Norah, our teacher/chef for today’s class tells us we’ll begin with a visit to a local market to purchase the ingredients we need for our menu which is:
- Banana Flower Salad
- Fried Spring Rolls & BBQ Pork with Rice
Vermicelli and Dipping Sauce (bun cha)
As with most wet markets in Hanoi, there are parts that are confronting – and we were warned about these before entering the market. The seafood is alive (the baby shrimps still jumping) – as is some of the other produce. There’s no refrigeration but we’re told the pork and chicken is as fresh as it’s possible to be. Even the rice noodles were made this morning.
Back to Rose Kitchen there’s a welcome drink of iced tea made with lemongrass, lime and cumquat juice, cinnamon, honey and sugar. It’s sweet but refreshing and perfect in this heat.
We’re introduced to the ingredients and the combination of tastes in Vietnamese cuisine, and are told how that is different between north and south – the north tends towards more sour while the south prefers more sweet. We’re also told this will be a hands-on class and we’ll all be contributing.
First up we get started on the banana flower salad. I’ve made this at home before, but had struggled with the preparation of the banana flower and now know I didn’t make the most of this ingredient. We eat it with sesame rice crackers and prawn crackers. I’ve included the recipe below.
Next up we prepare the spring rolls and put them aside for frying before moving onto the pork which will be barbecued outside. Finally we make the broth for the bun cha.
As we all oversee the barbecuing of the pork patties and pork belly strips, Norah fries the spring rolls.
With everything cooked, it’s time to eat.
And to finish? Norah mixes up some egg coffee …
Banana Flower Salad
Banana flower can be difficult to get, but we’re fortunate in that it is available at our local farmer’s market. While the recipe below contains cooked beef, we used shredded cooked chicken.
For more information check out the website.
And Anyways... 
What a fabulous experience, Jo and look at Grant getting into the cooking prep as well. It all looks delicious but I agree travelling can sometimes be confronting where food and lifestock is concerned. x
What a fantastic culinary experience, Jo. Everything looks so mouth-watering good although I’m not sure about egg coffee. Did you like the egg coffee? Thank you for sharing the recipe. #WWWHIMSY
Oh my gosh Jo, of course this didn’t disappoint! Beautiful photographs and descriptions and even the recipe. This looks so delicious! What an experience to do a vietnamese cooking class in actual Vietnam! I have never heard of egg coffee before. It looks very um … creamy? Did you like it? Thanks for linking up with #WWWhimsy Hope you enjoy your week! xo
so much delicious food here! love the look of that coffee!
This all looks amazing Jo, the colours, flavours and smells must have been a great experience for you! It all looks delicious and I love the format for your recipe in this post – is it a block you’ve used?
Hi Jo – this would have been right up your alley – so much colour and flavour and diving into the cultural experience. It would have been completely wasted on a pleb like me – so, I’ll just enjoy all the pictures and live vicariously through it….
What a delicious experience (although not sure how I feel about all that live produce at the market!) Grant looks like he should be on Masterchef and now I’m off to google egg coffee!
Jo, thank you for sparing us photos of ‘jumping baby shrimps’, or anything else that might still be breathing. Unfortunately, that is the image I conjur in my mind regarding most Asian markets. This actually looks like a wonderful experience, and with your base of knowledge, I have no doubt you were the star student.
What a great experience for you. It’s always fun to learn about the cuisine of other cultures. I may have had a problem with the wet market though.
What an amazing experience that must have been, Jo. I love that you did the shopping as well as the cooking. Your photos are beautiful as always. Thanks for sharing them with us.
What an awesome experience. Go Grant! He looks like a super chef in that photo.
And Egg Coffee? I totally had to look that one up. Down, down another rabbit hole I go! ❤
What a totally imersive learning experience. Egg coffee sounds 😝 as I don’t like coffee and eggs that aren’t 100 cooked gross me out. I also think I might have struggled at the market, mostly from a food safe point of view. It was, apparently, that type of setting that started both Sars and Covid.
Looks wonderful!