Chè đậu xanh, green bean sweeeeeeeeeeeeet soup!

Chào các cô, chào các bạn,

Ngày mai, chúng ta đi nhà cô Bích để nấu ăn!

Thời gian (time):
Chúng tôi đến nhà cô Bích lúc mười giờ rưỡi sáng.

Địa điểm (Location):
Nhà cô Bích: 57 Cairnhill road, #10-11, Elizabeth Heights, Orchard or Newton MRT (Nhà cô Bích đẹp lắm!)

Nhiệm vụ (task)
Nấu ăn : Chè đậu xanh (green bean sweet soup):
We came out with a theme for our cooking project -high class Vietnamese green bean soup for a romantic candlelight dinner.

In an all-girls group, we happily played the “he loves me, he loves me not” rose “dismantling” game while decorating our dish and waiting for a stove to be available.As we were the last few groups to do the cooking and we didn’t want to waste food, we have decided to cook a smaller portion compared to the other groups. (and small is beautiful!)





Our recipe for the traditional favourite, chè đậu xanh:
225 g Skinned split mung beans, soaked in water for 3 hours and drained
500ml Coconut milk
50 g Caster (superfine) sugar
Toasted coconut shavings (optional), to serve

Method :
•Put the mung beans in a pan and pour in 500 ml water.
•Bring the water to the boil, stirring constantly, then reduce the heat and simmer until all the water has been absorbed.
•Press the beans through a sieve, or puree them in a blender.
•In a heavy pan, heat the coconut milk with the sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
•Gently stir in the pureed mung beans, making sure the soup is thoroughly mixed and heated through.
•Serve hot in warmed bowls sprinkled with toasted coconut shavings, if liked.





Cooking can be interesting!
We took turns to stir our mung beans while waiting for the water to be completely absorbed by the green beans. Sau đó, Miss Bibi helped us to blend the green beans using the mashed-potato-blender. (Thanks Bibi!)
Our pureed mung beans looked exactly like the mashed potato; we added our mung beans paste into the heated coconut milk with added sugar. We continued to stir the pureed mung beans in the coconut milk, to make sure the soup is thoroughly mixed.
Ta tang - - - -> a smooth silky green bean soup is finally produced.
We waited for the soup to cool down before we professionally scoop and fill the glass with the soup so as to not ruin our high class, fine dining, and romantic image.

And we had our very first taste of chè đậu xanh, Vietnamese green bean soup 
-simply a “bobochacha-tau suan” hybrid for the locals-

Our group: Dung, Ánh, Ngân, Hòa (from left)

Cám ơn cô Lê, cô Bích, và cô Quỳnh! Cám ơn các bạn!

Chúng tôi rất thích LAV1201cooking project.
Đồ ăn Việt Nam ngon quá!
Well done, everyone! *a round of applause*
(note that, we have zero food poisoning case :p)
We enjoyed ourselves on that day. Nấu ăn session is fun and really brought many of us closer together –a bonding session for sinh viên tiếng Việt!

Hẹn gặp các cô và các bạn ở lớp tiếng Việt 
When we are free, chúng ta đi uống cà phê ở nhà cô Bích nhé!

Gỏi cuốn

It has been well-known amongst NUS students that taking up language module is a very tough task. However, it is only partially true for LAV1201. We must say that learning Vietnamese language is not easy but the module structure is very fun.

LAV1201 is the only module that offers projects that give no stress to the students. The previous visit to the Asian Civilisation Museum exposed us to the history of Vietnam .This time round we do not only learn but we get to EXPERIENCE the Vietnamese culture by cooking and eating Vietnamese food. Learning a language is never complete without learning its culture.

Our group chose to do the famous Vietnamese Cold Salad Roll (gỏi cuốn). We chose this dish because we thought it should be easiest among all other options as it does not involve much cooking. Conversely, later on we realise that the ingredients wasn't easy to sort. Hien had a hard time looking for the Thai basil leaves, chives and mint leaves. As we were preparing the ingredients at cô Bích's house, we had fun teasing at each other's cooking skills. It seems like most of us do not cook regularly.

Duc having difficulty using the peeler for his very first time.

