Vietnamese Master Chef !

                                        

A few people have asked me what I got up to over Christmas. Well one of the highlights was how I spent Boxing Day. I had decided that rather than attempt to recreate a Christmas from home, I would celebrate the differences. On Christmas Eve I climbed a mountain and crawled through caves, on Christmas Day I explored the old town of HoiAn and then had a Vietnamese massage. Well on Boxing Day I signed up for a cookery class - now don't laugh. I've been cooking for myself for the last couple of years and I thought it was time to add something new to my repertoire of pasta bake, lasagne, curry and chilli.

The plan was to meet in the foyer of the hotel and cycle to a nearby market village to pick our own ingredients, meet some local farmers and then cook a meal, but when I got up it was raining. It also turned out that I was the only one who had signed up for the class that day! After a quick conference between the chef and the hotel management they asked if I would mind not going to the village in the rain? Instead, they said that I could accompany the chef to the town market, buy some fresh produce and then take a boat back to the hotel to have a private, 1-to-1 cookery class. I was more than happy with that suggestion.

So Doan and I set off. We chatted and he soon established that I knew bugger all about food. The trip around the market was a real education. We explored the fish area (huge tuna, live crabs, frogs, prawns and even a small shark); the meat market (live poultry, entire pigs, weird innards and giblets and things with tails which looked like the dogs I'd seen in Hanoi.) Eventually, we got to the fruit and veg area and that was fascinating - mainly because I got to try a few things that I have avoided all my life or have never seen before. Some of it tasted quite nice and I was able to identify 50% of what I saw.

                        

True to the revised plan, we then took a boat along the river and I was able to admire the beautiful town of HoiAn from under the shelter of a canopy.

                          

Sorry ladies, Doan is married and has two children.

Once back at the hotel we went straight to the main dining area. After a thorough wash of hands we were ready. Doan took me step-by-step through each course. He would demonstrate and then I would have a go. It was part 'Generation Game' and part 'Take Hart', especially when it came to making intricate flowers out of a tomato and a mango! I could hear Bruce Forsyth in the back of my mind saying "shame, shame!" but look at my results!!! I amazed myself!

           

Better still - I got to eat everything I made and it was delicious, gluten-free (we had to amend the menu a little) and all mine! A group of Vietnamese tourists from America came and watched for nearly 20 minutes (which put me under some pressure) but they applauded my mango rose!

    

    

              The main course was superb and tasted as good as it looks in the pictures.

In total I spent 5 hours, from walking out of the hotel to go to the market to wiping my mouth with a napkin and burping contentedly after I had finished the last morsel. I even got a certificate!

    

I've subseqently noticed that lots of restaurants and hotels offer cookery classes, so if ever you make it to Vietnam, track one down - you won't regret it. My thanks go to Doan, who was patient and expert in equal measure. I think it was his compromise suggestion to the management at the start which stopped them from cancelling on me.