Touring Vietnam & discovering its cuisine-Hanoi and Halong Bay

Originally we had booked to go to Thailand for our honeymoon but after all the trouble with the Red Shirts in Bangkok, we decided to change to Vietnam as it was still Asia and it also meant we could use our flight.

We booked a guided tour for 13 nights,which started in Hanoi and ended with a couple of days to relax on the beach in Nha Trang. I hadn´t tried much Vietnamese food before our trip so was looking forward to trying this unknown cuisine. As we had chosen to go on a guided tour, lunch in a restaurant, usually with a set menu,was often included in the day´s visit. I however think that this was a more Westernized version of Vietnamese food as during our whole visit, we didn´t even get to try one of Vietnam´s most well-known dishes, Pho!! I really enjoyed Vietnamese food and its fresh, herby, sour and sweet blend of flavours and the next few blog entries will be about my experiences and food discoveries. Hopefully in the future I´ll also include some Vietnamese recipes as I couldn´t resist buying a Vietnamese cookbook!

When we arrived in Hanoi, we had the first day to ourselves to explore so after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, the first thing on our agenda was to find somewhere for lunch.We found a little café,which unfortunately I can´t remember the name of, and ordered a sausage sandwhich and braised beef. Both were delicious especially the braised beef which was really tender. One of the main things that hits you when you first arrive is the amount of traffic especially motorbikes in Hanoi that there is and also how chaotic it is. Crossing the road is definitely an adventure and an experience-I was pretty scared each time I had to do it!

We wandered around the Old Quarter taking in the sounds, smells and sights of Hanoi. One common sight is women carrying all kinds of strange fruit or other things in special baskets hung on a wooden pole carried across their shoulders. You can also see motorbikes which are completely laden with products, like in the following picture:

The following day we visited the typical sights of Hanoi, such as Ho Chi Minh´s Mausoleum, One-Pillar Pagoda, the Museum of Ethnology, the Temple of Literature etc. In the evening, we ate at a lovely restaurant,Dinh Lang Thuy Ta, which overlooked the Hoan Kiem Lake. Although expensive by Vietnamese standards, it is worth it for a romantic meal with beautiful views, the wonderful food and service and also traditional music while you eat. We shared a lotus flower stem salad which had a crunchy texture from the lotus stems and the peanuts (pictured below)

I chose steamed chicken with lime leaves-the meat was lovely and tender and the overall dish had a nice taste although I wasn´t too keen on the lime leaves which seemed to overpower the dish a little.


My husband chose a beef dish, hot and sour I think (sorry I´m so bad with the names!!) which was delicious and I actually preferred it to my dish!

We took the waiter´s advice for dessert and chose lotus seeds and dried longans in a syrup . The lotus seeds had a nutty, almost white chocolatey taste which wasn´t too bad and the longans were a bit like raisins.

We also tried agar-agar with dried longans in syrup. Neither of us were too keen on either of the desserts unfortunately but of the two, the lotus seeds were the best. You have to try these things!!

After a couple of days in Hanoi, we made our way to Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We stayed aboard a typical junko and took in the breathtakingly beautiful scenery of more than 2000 rocky islands jutting out of the sea.

As the food on the boat was mainly fish and seafood which I´m not that keen on we ordered something different for me. I got mainly meat dishes but one dish in particular looked a bit green around the edges but tasted fine. Unfortunately that night I started with bad stomach pains and both me and my husband, who had also eaten some of this meat, spent the vomitting and with diahorria!

Fabricando Delicias-all things sweet!

I´m finding it hard to be motivated to blog or even cook or bake in this heat, despite having more time on my hands. I thought I´d include some of my favourite foodie places, taking a closer look at some shops as living in a rather small Spanish town, it´s very difficult to find certain foods and ingredients and am constantly on the lookout for places where I can get hold of these things.

