Saturday, March 20, 2010

Vietnamese Salad rolls

Xin chào các bạn!
Chúng em là Lệ, Hõng, Duyên, Huy và Lâm. Tên tiếng Anh là SokHwei, Vivien, Sarah Terence và Cinny.
Vào thứ bảy, chúng tôi nấu ăn ở nhà thầy Minh.
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Chúng tôi đen nhà thầy Minh lúc chin giờ sang nhưng bắt đầu nấu ăn lúc mười một giờ trưa vì nhà thầy Minh rất đông người. chúng tôi nấu gỏi cuốn. Nguyên liệu của gỏi cuốn là bún, rau, ran thơm, nước Hoisin và thịt gà. Gỏi cuốn là món ăn lạnh. Chúng tôi hơi thích đồ ăn của chúng tôi vì đắng.
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It was fun looking vì chúng tôi chưa bao giờ nầu ăn. Buổi nấu ăn rắt vui nhưng mệt lắm.
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Có Bích suggested some improvement to our original recipe. We each prepared some of the ingredients for the dish. It was obvious that some of us were experienced while the others excelled in other areas but that did not deter us from preparing our dish. We used the wrong basil and added Japanese garnish to the dish. Hence it did not turn out as perfect as it would. We tried to salvage the situation by working on our decorations.
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We realized that decorating the dish require talent and teamwork. Cooking is not as simple as it seems. Now, we can better appreciate home cooked food. Preparation and experimentation before the cooking is needed because… PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!!!

:D:D:D
NOTE: THIS IS A SERIOUS PROJECT
NO FOOLING AROUND
Cuối cùng, chũng tôi gặp nhiều mới bạn. Thế thì tốt quá! Chào các bạn!
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Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Chào các cô va các bạn! Chúng em là Hùng, Đại, Kiên, Phượng và Thành. Chúng em were in charge of making chá giò, which is the Vietnamese spring rolls. The experience we had was rất vui và enriching. We had a lot of fun cooking and we managed to get know one another better. Preparations were tough and tedious though.

In this blog post, we will share our cooking experience, and we hope future sinh viên tiếng Việt will enjoy this project also. =)


Tối thứ sáu chúng em đi ntuc ở Ang Mo Kio mua đồ ăn nấu chá giò. Ch rt đông ngưi. However, that did not deter us vì chúng em rt chăm ch
In picture: Kiên & Hùng 
  
 



Sau đó chúng em đi nh
à Hùng to practice how to nu chá gìo.
We even spent some time to plan and prepare the decorations and ingredients to get all set for the next day nhà thy Minh.
 
We spent about 5 gi cooking, t 7 gi ti đến 12 gi đêm. It may be rt mt nhưng vui. 

In picture: Kiên & Hùng
 














Our samples. T
ốt quá, phải không?


Upon arrival, we were initially very excited. However we realized that the house was very packed. Even though it was inconvenient, it was nice to see các ban và các cô there. 

packed nhà!
 
Vì nhà rt đông ngưi, 5 of us had to roll our spring rolls on just one chair in the lift lobby =(.


Ingredient mixed well.




On that day, our thân thin cô qùynh helped us with some preparation by giving us tips, and helping us put a bit of fish sauce into the spring rolls. This would enhance the taste of the spring roll. 
However, we did not put enough fish sauce as we were afraid it would be too strong. =(


These are our pre-frying products.
Chá giò trông rất tốt, phải không? =p


The frying process was different from what we had practiced as there were many teams frying before that and we had to wait for more than mt gi
In picture: Hùng, Phượng & Kiên
 





Sadly, due to the lack of time, we could not shower as much care to the spring rolls as we had desired. 

See how panicked we were!
Thế thì chán quá ! 

Thus, we fried the rolls at an unusual, very hot temperature to speed up the cooking process.

Unfortunately, this had negative ramifications on our final product. Our rolls did not look up to our ideal standard as what we had initially practiced the day before.
 Chán quá..........