Ly and Suong trying to slice the cucumbers as thin as possible.

The messy table as we were preparing the Gỏi cuốn.

After trying many many times, only half of our Gỏi cuốn was presentable. The others were either too hideous or lack of one of the ingredients. Nonetheless, the not-so-successful Gỏi cuốn were not wasted, they were all eaten up by our group mates.

Our cold Vietnamese salad rolls displayed simplicity, flavour and colours. The choice of ingredients definitely played a part in its characteristics. The fresh prawns gave it its orange colour, the vegetables gave the green, and the rice paper just shows off its colourful ingredients within. The mint and basil leaves gave it its powerful taste and even so with the special sauce that was pre-made. Placing all the groups’ creations on the table, the table displays a picturesque sight of colours and variety.

Tadah..~ Our final product. The rolls look much better with a bit of garnishing.
The sauce prepared by Xuan was very very good.

Judge of the day =D

Class photo

Despite learning about the cuisine, we get to experience the hospitality of Vietnamese people too. Having cô Bích to host this cooking project at her house truly shows that Vietnamese people are hospitable. Cô Lê and cô Quỳnh were also eagerly walking around to see if we needed help in preparing the dishes. Besides, thay Minh also brought some Vietnamese jelly made by his wife. All these small gestures were significant to illustrate the warmth among Vietamese society.

The Smiling Chicken Salad

NUS students often get stress up when it comes to project. However, everyone was so hyped up for this cooking project. On the actual day, we met at Newton Mrt and realized our chicken was insufficient (Junyi was the one doing the grocery shopping). Moreover, we saw other groups carrying bouquets of flowers, straw baskets, and beautiful plates for decoration and we have …… none. In the end, we plucked some flowers (morning glory) on our way to Co Bich’s apartment to use it for our decoraton.

We started off with food preparation.

Here’s the task allocation of our group:

Huiteen aka the Master Chef
- Superb knives handling skill (most of the cutting is done by her)

Khai Yinn aka Professional Vegetable Washer
- The vegetables washed by her was spotless and clean (mind you, it’s an important job coz we are eating raw vegetables)

Cheng Xiang aka Fast Hand Chicken Peeler
- Peel the chicken to shreds at an amazing speed
- Assist in the cooking of the chicken

Jun Yi aka Secret Sauce Mixer
- Assist in the cooking of chicken
- Mixing of the secret sauce

While we are cooking, we send 2 of our most diplomatic members; Junyi and Cheng Xiang to borrow more chicken, lime, and cabbage from other groups, as our ingredients are running low. We finished our dish in 2hours, which is quite early and end up swatting flies. Unfortunately, Junyi and Huiteen have to leave early and didn't get a chance to taste othe fabulous dishes. Overall, we really enjoyed cooking and tasting the Vietnamese food together with friends. Through this cooking project, we get to know more Vietnamese food and how they actually taste like. Khai Yinn favourite’s Vietnamese food is pho’ and pink banana soup, partly because it is in pink (her favourite colour).

We would like to thank the teachers for organizing this event for us. Thank you very much!

Group Members: Jun Yi, Cheng Xiang, Huiteen, Khai Yinn

Here Our Secret Recipe:
Vietnamese Chicken Salad
Ingredients:
- Chicken breast: 200g
- Onion: 2 pieces
- Mint leaves and Coriander leaves
- Ginger, Garlic
- Rice vinegar, fish sauce, sugar, chilli, lime, salt, black pepper,seasame
Method:
- Boil chicken breast, add salt (a bit) and ginger
- Shred the cooked chicken into thin strips with your hands and place in a large bowl. Also chop chicken skin in to small pieces(not as small as the shredded chicken)
- Toss chicken with salt (1/2 tea spoon) + black pepper (1/4 tea spoon) + lime juice(1 table spoon) + sugar(1/2 table spoon)
- Wash onions and put in water for 15 mins, then chop into 4cm-long thin pieces. Finely toss with vinegar and put in same bowl with shredded chicken.
- Make the salad dressing: Vinegar(1 table spoon), lime juice(2 table spoon), fish sauce(2 table spoon), sugar(1 tea spoon), ginger(1 tea spoon), chilli (2 pieces, remove the seeds and finely chop), garlic (2 tea spoon, finely chopped), all mixed together in a mixing bowl until the sugar has dissolved
- Pour the dressing over the salad, add mint and coriander leaves and toss all the ingredients together until they are well combined
- Put in a nice plate, add some chopped chili and fried sesames for decoration
YOU ARE DONE !!!! :D

Chè Đậu Xanh ngon nhất!

