Move over Rachel Ray.....
The Leonard's signed up for a Vietnamese cooking class....and we're bringing our new-found recipes home with us! Because our Halong Bay tour was canceled today, we decided to find something else to do! So, Jenesa found this highly-rated cooking class on the internet.....and four hours later we're chowing down on some delicious Vietnamese cuisine!
Check out the Vietnamese Cooking Class online! We loved it!
Jenesa and I were in our very own private class....just the two of us! Chef Tien began the morning by taking us to the Hanoi downtown market to teach us how to pick out the ingredients for our food. You can check out some of those "interesting" market pictures by going to our Vietnam Cooking Class Page. We saw a little of everything on this walk through the market. Skinned ducks. Buckets of live eels. Giant prawns (shrimp). Live chickens and frogs in mesh bags. Raw fish. Fruits and vegetables. Spices. And, the torture of innocent turtles! Just a quick note on this.....1.) They begin by flipping over a live turtle, 2.) wait for him to stick his head/neck out far enough to grab it, 3.) pull it, twist it, and yank the hell out of it until he's dead (i guess?), and 4.) take a knife and slice half way through its neck until all the blood drains out into a glass bottle. Then....these people actually drink the blood from that bottle! Yuck! And, I'm sure the rest of the turtle winds up in a bowl of soup!
To answer your question.....YES! We both ate a baby duck after it was cooked....and we're still alive to blog about it! Half of it tasted like chicken....and the other half tasted like a hard boiled egg. Geeeesh! I hope you appreciate all the things we do to keep this blog entertaining for you.....you're welcome! :)
Well, to make a long story short....we learned how slice and dice lots of different fruits, vegetables, and meats with some fancy chef knives. I almost felt like I was playing "Fruit Ninja" on my iPad! We made some fresh Hanoi spring rolls from scratch....learning how to pack, roll, fold, and seal the rice paper around the stuffing. We chopped up some pork (added oyster sauce) and char-grilled it over a charcoal fire pit. Then, fried some chicken for the stir-fry. Hacked away at red peppers, onions, woodear (mushrooms), carrots, and lemon grass. Finally, we sat down and enjoyed all of our hard work!
