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Nothing tastes better than icy-cold mango juice before a hot, steamy bike ride through Vietnam.
As I rode through this Southeast Asian country, a constant feast of colors and flavors assaulted my eyes and taste buds. Thanks to the bike, I was confident that I could eat everything without piling on pounds.
In February, I was part of a Pedaltours group that included 14 cyclists. Using bicycles and vans, we covered more than 1,000 miles between Hue in Central Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City in the south. Distances are vast with lodging often too far apart to complete the day without vans.
We shared narrow, twisty roads with water-buffalo pulling carts, the occasional truck, other bicycles, motor scooters and pedestrians. Most of those vehicles hauled something that would eventually be served on a plate from ducks, chickens, pigs, shrimp, eel and crab to pomelos, kumquats, mangos, passion fruit, pineapple and, of course, rice, Vietnam's most important food.
On our tour, we usually stopped for lunch in little cafes, often with long wood tables, in areas that looked like industrial zones. Owners tend to cook whatever the farmers delivered that morning. Selections include platters of shrimp, fried or barbecued squid, green beans, watermelon, and sautéed morning glory, also known as water spinach. The latter was bright green and had hollow stems that sucked up fish sauce and other spices.
Class in session • When the 15-day trip ended in Ho Chi Minh City's historic Saigon district, I wanted to know more about the cuisine and the amazing variety of crops I had seen along the back roads.
Thumbing through a clothing catalogue, I found a reference to the Saigon Cooking Class, a school located in a former opium refinery and associated with the adjacent Hoa Tuc Restaurant. I was temporarily stymied by the phone book's Vietnamese words, but a hotel desk clerk helped me find a phone number.
French expatriate Ilda Briosca, whose husband runs the restaurant, opened the school two years ago to appease diners who kept requesting the restaurant's recipes.
"I was saddened that tourists and expatriates alike enjoyed Vietnamese cuisine but didn't understand what they ate," Briosca said. She attended several classes already offered around Saigon, but was disappointed that they didn't include hands-on instruction. So she started offering her own classes.
The school offers a three-hour course centered on Saigon's lighter, contemporary cuisine. But I opted for the expanded four-hour class that included a chef-guided shopping trip to Saigon's huge Ben Thanh Market, which is situated in the center of a roundabout with multiple roads leading to it.
The barn-like building had wide open doors on all sides that lead to warrens of produce, fish and meat stands. Shoppers also can find coffee beans, knock-offs of expensive watches and handbags, and the stinky Durian fruit.
Chef Tran Vinh Phuong, my instructor, met me at the door with good news. I was getting a private cooking lesson since no one else signed up.
"You're going to be busy since you'll cook everything," he cautioned. Most days students break into groups, each handling different parts of the meal.
First stop was the booth with water spinach, a brilliant green vegetable with huge hollow tubes and very few leaves. Phuong sniffed it, touched it and checked the color. When an eel leaped from a wide bucket behind us into a second bucket two feet away, no one in the market flinched. Instead, the vendor calmly carried it back to its original home.
Next, we purchased fresh night-scented lily stem, another type of leafy green, which tastes like celery and is used to flavor soups.
Stand by stand, we purchased everything needed for our three-course lunch, including okra, bean sprouts, tomatoes, tamarind pods, kumquats, Vietnamese basil, mustard leaves and long red chilis. Phuong had purchased shrimp and pork belly earlier, and his cupboard already contained plenty of nuoc mam, the fermented fish sauce used to season almost everything.
In the kitchen • When we returned to the school, we immediately started to prepare the first course: Sour soup with prawns. The sour flavors come from tamarind steeped in boiling water. But the soup has sweetness, too, gathered from fresh pineapple and a bit of sugar. The fish sauce provides a touch of saltiness.
It was fairly easy to make and I liked the taste. I felt confident as we moved to the water spinach salad. We ran a splitter tool through the stems to widen the tubes and then tossed them into ice water to keep them crunchy while preparing the dressing. That mixture, made with kumquat juice, sugar, chili and fish sauce, tasted much like a salty tangerine.
Finally, it was time to make a Vietnam pancake, one of the country's signature foods.
This rice-flour crepe is usually stuffed with pork, shrimp, steamed mung beans and bean sprouts. We added a bit of sautéed pork belly to complement these flavors.
Phuong made the cooking process look easy, folding the finished pancake like an omelet and slipping it out of the wok.
If you happen to be dexterous — like Phuong — after the pancake is removed from the pan, you slice it and wrap it in mustard, lettuce and mint leaves. The pieces are then dipped in a mixture of fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and chili sauce.
