My first attempt of hand-made & home-made chả giò :-))

Looks tasty, doesn't it!

This blog is dedicated to my cats but they also let me talk about my other passions :-)

I really enjoy eating good food and have learned to cook since I left my parents' house and shifted for myself. At first I survived with frozen foods and ready made food with my first boyfriends but after a while I felt I needed to eat better and healthier food... That's how little bylittle I have learned to cook over the past years.

I mostly try and cook the same delicious meals I used to eat as a child (and that Mom used to cook), I must say I usually have a preference for Asian food (yes, I eat rice almost daily - as often as French people eat bread I guess). I am not really a Chef and am somehow quite surprised myself to be able to cook tasty dishes (...bowls). Since I left Paris 2,5 years ago I have been missing the southeast of the 13th arrondissement and its Asian restaurants and shops (Paris' main Chinatown). I like Chinese, Japanese Thai, Vietnamese food but especially cook Vietnamese (my roots are from Vietnam) :-)

Last month when it started to get colder I then tried to make my first phở bò (Vietnamese noddle soup served with beef) and it was pretty good :-)

And today after I was back from the clinic to get some stuffs for the cats (cat-food, cat-wormers, etc.), I decided it was high time I tried to make chả giò (minced pork roll - often mistaken for Spring roll - "rouleau de printemps" a different roll: Spring rolls aren't fried and the ingredients are a bit different), which is a popular dish in Vietnamese cuisine and well-known appetizer in America and in most European countries.

Vietnamese food is not as widely known as many of its Southeast Asian counterparts, that's why it is even often mistaken for Chinese food: but  chả giò  definitely is from Vietnam:-) as well as nước mắm is (the sauce served with  chả giò ).

The French word for chả giò is "pâtés impériaux" but French people often call them "nems".

It's a roll with pork, carrots, mushrooms, rice vermicelli, onions, etc. :-)

Here are some pictures of my first attempt of chả giò  :-))))

Before the deep-frying and after the rolling...

In my kitchen - And yes I am quite proud, I think there are 80-100 chả giò!

That's a lot but since it takes hours to make rolls it doesn't make sense to make them in small amounts.

I think I have enough chả giò until New Year (Asian New Year - Dragon New year) next January 23th!

After the deep-frying :-)

It will take me ages to eat all that :-) Cats would be happy to help but I am not sure they are allowed to eat rolls!