My Vietnamese Dinner! :D

ever since i went to vietnam in April last year (omg 2010 is over already!! and school is staring tomorrow?!?! >.<), i fell in love with vietnamese food. seriously. i never used to like it cos i always thought it was super bland and full of veggies. the last time i ate it was years back, at some restaurant in holland V. well, i realised it's not the cuisine's fault. just that the vietnamese restaurants in singapore somehow never manage to reproduce the same WONDERFUL food that we found in vietnam. omgosh. i really love the food because it completely epitomizes HEALTHY AND TASTY food. seriously!! i never thought that those two could go hand in hand, but i found the answer in vietnamese food xD oh i love it! sadly, it is so difficult to find equally good food here :( but when i have a vietnamese as my best friend....the situation is slightly different :D

yay our work of art! xD preparing this meal made me realise why the vietnamese food in singapore is simply not up-to-standard. i think about half the ingredients can't be bought in singapore -.- sadddddddd! we used the ingredients that ngan's mom brought over from vietnam, but there were stuff like veggies (seriously the vietnamese veggies taste awesome, i have no idea why!) which we couldn't get :( shucks.

so for the spring roll, there was quite a huge amount of preparation required. i learned how to carve a pineapple!!! :D i'm so proud of myself hehe.

Vietnamese Spring Roll (serves 6)

Ingredients:

A whole pineapple/ sliced pineapple (if you can find it)

1 cucumber

1 starfruit (eww i didn't like this :/)

Pork (i used shabu shabu pork, but i think ngan usually uses pork fillet which she cuts into cubes)

Rice paper (dunno where to get this in Singapore unfortunately >.<)

Sweet & sour prawns (i dunno where to get this either :( they were from a bottle from vietnam, argh) see the picture below! :D

1. Remove the skin of the pineapple and cut off the ends.

2. Remove the eyes of the pineapple by cutting in a diagonal manner. Slice the pineapple into strips.

3. Remove the skin and seeds of the cucumber. Slice it into strips.

4. Slice the starfruit into strips.

5. Boil the meat.

6. Wrap the ingredients in the rice paper (whatever way you like!) and EAT! (:

Vietnamese Noodle (serves 6)

Ingredients:

One clove of garlic (peeled and sliced)

5 tomatoes, quartered

Fish sauce

Pork bone soup base (can't get this in singapore >.<)

Vietnamese rice noodles

Meat (again i used shabu shabu xD)

1. Fry the garlic in a pot.

2. When it is fragrant, add the tomatoes and stir. Add enough water to cover the tomatoes just nicely. Allow it to boil for about 5min.

3. When the tomatoes are soft, remove their skins. (optional)

4. Add a few spoonfuls of soup base, some fish sauce and about 5 bowls of water.

5. Allow the soup to boil.

6. Add the meat and bring to a boil once more.

7. Cook the noodles separately in another pot.

8. Combine the noodles and soup, and serve.

YUMMYYYYYYYYY! and HEALTHY! (: sadly, without the ingredients, i can't recreate this dish :( oh wells, i'll think of a way! ;)