My wraps were too fat and kept falling apart. I was too hungry to keep trying, so I dipped the omelet slices, grabbed a bite of greens, and propelled them toward my mouth.
Phuong's passion for food extends to his childhood flavor memories. He loves the contemporary Vietnamese cuisine of Hoa Tuc, finding it "unusual and tasty."
But it's very different from the food he grew up eating in the central coastal city of Quy Nhon, where his uncle and father prepared special holiday dishes. His favorite dishes include noodle soup with pork stock and raw slices of jellyfish added just before serving, or deep-fried fish cake wrapped with crispy rice paper, raw vegetables and fresh leaves.
"But I also like to cook the foods of Hoa Tuc for my family," he said. "Especially my father, who is surprised when I use kumquat juice instead of lime in dipping or dressing sauces."
Thoroughly exhausted after matching Phuong course-for-course during a three-hour cooking marathon, I walked back to the Bong Sen Hotel, headed for the bar and downed — what else — an icy-cold mango juice.
Carol Sisco, a retired newspaper reporter and government employee, lives in Salt Lake City where she bikes, hikes, cooks and travels. —
From Vietnam to Utah
Shopping • All ingredients used in Saigon Cooking Class recipes are available seasonably at local Asian markets, as well as some supermarkets and health food stores. Foods are usually listed by Vietnamese names in Asian markets, often followed by an English translation. It helps to carry the school's recipes that include English and Vietnamese names. On a recent visit, the Southeast Market, 422 E. 900 South, Salt Lake City, had everything except fresh kumquats. Owner Cuong Trang and his employees can help if you can't find an ingredient. Hong Phat Market, 3100 S. Redwood Road, also carries most of these ingredients, along with cooking pans and utensils.
Substitutions • If you can't find kumquats, look for kumquat concentrate. Or use freshly squeezed tangerine juice flavored with a touch of fresh lime juice. If you can't find water spinach (also called morning glory), use shredded red and white cabbage. Fresh tamarind pods or tamarind paste may be used in the sour soup.
Saigon Cooking Class • http://www.saigoncookingclass.com or email contact@saigoncookingclass.com. Basic class is $39; market tour is $44.
Pedaltours • Specializes in cycle vacations in New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam and India; http://www.pedaltours.co.nz —
Water spinach salad with prawns, fried shallots and garlic
Dressing
4 tablespoons of kumquat juice
4 tablespoons of sugar
4 teaspoons of Nuoc Mam (fish sauce)
2 teaspoons of minced garlic
4 teaspoons of minced red long chili (medium spicy)
A pinch of salt
Salad
6 to 7 cups water spinach
1 large onion, julienned
2 carrots, julienned
4 stems of Vietnamese basil cut in julienne (hung que)
20 pieces of shrimp, cooked, deveined and peeled
2 to 3 cloves of garlic, sliced and fried, for garnish
1 large or 2 small shallots, sliced and fried, for garnish
1/2 cup crush peanuts, for garnish
For the dressing, place kumquat juice, sugar and fish sauce in a bowl. Whisk until sugar is completely dissolved. Add garlic and 2-3 teaspoons of chopped chili. Taste and season with salt. Add more chili if desired. If the flavor is too strong, add 1 tablespoon water.
For the salad, trim leaves from water spinach and cut off any narrow pieces at the top. As you trim, drop stems in ice water to keep them crunchy and curled. Drain the water spinach. Place in a large bowl with onions, carrots, basil and cooked shrimp. Add dressing and toss gently.
Arrange on a serving plate. Garnish with the fried garlic, shallots and peanuts. Serve immediately.
Servings • 4
Source: Saigon Cooking Class —
Sour soup with prawns (Canh chua tôm)
5 ounces night-scented lily stem
2 tablespoons salt
1/2 teaspoon cooking oil
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
7 cups water
2 tomatoes, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
8 pieces okra, cut on the bias into bite-size pieces (keep the seeds)
3/4 pineapple peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
12 prawns
4 1/2 ounces bean sprouts, roots removed
4 tablespoons fish sauce (Nuoc Mam)
4 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons tamarind paste
16 leaves fresh herbs such as Vietnamese coriander (ngo gai) or rice patty herb (rau om)
Remove the skin from the lily stems, and then cut on bias into pieces that are 4 to 5 centimeters long. Sprinkle with salt. Let the mixture rest for 5 minutes. Rinse with fresh water.
In a large soup pot, heat oil. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add water and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Add lily stems, tomatoes, okra, pineapple, prawns and bean sprouts. Bring mixture to a boil, then simmer about 3 minutes. Season with fish sauce, sugar and tamarind paste. Remove from heat. Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh herbs.
Servings • 4
Source: Saigon Cooking Class