Chè Đậu Xanh, the fabulous desert presented by our group might not be able to compete with Cô Bich's pink jelly-bannana soup, at least not in terms of colours and extravagance. But despite or becuase of its simplicity, it was clearly the preferred desert of the day - in no time at all, the big bowl filled with Chè was suddenly empty, even before we could try it ourselves. The interplay of our rich and pure ingredients, the beans, water, coco nut milk and a little sugar triumphed into a experience of taste, matchless in simplicity and gentleness.

Chè Đậu Xanh - Sweet Vietnamese Mung Bean Soup

If you did not have a chance to try our soup, you might want to take down our recipe for the original Vietnamese Chè Đậu Xanh (4-6 serves):

• 225 g Skinned split mung beans, soaked in water for 3 hours and drained; (Insider Tip: Buy the bright yellow, peeled, split mung beans for this soup rather than the whole green ones.)
• 500 ml Coconut milk
• 100 g Caster (superfine) sugar

Method:

Put the soaked mung beans in a pan and pour in 500 ml water.

Bring the water to the boil, stirring constantly, then reduce the heat and simmer until all the water has been absorbed.

Press the beans through a sieve, or puree them in a blender.
In a heavy pan, heat the coconut milk with the sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

Gently stir in the pureed mung beans, making sure the soup is thoroughly mixed and heated through.

You can serve the soup warm or cold - depending on your taste. Best to try both: Eat it warm, when its fresh and keep some of the Chè cooled for the next day.

Boiling the water with the beans, watch the heat!

After a lot of simmering, squashing, mushing and sqeezing, the soup is ready to eat

For the attraction of the eye, Lian instructed us in building little swans,
big swans, big boxes and little turtles out of paper....

Các sinh viên tiếng Viêt Nam waiting for Chè Đậu Xanh
...which is standing in the middle of the table

Cô Bich trying our soup - Her face being very critical....

When the judges reached for our dish however, our confidence vanished for a short time. Being the first to try the soup, Cô Bich carefully tried one of our prepared samples, but instead of breaking into a fury of excitement, her facial expression winced for a moment - was is that horrible? A "tốt qua" from her mouth then reliefed us.... And as she passed on one of our little bowls to the friendly neighbour woman, who had taken photos of us with everyone's camera, we knew that it couldn't be that bad after all....

The image of the day was clearly the huge tabel filled with all the food... Mmhh it looked all so good! Well then, chào các bạn, chào các cô! Ăn ngon!

Lian, Rachel, Halimah, Dennis

IRON CHEF VIETNAM!

The Iron Chefs Of Vietnam presents to U, gỏi cuốn!

It was surprising that all the ingredients are readily available in Singapore supermarket. The marketing part was rather smooth but the actual process was not as easy as we thought! Starting from the making of the sauce we learnt that crushed peanuts will be the last ingredient to add in and we have to learn to balance between the use of lime and fish sauce so there will be a great mixture of salty and sour taste.

As for the cooking of the raw ingredients, we have to cook it longer to ensure that its cooked thoroughly inside out. As for the prawns, we do not wash the prawns after cooking as it will wash off the sweetness.

As for the wrapping of Vietnamese Spring Rolls, it was rather challenging as we need to estimate the amount of ingredients to add in so that it would not be overloaded or too thin. We also have trials and error with the positioning of the prawns so that the overall presentation would be good. There were many failed attempts due to the rice papers as we were not careful enough.

This cooking experience made us learnt about the essential ingredients used in Vietnamese food such as mint leaves. We also realised that the Vietnamese food uses more of the natural ingredients than flavouring them with spices. This “Vietnamese Food Festival” allowed us to taste food from the North to the South, experiencing all the great FOOD!

