Cooking Lesson #2 Spring rolls

Yesterday I got my second lesson in Vietnamese cooking. Mark and I love their spring rolls, and as we have found out they are made in many different ways with many different items. Whenever we are invited to our friends for a meal they try to have them for us. I did not realize until yesterday how time consuming making these things are. It took us over two hours and then we had to finish preparing the rest of the meal. You can make the spring rolls with whatever meats you like and even combine them. Our friend Hannah brought over the ingredients and we had pork, shrimp, and some other red meat that looked like liver, felt like liver but was not and these little guppie like fish. I am glad they puree these so it all just looks like, well I won't go there. You chop up all the meats and add some taro and other veggie the name she did not know in English and season to taste then you wrap them up in rice paper and deep fry. They do not believe in using canola or olive oil so after dinner we paid the price with some heartburn but oh they tasted so good going down. You can also make many different types of dipping sauce, ours was fish sauce, sugar, lime and garlic. As we were coking the rolls the doorbell rang and in comes our guests from Australia and our other friends who were driving them around. I thought I was just being taught how to make them but I guess I missed the part about serving dinner for 8 people. Fortunately Hannah knew they were coming so she had brought the makings for a carrot salad and the famous french bread and the usual dessert, fruit. It was a great evening of fellowship and I am glad that I now know how to make these babies but buying the ingredients in the store will be a challenge as a lot of the veggies especially the root ones look alike until you peel them. Oh well that's part of the fun of living here !!