 During the tasting process, we received some constructive feedback from Cô Bich on how to improve on it. However, we were quite pleased that we received positive feedback from everyone else, since taste and cooking are very subjective. Nevertheless, we were extremely vui with our spring rolls! 
From left: Đại, Thành, Kiên, Phượng và Hùng
Nevertheless, it was a good experience!
Total time spent: 2 ngày
Total manpower: 5 ngưi
Total price of ingredients: 16 tin
Immersing in the Vietnamese culture with my friends: Priceless!

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)

Vietnamese Dessert: Chè Đậu Xanh(Sweet Green Bean Soup)

Chào các cô, chào các bạn,

Nhóm các em có năm người, là Việt, Bắc, Bình, Xuân và Huệ. Chúng ta muốn nấu ăn chè đậu xanh, vì chúng ta thích ăn cửa ngọt. Bây giờ̀ chúng ta chia vật kinh nghiệm các em với các có và các bạn.

Ngày mai, chúng ta đi nhà thầy Minh để nấu ăn!

Thời gian (Time):
Chúng tôi đến nhà thầy Minh lúc tám giờ sáng.

Địa điểm (Location):
Nhà thầy Minh

Nhiệm vụ (Task):
Nấu ăn: Chè đậu xanh (green bean sweet soup):

Danh từ chè đậu xanh (Green bean soup recipe) for 10servings:
500 g Skinned split mung beans, soaked in water for more than 3 hours and drained
500ml Coconut milk
100 g Caster (superfine) sugar
Pinch of salt
Pandan leaves
Soaked sago pearls (optional)
Toasted coconut shavings (optional), to serve

Phương pháp (Method):

1. Put the mung beans and pandan leaves
in a pan and pour in 1 litre of water.



















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







































3. Press the beans through a sieve
(puree them in a blender for better results).




























4. In a heavy pan, heat the coconut milk
with the sugar, stirring until the sugar
has dissolved.

5. Gently stir in the pureed mung beans,
(add salt and soaked sago pearls),
making sure the soup is thoroughly
mixed and heated through.





















6. Wait for the chè đậu xanh to cool
and then put it in the fridge to chill.


7. Take it out of the fridge when it is
ready to be served. (Alternatively,
the chè đậu xanh can also be served
warm.)


Our group had arranged to meet at Bukit Panjang Bus Interchange at 7.45am, but everyone was late. In spite of that, we were still the earliest group to reach thầy Minh’s house. We were so early that we even caught a glimpse of their family in pyjamas. We had fun playing with his son before we started with our cooking.

We experience a few drawbacks while of cooking. The first major hiccup was the recipe which we had found on the internet. We were really suspicious when we saw that we were supposed to add 1 litre of coconut milk. We thought it looked very much like some coconut soup recipe instead! We asked cô Quỳnh and cô Bích for advice, and they suggested that we reduce the amount of coconut milk by 3/5. We were too focused on improving our ‘coconut soup’, so much so that we forgot about the sago pearls which we were cooking in another pot. When we finally remembered its existence, the sago pearls had disappeared and in its place, we saw a pot of glue! Oh My God. Just imagine how horrified we were! We decided to just not include the sago pearls in our soup since it was optional. Later, we requested that cô Bích try our soup to see if it tasted alright. We were dealt with yet another blow when she commented that our beans were not entirely cooked and that it was supposed to be really soft and smooth. But it was too late, what is done is done and we had to hand the kitchen over to the other groups that were waiting to use the stove. Although our mung beans were slightly uncooked, our soup still tasted very good.

Since we were one of the first groups to finish cooking, we went down to the poolside with some other groups while waiting for the rest to be done. We spent some time making vietnamese flags out of coloured paper and toothpicks, as part of the decoration and presentation of our chè đậu xanh.















After that, cô Lê introduced to us a Vietnamese game which the Vietnamese play during the new year. We had fun “gambling” (only with sweets of course!) and bonding with our friends as well.

At the end of the eating and tasting session, our pot of chè đậu xanh was empty, thanks to die-hard fans of our soup. Thank you so much for your support, we love you people!!! :D We enjoyed ourselves very much and will try to improve our signature dish!!






























Chúng tôi rất thích LAV1201cooking project! :)
Đồ ăn Việt Nam ngon quá! :)
Thế thí tốt quá!
Hẹn gặp các cô và các bạn ở lớp tiếng Việt!