Now, let us share our SECRET RECIPE!

Spring Roll Ingredients

Lettuce
Sliced Carrots
Slices of chicken
Prawns
Parsley
Mint Leaves
Bean Sprouts
Rice Papers

Sauce Ingredients

Crushed Peanuts
Fish Sauce
Lime
Red Chilli Padi
Plain Water
Sugar

Garnishes Ingredients

Raisins
Carrots
Parsley
Green Pepper

Pictures Galore of our Vietnamese Cooking ADVENTURE! :D

Spring rolllllllll.

Oh we love it. The fun of preparing, cooking, learning, tasting and laughing.

And if you had been observant towards our group, you would have noticed the three of us hogging like happy piglets by the table at Cô Bích’s place!!

The truth is we have never seen such wonderfully crafted (and of course tasty!!) traditional Vietnamese dishes!! And to be made by the group of us, being “newbies” and some of us first-timers, it was just jaw-dropping. It was without a doubt an impressive attempt at the process. Just look at the final spread and you know what we mean… it arrested.

But as you know and we know,

the actual process of cooking is some hardship. It involves so many procedures and calls for patience and skills. Like in the process of making our Vietnamese spring roll, or gỏi cuốn,We realized how tough it was as we were readying the ingredients, to whip up a perfectly-shaped and heavenly tasting spring roll. Yes, it might seem easy… with the recipe on hand, following the procedures and then squeezing the ingredients inside the rice paper in randomness because no one sees it... But there was to be so many things in mind to take note of. For instance, the making of the peanut sauce would take time and endless rounds of trials and errors in order to achieve perfection, or the wrapping of an adequate quantity within the skin has to ensure quality presentation and size consistency; and also not forgetting, in the process of cooking, there had to be time management, kitchen orientation and dish presentation.

Nevertheless, the three of us enjoyed ourselves and were happy with our result. Might we also add: “the entire experience was one helluva blast!!”

It was an eye-opener, truly.

Here’s a poem that we wrote for our spring roll. Enjoy.

The characters gathered.
Their colours meshed up.
Beautiful and contrasting.
The delicate skin wrapped.
The layers compressed.
A pity it concealed.
But the mystery diluted.
Its translucency to blame.
The concealed became revealed.
Then tempting beyond the olfactory,And visual, our teeth sank in.
For the moment of savory to begin.

Chúng tôi rất thích nấu ăn!!

Cooking Project: The Chicken Salad Experience

Our colourful salad(Picture taken using camera phone)

It was really a great experience to me. Despite that we never try Vietnamese food in our life, we managed to come out something which is not very authentic but edible. [claps*]
Although there are only 4 steps in the recipe, but it also took us several hours in preparation. We all went to NTUC to purchase ingredients, wash and cut them. Luckily teamwork did work in our group! All of us divided the jobs and helped each other along the way. =)

On the actual day itself, we also encountered some difficulties in decoration and food tasting. Fortunately, our lecturers are very helpful and friendly. Not only giving us advice on the taste of the food but also teaching us how to decorate our dish! Thousand thanks for all of them. As our team is a ‘Malaysian’ team (all of us come from Malaysia), it was really headache for us when making the salad sauce. Maybe we are more used to the ‘spicy’ in our home country, our product seemed like too ‘hot’ and ‘spicy’ to some people. Anyway, I really felt that it taste nice! Maybe I can only taste the sweetness of our effort.

Overall, it was really a great learning opportunities for every of us! Not only learnt more about Vietnamese cultural but also build bonding among us. I enjoyed this Vietnamese food festival very much.

Pictures taken on the day:

OMG!!!Florence acting shy.

Look out.There's a strong gust of wind blowing

Pre-preparation of our ingredient

Not forgetting the peanuts.

Some of our ingredient; Peanuts, carrot, bean sprout

4 very serious looking worker preparing the food

Now left 2 very serious workers.Where's the other 2???

Here is one.Happily eating the food

And another 1 enjoying in co bich house.But where's is Florence???

Our final product.Look a bit like chinese food though.

Judgement Day.The food tasting time. Looking at both of them, it seems like all the food are quite tasty and edible.