A new shop has recently opened in my city called Fabricando Delicias which sells all things connected to cakes, baking and cake-decorating, my new-found passion. Someone has already beaten me to it as I had the idea of opening a cake shop but with no business sense and not being totally convinced if this kind of shop would be successful in a little town I didn´t risk it. They have a wide range of silicone and metal cake moulds, muffin cases, cake racks and other baking and decorating equipment. They also sell prepared fondant, sugarpaste, vanilla extract, glycerine etc from the well-known American brand, Wilton. I was very surprized to find this shop where I live as I didn´t think fondant cakes, cupcakes etc were very well-known here so am hoping that it does well and doesn´t go out of business!I have already bought some Wilton´s Pure Clear Vanilla Extract and some Wilton´s Gum-Tex! Although the shop is really handy, its products are fairly limited and tend to be a bit on the expensive side compared to shops in England (mainly because there´s more competition I think!)so will still be getting quite a bit of stuff online.

They also are going to do some cake-decorating courses, one about Buttercream and another about Fondant/Pastillage. I´ve signed up for both but am waiting for other people to sign up too although with August coming up, the city tends to be a ghost town as everyone is on holiday and lots of shops close. Unfortunately, this is when I have more time so I hope I can still do the courses as if they end up being in September, I might not be able to do them because of work obigations.

My beautiful wedding cake

Here are some photos, courtesy of Amelia (who made my cake) of my beautiful wedding cake- she really did us proud and made a wonderful job of it. It was delicious too. My wedding cake was a typical traditional fruit cake with marzipan and icing. I was really worried about how it would arrive to Spain from Portugal after a long car journey with quite a few curves to go round. Luckily, it arrived without any problems, only for my boyfriend to trip up when my stepdad and him were transfering it from the car to a room in Casa Pepe!!! Fortunately, they didn´t drop the cake and it was unharmed!

Casa Pepe-Wedding Reception Dinner

I´ve been absent lately due to getting married and the honeymoon. The day turned out to be absolutely perfect, exactly as I had imagined it and everyone enjoyed it. We held the wedding reception in a hotel & restaurant,Casa Pepe (unfortunately their webpage is only in Spanish), located on the Ctra. of Carrión de Calatrava in Ciudad Real, which is famous for weddings especially the quantity and quality of their food. The hotel has two salons for weddings, one larger salon which holds up to 450 guests and a smaller room,which can seat up to 250 guests. As our wedding was only a small affair, we were in the small salon. However, they also have a wonderful restaurant, which is worth visiting if you are in the area.

This is the meal we chose as our wedding dinner:

Welcome Cocktail:

Appetizers: Mini regional tartelets filled with pisto (the Spanish version of ratatouille)
Iberian ham
Manchego cheese
Roasted Almonds
Mini regional tartelets with Lomo de Orzo (pork loin in olive oil)
Mini cornets of cod brandade
Chinese style tuna

Drinks: Choice of Beer, Wine, Soft drinks, Cava & orange or Martini cocktails


Three-dimensional starter: Octopus kebab with cream of cauliflower soup
Mini salad of goats cheese & cured venison
Cod Carpaccio with hake sushi

First Course: Lobster salad with truffle vinaigrette & tropical fruits

Main Course: Choice of: Roast suckling pig confit served with roast apple & chestnut purée
Sea bass loin in a Jerez sherry sauce

Dessert: Pineapple Carpaccio with tropical fruit and yoghurt ice-cream

After-dinner: Coffee, Cider, Cava and Liqueurs

Wine Cellar: Requiebro Verdejo
Barbarrosa Rosado
Altozano Tinto

As I am a fusspot and I´m not keen on fish or seafood, I had a special menu apart, which differed only slightly: in the three-dimensional starter I had the goats cheese salad, mini cornets of paté, porcini risotto and for my first course I had ricotta cheese and spinach ravoli. Everything was delicious but unfortunately due to nerves or excitement, I couldn´t really eat much!

My first sugarcraft lesson

I had my first sugarcraft lesson last weekend with Amalia, who´s making my wedding cake. She´s Portuguese I think but has lived in South Africa and Mozambique. Apparently South Africa is a very good place for cake decorating and all other types of crafts as they have loads of guilds for each craft.





She started off the lesson by showing us all the equipment and explaining what it was for and why we needed it. You need a hell of a lot of equipment especially if you want to make sugar flowers so it is quite an expensive hobby is all that I can say!





At one point I asked if it helped to be an artistic person as I don´t really have an artistic bone in my body. Amalia´s reply was that she couldn´t draw but later she showed us this beautiful ostrich egg which she had decorated-it was amazing!! My arse, she can´t draw!!!

