Vietnamese Salad Rolls

Vào trước thứ bảy, chúng em nấu đồ ăn Việt ở nhà Thầy Minh cho project lớp tiếng Việt. Our group is supposed to nấu gỏi cuốn. Prior to the actual day of the cooking project, our group was very keen to try out the recipe we have found online. Therefore, we decided to luyện tập ở nhà Huyền vào thứ sáu.

 

Trước dến nhà Huyền, sau giờ học chúng em gặp lúc bốn giờ chiều ở Vivocity để mua ingredients ở chợ.

The ingredients for gỏi cuốn are:

Vietnamese rice paper

Cooked chicken (shredded)

Cooked small shrimp (halved)

Coriander leaves

Butterhead leafy lettuce

Carrot (thin strips)

Cucumber (thin strips)

Bean sprout

Bee hoon

Vietnamese fish sauce (provided by cô Bích ở nhà Thầy Minh)

Sau khi mua ingredients, chúng em đến nhà Huyện ở Chua Chu Kang với nhau. By the time chúng em dến nhà Huyền, it was already rather late. Chúng em bắt đầu nấu ăn lúc bảy giở ruỡi tối. Chúng em took một tiếng to prepare the ingredients. Ly and Tiến bắt đầu to slice the carrots, cucumber, and lettuce. Tuyết and Nguyệt bắt đầu nấu ăn the meat and bee hoon while Huyền shelled the prawns. While Huyền boiled the prawns, bạn ấy was surprised that the prawns started to shrivel. Initially we thought that the prawns might not be fresh. Nhưng ở nhà Thầy Minh, cô Bich nói chúng em shouldn't have shelled the prawns before we cooked it. We also could not find chicken breast meat at the supermarket due to late shopping, hence we ended up using minced chicken meat which cannot give the taste shredded chicken gives. Besides that, not knowing what to do, we soaked the rice paper for too long and we didn’t know how to go about rolling it, the gỏi cuốn ended up to be broken and in weird shapes.

Our prawn and minced chicken
BIG NONO!

Với lại chúng em không có fish sauce hay hoisin sauce to dip our gỏi cuốn in so they tasted hơi bland and raw. Sau đó, we started to discuss how to go about decorating our dish. Vì chúng em ít khi nấu ăn ở nhà, we had a very difficult time cutting the carrots into flowers and heart shapes. Cuối cùng, sau khi luyện tập bốn mươi lăm phút, we managed to make some decent-looking decorations! And then, it was finally giờ cơm tối! As you know, we are all amateur cooks, you could imagine how the rolls looked like, couldn't you? =P

Although the end product was not exactly tasty (yes, it was edible), our group had lots of fun, be it from the buying of ingredients, and preparation of the ingredients or even the final sampling of our gỏi cuốn . Chúng em rất mệt nhưng rất vui! We were all ready for hôm sau! =D

Our eager hearts to prepare the gỏi cuốn had but one complaint. The timing to reach Thầy Minh’s house was sớm lắm for some of us who were sống ở the other ‘corner’ of Singapore! Chúng em dến ít mụon. Fortunately, vì the groups before us chưa xong chúng em had to wait a while in the house. Nhưng, có các cô gái trong our group, the norm was to take lots of photos!

 

Finally, it was chúng em turn to bắt đầu nấu ăn! Firstly, chúng em học how to make beautiful decorations out of ingredients such as tomato, chilli, carrot, lime, orange and cucumber from cô Bích to decorate and make our dish look more appetizing and appealing! Vì cô Bích rất sáng tạo và skilled, she is able to turn these plain-looking vegetables into different shapes of flowers and baskets! Nhưng cô Bich insisted that “It’s very easy one, it’s not magic!” 

Sau đó, cô Bich taught chúng em how to make the gỏi cuốn. Chúng em had to soak the rice paper only for a few seconds and place it on a spring roll plate that could only be bought from Việt Nam. Then cô Bich started by placing small amounts of each ingredient chúng em had prepared on the rice paper. Then carefully but firmly, cô Bich wrapped up the spring roll into a nice cylindrical shape.

Then it was our turn to wrap gỏi cuốn. Nhưng, chúng em realised it was not as easy as it looks. Each of us gave it our best in following cô Bích’s instructions nhưng our first few tries ended up with gỏi cuốn that ảe rectangular-shaped, too skinny and too fat!

Look at our first trial! Whose salad roll is the nicest?

(From left: cô Bích, Ly, Huyền, Nguyệt, Tuyết và Tiến)

With much practice and Ly’s hơi tốt ‘rolling’ skills, chúng em finally managed to produce a plate of decent-looking gỏi cuốn! With the decorations that we came up with and those taught by cô Bich, our dish ít nhất trông presentable. Thế thì tốt quá!

This is our end product. Pretty isn’t it?

Our overall cooking experience can be summed up in these few words - blood, sweat and tears. Blood vì Ly accidentally cut herself while carving out a flower from a carrot. Sweat vì nhà Thầy Minh đông người lắm and thus stuffy and warm. Tears vì of the onions that chúng em cut nhưng chưa used.

Prior to making the salad rolls, we were contemplating whether the salad rolls were palatable. After all, the salad rolls which we are supposed to make contained mostly vegetables which some of us không thích. Luckily, it actually tasted hơi tốt đặc biệt với the fish sauce! 

Sadly, vì chúng em had something on after the cooking session and had to go off early, chúng em missed the food-testing and judging part of the session. It's really a pity as we missed out on all the fun!! Tiéc quá! 

Through this project, chúng em got to know one another even better. On top of that, it was an awesome event for us to take time off our busy schedules to immerse ourselves in fun and laughter, at the same time learning more về văn hóa Việt Nam through its traditional đồ ăn.

(Chuanxin- Nguyệt, Xue Qi- Tuyết, Li Su- Ly, Shawn – Tiến, Qiu Xuan- Huyền)