Finally.... ASIA!!!!!!!!!!: Cooking lesson :-)

For this morning Becca, Anne Marie, Dini, and I booked a cooking lesson!!! Yeay!

Apparently it is a very popular thing to do while in Hoi An. I think Edgar as well as Alex recommended it to me so I knew I just had to do it!

The morning started with a little rain so when we got to the restaurant the chef gave all of us traditional Vietnamese hats to wear to the market to keep us dry! We all looked so cute that the restaurant owner even sent a photographer to take pictures of us at the market to promote the cooking classes.

Since I don't eat meat they were able to adjust my menu to seafood... The only bad thing was that Becca had to pair up with me and couldn't cook meat for herself!

As a group we all walked to the market where the chef explained to us how things work at the market. For fish, he said the best thing is to get there early in the morning when the boats arrive and get them from the fishermen because what happens is that all the ladies selling seafood have bought them from the fishermen and now are re selling are a higher price (makes sense!)

Then we passed through the dead chickens, followed by the fruits and veggies. The chef showed and explained to us all the different kids of eggs they sell at the market and different ways of cooking them.

After that we went inside the market, we passed through the meat section which was extremely sad! They even had lined up hearts!!!!!! :-(

Then we stopped at a stall with noodles, spices, flours, batters, cutters, etc. He explained the differences between the flours and the spices as well as the different kinds of rice papers and what makes a good spring roll. The guy got a little pushy on us buying from that one lady at the market and the prices seem very tourist like, as in very high for regular Vietnamese people!

Once we bought a couple of things we went back to the veggies and got ingredients for our meal and more cutting boards, knives, and peelers.

Menu of the day:

Hoi An rice pancake and shrimp

Banana flower salad with shrimp and

Grilled fish with lemongrass and chili

Here are the chefs

We first started with the sweet fish sauce... It was extremely easy to make!

Then we made the pancake, Banh Xeo. For it we needed special pancake flour, turmeric and other seasonings and shrimp... The batter had to be very watery, similar to milk, then we had to put it in a really hot pan with oil and wait until it was brown and crispy on the edges to fold it in half and then turn it around!

After we were all done it was time to eat!!!!

We were given plates with some greens and rice paper so we cut our pancake in half, put it on top of rice paper, open up pancake and put the greens and then roll, Dip on fish sauce and enjoy :-) yummm