Saturday, October 25, 2008

Chả giò

Chả giò is the traditional vietnamese spring roll, also known as “Imperial Roll”, used to be a delicacy made for the royalty. Today, it is a dish enjoyed by both Vietnamese as well as foreigners.


Ingredients for filling
Garlic: 1/2 clove, finely minced
Yellow Onion: 200g (finely chopped)
Carrot: 150g (finely chopped)
Dry vermicelli: 30g
Earwood (tree ear mushrooms): 30g
Black mushroom: 30g
Minced pork or chicken: 300g
Beansprouts: 1/4 cup
Egg: 02
Pepper, sugar: 1/10 teaspoon
Fish sauce

Ingredients for dipping sauce
Vinegar or fresh lime juice: 01 teaspoon
Fresh Chilli, garlic: 01 teaspoon
Sugar: 1 teaspoon
Fish Sauce: 1 teaspoon

Other ingredients
Round Rice Paper
Cooking Oil


Cooking Instructions

1. Place the vermicelli and earwood in separate bowls. Add warm water to cover to each bowl and let stand until soft, about 30 minutes.

2. Drain the vermicelli and cut into 2-inch lengths. Drain and rinse the mushrooms; chop coarsely.

3. In a large bowl, combine the carrots, noodles, mushrooms, onion, shallots, garlic, bean sprouts, fish sauce, pepper, and chicken or pork. Then, mix them together well.


4. Soften the rice paper: Dampen several clean kitchen towels with water. Fill a pie plate with cold water. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve it. Spread a damp towel on a flat work surface. Dip 1 rice paper round at a time into the water and spread it flat on the towel. Continue dipping and laying the rice papers in a single layer. When you run out of room, lay a damp towel on top of the rounds and continue, always alternate a layer of rice papers with a damp towel. Let the rice papers stand until pliable, about 1 minute or longer.

5. For each roll, shape 2 tablespoons filling into a compact cylinder about 1 inch in diameter and 3 inches long and place along the lower edge of a wrapper.

6. To fry the rolls, pour oil to a depth of 1 1/2 inches in a large frying pan. Place over medium-high heat and heat to 350 degrees F.

7. Using long chopsticks or tongs, lower a few rolls into the pan, leaving plenty of space between them. Fry, turning often, until golden brown and crisp, about 5 minutes.


8. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Place on a platter and keep warm while frying the remaining rolls.

9. Dipping sauce: Put fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice, garlic and chili in a large mixing bowl; add 2 spoonfuls of water in, then stir well. This sauce is best made 1 hour ahead.


On the day prior to the actual cooking session, we headed over to Dương's house to do the preparation work and also to ‘try out’ the recipe. While shopping, we met Cô Quỳnh at NTUC!

Being our first encounter with the vietnamese rice paper, we were really clumsy in the rolling process and we ended up rolling Chả giò of different length, thickness and appearance. As inexperienced chefs, we met with the largest challenge of having to ‘titrate’ our own proportion of the ingredients and fish sauce before we could get the right taste after mutiple attempts at the end of the day.

In addition, we had brainstormed on how to present our dish. After much discussion, we decided to present the dish in a round basket, as basket weaving is quite common in Vietnam. The orchids on top of the yellow cloth surrounding the dish, and the two flags by the side, one of Vietnam’s and the other of Singapore’s, show the fusion of the two cultures. The harmony between the colours is representative of the friendship between the two countries. The whole presentation is livened up by the dragonfly from Vietnam, which has just ‘landed’ on the handle of the basket, adding life and vigour to the dish, just like the youths learning with humility from our teachers. Finally, the blade of leaf has the words, “Chúc các cô, các thầy, các bạn và các em vui vẻ!” on them. This is from the team, as we wish everyone happy, especially after eating our Chả giò.

On the morning of 18th October 2008, the four of us met at Newton MRT station and walked to Cô Bich’s house. Due to the preparation and rehearsal we had from the previous night, we felt light-hearted and relaxed.

Soon, we settle down at Cô Bich’s dining table and began wrapping our Chả giò . During the wrapping session, Cô Bich shared with us a few tips on how to wrap the filling more tightly and the appropriate length of . As Dương and Quỳnh were busying wrapping Chả giò , Chau and Đông prepared the sauce. However, the sauce turned out to be too sour as too much lime was added. Being clueless, we turn to Cô Bich (our master chief) for advice. Cô Bich added in lots of sugar, fish sauce and a small amount of water and our sauce tasted better than before.

While waiting for the kitchen to be available, we started to prepare the decoration of our dish presentation. With some time to kill, the four of us took a walk around Cô Bich’s condominium and went around checking up on other groups. In between, we had small chats with them and exchanged some tips.

Finally, the kitchen was free and we are allowed to fry our Chả giò. Dương and Quỳnh were in charge of frying while Châu and Đông did the final touch-up on the presentation. After much anticipation, we had finally completed frying all our Chả giò. Upon reaching the outdoor garden, we realised that everyone was waiting for us. However, when they saw our dish, they were amazed and go ‘wow’. Despite feeling sorry for making everyone wait, we felt excited about our Chả giò as our classmates seems impressed.


Finally, the food evaluation began. On the table, there were salads, rice noodle, spring rolls and desserts. Cô Bich, Cô Lê and Cô Quỳnh began to savor all our products and gave their comments. The comments we received was that the filling in our Chả giò tasted different from the traditional Vietnamese Chả giò , however, our presentation looked great. After the food evaluation, it was everybody favorite time, which was ‘eating time’. The day was ended with a group photo of us and us enjoying the food.



Through this project, we had learnt a lot about Vietnamese food and the process of preparing them. All groups have really put in effort in preparing their own dishes and we enjoyed ourselves too!
Cám ơn các em!
By
Dương, Quỳnh, Châu, Đông

1 comment:

LAV@NUS said...

Tối nay, cô Quỳnh chưa ăn gì. Vào blog của các em đọc, thèm ăn chả giò quá. Nhớ mẹ nữa. Vì mẹ cô Quỳnh làm chả giò rất ngooooooooooooon.