I´d love to say that I made the flower above but unfortunately the course wasn´t as hands-on as I´d hoped but it was still very interesting! We took some icing sugar and an egg and Amalia showed us how to make our own flower paste. I didn´t get to take many photos as my hands were too dirty after preparing the flower paste plus I was too busy trying to take notes about making a rose bud. Amalia showed us and explained how to make a rose bud and other tips about making flowers. Three hours flew by! I had thought we were going to start with more basic things like different types of icing and how to make them, icing a cake and piping but it looks like we´re just jumping straight into the more advanced stuff of flower making, which is fine by me. Now I just need lots of practice and patience although I can´t do anything until I have all the tools!! Amalia also recommended a book called Sugar Flowers which explains how to make different flowers with the help of illustrations!

English Muffins

As I can´t buy English muffins where I live I thought I´d have a go at making them myself, plus I was also dying to try out making some homemade bread. I´ve only attempted making bread once before, which turned out quite successfully.I´m not a big bread fan, however there is something about fresh homemade bread which definitely beats mass-produced bread. Believe it or not, I first tried English muffins as part of Eggs Benedict in a breakfast buffet in a restaurant in Niagra Falls and they became one of my staple breakfast foods during my stay in the States!



As this was my first attempt at making English muffins, I followed Delia Smith´s recipe (I took the recipe from her Complete Cookery Course book but this is almost exactly the same)to the dot. The only difference is that I used normal sugar as I´d run out of caster sugar and I didn´t use 2 0z of lard...I only used the tiniest amount just to grease the frying pan. The recipe turned out to be a great success (as you can see in the photo below!) so I will definitely be making them again!

1. Milk, water, sugar and yeast mixed to form frothy head

2. Forming the dough



3. After kneading (top-left
hand corner) 4. Risen dough (top-right
hand corner) 5. Muffins covered in clingfilm to rise
(bottom left)



The finished muffins after light frying! Delicious!

Goat´s Cheese and Cranberry Salad

I´m so excited as this is the first time I´ve taken part in a blog event! Nuría over at Spanish Recipes is hosting a new bimonthly event Eating Good Feeling Good which will look at a different ingredient from the Food Pyramid in each event. The first ingredient of this month´s event is olive oil and I knew as soon as I saw it I knew which recipe I would be submitting!

Living in Spain I have been converted to olive oil and use it every day in my cooking from frying to salad dressings.I even use it for Chinese stir-frys!! My favourite ways to use olive oil is for frying and in salad dressings. However, I still can´t get used to putting it on toast in the mornings for breakfast and I prefer a mild olive oil as it doesn´t have quite as strong a taste as Extra Virgin Olive Oil, so it is more versatile and can be used in all types of dishes. Although olive oil is very good for your health, it is still a fat and I only use a little when frying-one bottle lasts me for at least a month!I believe that olive oil is good for your health because it is rich is monounsaturated fats which lower the risk of coronary heart disease and it actually lowers the cholesterol in your body.

Anyway, although olive oil is not strictly the main ingredient in this recipe, it is a very important ingredient in the recipe. As the days are starting to get warmer (at least they were!) sometimes it´s too hot to be slaving over a hot oven, so a salad is just what you need. And what could be healthier than a salad? The idea for this salad came from a recipe I saw for Goat´s cheese and Cherry salad in Allrecipes which I adapted to what I had in my fridge at the time and it has become a firm favourite. I think the flavours just blend together really well, the tart sweetness of the cranberries and pear with the crisp tang of the lettuce leaves and the creamy bite of the goats cheese.

Ingredients (serves 2 as a main dish)

85g bag of mixed salad (baby leaf salad is particularly good)

1 medium/large ripe Conference pear, peeled and chopped

1/3-1/2 cup dried cranberries

55g goats cheese, chopped or crumbled

a couple of slices (smoked) ham or turkey, chopped (optional)

pinch of salt to taste

about 1 tbsp mild olive oil

about 1 tsp red wine vinegar

Method

1. Place ingredients in a bowl.

2. Season with salt and dress with the olive oil and red wine vingear. Toss to cover salad completely with the dressing.