time the class finished it was 6.30pm and since his family were out of Hanoi Mr Hung and I set off on another culinary adventure...he took me to the 'sticky rice' street.  It's the perfect food for the cold weather.  A layer of sticky rice at the bottom of the bowl, topped with a thin of slivers of green bean 'dough' (the beans are cooked into a sort of dough, much like a very dense mashed potato but more solid) then either pate or the lovely Vietnamese 'meatloaf' and slices of sausage.  It was really tasty and perfect for the shivery weather. 

this is the sticky rice with the pate

With the pate on the left, pickles and with the meatloaf and yummy thin slices of spicy sausage...

  After that we had to pop into Mr Hung's favourite bia hoi in the old quarter...but the sticky rice filled us both up and we could only manage one drink before heading home.  He was off to the country to cook for hundreds of people the next day as his brother was getting married.
I had a disastrous start to the next day...but more of that later...