VIETNAMESE COOKING CLASS
Learning from the best
I’m not eating anything with eyes,” I say at 5.30pm. At approximately 8pm I am greedily fishing noodles from a bowl of Prawn and Scampi Pho, cheerfully oblivious to the dead black stare of the shellfish within. I’d recently resolved to progress/regress from vegetarian to pescatarian, and rather than furtively scoffing fish fillets by myself at home, I reckoned a cooking class at Auckland Fish Market’s Seafood School – a popular destination for tourists and locals alike – would set me up nicely for my new eating regime. I opted for a Vietnamese Street Food session, as I love Asian cuisine and wanted to know how to balance flavours.
As culinary experiences go, this is right up there. You can’t get much fresher than kaimoana at a harbourside market, and it’s not just the fish that’s local and sustainable. The chef even names the Auckland suburb where the coriander for our garnishes is grown.
STREET CRED
As we enter the bar/waiting area (the school is on a separate floor above the market) we’re handed the night’s menu. Thankfully we’re also handed a complimentary wine, as the menu and ingredients list is lengthy (turns out this is what authentic looks like – and it’s totally worth it). My friend and I chat to some of the 30 or so attendees; there is a young Parisan couple who’ve only been in New Zealand a few months – the class is a gift from the woman’s mother-in-law; a lady about to turn 60 for whom this is one of six surprise birthday gifts; and two young Brits, both chefs on boats temporarily in harbour.
The two-dish menu: Cha Ca Ha Noi-grilled Turmeric Fragrant Fish with Rice Noodles and Nuoc Cham (a colourful salad resplendent with fragrant herbs and the sweet/spicy bite of Nuoc Cham dressing), plus Prawn and Scampi Pho (rice noodle soup). Our chef is Judge
Bao (aka Jamie Johnston), who with partner Debbie Orr runs pop-up restaurant Judge Bao, combining his contemporary cuisine with a ‘playful’ take on traditional Chinese flavours.
We sit in a mini lecture theatre and, for some 40 minutes, watch Jamie slice and marinade and sizzle, entertained by his cheeky banter. It’s easy to relax and think ‘ah, just like Masterchef’ until you remember that you are in Masterchef so you’d better listen up.
As well as talking us through the dishes, Jamie garnishes his conversation with handy tips. Like if you roll a chilli between your palms for about 20 seconds, you can hear the seeds rattle and come away inside, and you simply snip off the ends to release them. If you can’t get Vietnamese mint, use regular mint
“As well as talking us through the dishes, Jamie garnishes his conversation with handy tips”
but up the pepper. Also using coconut water in the Nuoc Cham gives you more sweetness without having to overload it with sugar. Best of all, a life-changing hack. For a vegan fish sauce (my daughters eat entirely plant-based) use pineapple juice, soy, sugar and salt. Works like a dream, says Jamie.
PHO LIKE A PRO
Inside the large kitchen, we’re divided into cooking stations; we share ours with the two young boat chefs – they’re on Pho, we’re on Turmeric Fish. Even though they’ve come separately, by the end of the evening they’re fast friends. Probably because in the time it takes us to read the ingredients again, panic, grab another wine, and scamper around in search of equipment, the boatie chefs have chopped, crushed and julienned the bejesus out of their ingredients and are relaxedly chatting over their boiling Pho.
You have to think and work fast – these menus are designed to teach but also challenge you – but clutching our printed instructions for dear life, and with Jamie making regular visits to each station, it all comes together in the end. It’s gratifying to be using actual techniques and a range of different ingredients, and not just slinging in half the pantry and hoping for the best. There’s a bunch of ingredients here I never use but resolve to add to my repertoire: dill, Vietnamese mint, Judge Bao five spice (and no that’s not product placement; it is VERY good! But you need to use a lot less than regular five spice), Thai basil, and a lot more lime.
Once we’ve finished and plated up, we’re pretty damned pleased with ourselves. Four dishes of vibrant turmeric fish and noodles laced with chillis, herbs, roasted peanuts and a seriously delicious dressing, then the Pho – spicy and decorated with bright pink leggy scampi.
We dig in and chat and really feel we’ve earned this magnificent meal.
I’m looking forward to trying out the flavour combinations and ingredients at home. And if anyone dares hover in my kitchen and question my chilli de-seeding technique, I’ll simply quip ‘Ah, that’s the way they do it at the Fish Cooking School’.
“You have to think and work fast – the menus are designed to challenge you – but with Jamie making regular visits to each station, it all comes together”