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Jupiter peeling the pomelo |
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Nuts and herbs used for the salad |
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The final dish |
Jupiter Judson, an 11 year-old American boy, writes to DTiNews about how he has started to learn how to cook Vietnamese food for the family.
On my 10th birthday, my parents, my sister, and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant in Paris with our friend Cô Hai and her family. I had the most delicious grilled chicken with fresh vegetables and perfumed rice. It was the best food I ever ate in my whole life.
I’ve seen photographs of Viet Nam and know it’s a beautiful country, with charming lakes and very pretty flowers in wintertime. I’ve not been to Viet Nam but decided that Vietnamese food is my favorite.
Learning how to cook is a lot of fun. Today I made a salad of pomelo (trái bưởi) and Cô Hai said it was one of the best. This pomelo was imported from Viet Nam. It cost 1 euro and 50 cents in France.
You must buy a juicy pomelo for this salad. First, you peel it and break the flesh into small pieces. Next, you roast half a cup of raw peanuts in a dry pan until the black dots appear around the nuts. You let the nuts cool. Then you chop them into tiny pieces.
To make the dressing, you mix 1 big spoon of fish sauce (nước mắm) with 1 big spoon of sugar and 1 big spoon of rice vinegar (or apple vinegar).
You chop a bunch of fresh mint leaves and Asian parsleys.
In a nice bowl, you mix the pomelo and everything together. You may add some fried onion flakes, which is optional.
Bon appetite!