Vietnamese Spring Rolls: A Reflection

The cooking project was one of the best times we had during Vietnamese Class. Everyone gathered around with the excitement of food and the nervousness of presention. The teachers made the process easier by giving us pointers whenever we needed help.

We started out by peeling and washing the vegetables. It was crazy and hectic with all groups around, but we managed to do it somehow. The carrots needed to be washed and peeled and the lettuce needed to be picked. We finished all of this in due time. We spent a lot of time just preparing the veggies and boiling things in the kitchen. At one point, our group thought we were done, but cô Lê and cô Quyền pointed out that we were missing the pork! Luckily, she guided us to a convenience store nearby and we were able to get the necessary ingredient for the dish!

While the pork was boiling, we all did our part to prepare for the rolling of the spring rolls. Denis knew how to cut the prawns and did a wonderful job preparing them. He even mentioned that he got them fresh too, which I think gave us an advantage in the taste category! Instead of using traditional mint leaves, we changed the recipe a little bit and got laksa leaves instead. We think they tasted better, since the traditional mint leaves were a bit on the strong side while the laksa leaves seemed to be perfect. Cô Quyền helped us out with wrapping! Yay! Thanks! We also changed the method a little, also. Instead of dipping it into water, Denis suggested we used a spray bottle to spray the wrap and wet it, which turned out very well!


Finally, we worked on the dipping sauce and the decorations! We had a lot of fun doing the decorations! Sabrina also cut a beautiful tomato shaped flower for the centerpiece. Lisa cut one for the dipping sauce decorations. We arranged the spring rolls into a circle to avoid them sticking to one another, which was a problem when they were wet. The dipping sauce was also easy enough to make. We didn't put too much chillies in there for fear they would be too spicy. All in all, we had an excellent time and would recommend this class just for this group project alone! It was an excellent bonding activity and we learned how to cook from it! I would say our dish turned out to look very beautiful and tasty to boot! We <3 Vietnamese class!

We were so proud of our work! We knew we just had to show off and model them!

Denis

Sabrina

Lisa

Vietnamese Spring Rolls! (The centerpiece was excellently done by Sabrina)

Dipping Sauce

The Judging! (Scary but exciting! Cô Bích is an excellent cook so she makes a good judge!)

Group with our wonderful Teacher (Left to Right):

Lisa Tran, cô Lê, Seah Su Shan Sabrina, & Yap Soon Ghee Denis