Cooking Vietnamese

Last monthPengs plate I went to cookery school in Vietnam. This wasn’t just about how to prepare new dishes – though there was lots of that- it also included having to “pass” many “name the fruit” quizzes. This seemed to be a popular pastime amongst guides, partly because Vietnam has an astonishingly large variety of fruits and partly because, I suspect, tourists are as hopeless at remembering names and indeed tastes. Well now I know what the outside of a dragonfruit looks like (I even saw one growing) and I have learned what colour the inside a of a jackfruit is – and how nice it tastes. Our first school chef was “from the North” and rather scary although she did manage to keep her temper when one of the other 2 class members mixed her marinade and dipping sauces all in one bowl. Our recipes included: Lotus stem salad, sour fish soup, caramel fish and steamed rice and (for dessert) sweet green bean soup which tasted rather like semolina