Cooking with Tuyen

This AM has been spent wandering around the market here in beautiful Hoi An, as well as taking a cooking course with a mere slip of a woman called Tuyen. The fish is so fresh in the market here that a number of our friends from the sea were still gasping their last as we walked by. The vegetables and fruit are great with a pervading smell of lemongrass. The passionfruit is delicious.

Having been shown women making noodles, desiccating coconut and beheading fish, we wandered back to a restaurant in this ancient trading port to make our meal (and eat too).

I was worst at just about everything but particularly the fiddly stuff like making tomato skin roses and rolling fresh spring prawns. My 10 thumbs were working overtime.

Vietnamese food is not nearly as spicy as say Thai food and we were surprised at the limited number of spices we in fact used.

Needless to say, we loved the food we made and it was a fun few hours spent preparing fresh food and then eating it.




Tuna



Prawns



Fish part of market



Tuyen explaining some of the exotic fruit and veg



Silly hat wearing time



Silly hat selfie



Tess was excellent at making tomato roses

Like Floyd, I needed a glass of wine

Fresh spring rolls

Seafood soup : has prawns and calamari in it and was yum

Preparing the chicken with lemongrass and chilli

Crispy shrimps (coconut prawns)

Grilled chicken with lemongrass and chilli (served with steam rice)




Frying the coconut prawns

And on the way back to the hotel we meet this cheery fruit seller:

 




The fruit seller