Cooking, sharing and celebrating with food has been at the centre of Ha Nguyen's life.
Born in 1976, in Hanoi, Vietnam, Nguyen, Nguyen is the eldest of four children. Because both of his parent's working seven days a week during Nguyen's childhood, he prepared and cooked meals for his family.
"My parents owned a fruit shop which meant they left home at dawn and returned home at dinner time," says Nguyen.
He had to get up early, light a traditional outdoor fire, and combine the plain leftover rice with fresh vegetables for a simple yet satisfying stir-fry.
"Growing up in the early 80s, we were poor, and often food wasn't enough for growing kids like us, so we had to make the most of what staple foods we had available," he says.
Other ingredients Nguyen would use were noodles, eggs and seasonal vegetables.
Meals were mainly fresh since back then it was difficult to store food for too long because fridges were uncommon. The meal was also often determined by the seasons – his family would have a cold soup during the summer months and a stir-fry or boiled veggies during winter.
"Coming home from school I cooked lunch with whatever ingredients my mum, Don, would leave for us, and I would prepare meals based on family recipes I had learned by observing her and then mastered through repetition over the years."
However, his mum would cook when she could and his dad would also help out.
Ha Nguyen shares his stuffed tofu simmered in tomato sauce recipe. Source: Ha Nguyen
Dinner was the only meal of the day for which the whole family would gather around the table. This made it very special, and the one dish that made it even more enjoyable was Don's stuffed tofu in tomato sauce.
"We grew tomatoes in our little farm nearby and combined with hand-chopped minced pork, spring onion, shallots, fish sauce, and salt and pepper, mum would fry and stuff the tofu with these ingredients, simmer it in tomato sauce and then serve her stuffed tofu with rice," says Nguyen.
"It was a cheap and nutritious meal to prepare, so she made it for us at least twice a week throughout the year for dinner. What I loved about it was the textural combination of tofu and minced pork which was soft and easy to eat. Mum turned the pieces of pork into mince by pressing it with a knife and this made it an easy way to eat meat as opposed to other cuts of meat we had on occasion and were hard to bite."
Subsequently, as the family's ability to afford meat increased, so did the amount of pork Don added to the recipe, making it even more anticipated.
As Nguyen learned to make this recipe, he also served it to his siblings, and if any was left over at dinner time, they would enjoy it as lunch the next day.
A family feast during Tet the Vietnamese New Year
Nguyen's favourite food holiday was Tet, which his family planned as much as six months in advance.
"Dad would go to the market months ahead of Tet and get some roosters to fatten up," remembers Nguyen.
"Tradition had it that the bigger the rooster offered to our ancestors at the home alter on New Year's Eve, the greater the prosperity for the family throughout the year.
"We would then turn the chicken meat into different dishes – boiled chicken, pork or chicken loaf."
He loved sitting with his siblings and cousins to watch his uncle cook sticky rice cakes at a bonfire in the cold weather.
"We would all partake in the lengthy process of wrapping rice in banana leaves beginning in the morning and then it was the eight to 10 hours it took for the glutinous rice cakes to boil in the outdoor fire," says Nguyen.
"We would wait till midnight to taste the first ones, which was a great way to start the year."
We would wait till midnight to taste the first ones, which was a great way to start the year.
The left-over rice cakes were stored outdoors and preserved by the cold Hanoi weather and fried post-New Year for a crispier version.
On New Year's Day, the table spread included traditional celebratory foods – the preparation of which began three days beforehand. Served were called nem ran, a broth soup with veggies known as canh moc, a dry made with leftover chicken pieces, a seasonal and colourful , known as ca chien or prawns known as tom chien as the main meal with lots of seasoning, and a pork or chicken loaf (gio lon) also boiled and cooked in banana leaves.
Opening my cooking school
When Nguyen realised that he wanted to become a chef, he began working in hotels, restaurants and bars in Vietnam, where he learned how to cook gourmet meals on the job but also how to run a hospitality business.
By his early 20s, he decided to pursue formal training and moved to New Zealand for a one-year cookery course at the 
For eight years he worked in several New Zealand restaurants, including the . In 2009, he moved to Melbourne, given that he was already familiar with the city's culinary landscape from previous visits.
Ha Nguyen at culinary school. Source: Supplied
"I thought Melbourne would be a great place to live, work and explore, after visiting a few times" he says.
He worked for six years as a chef at the before going part-time to establish his own cookery school.
"People began asking me how to cook Asian foods, so I started a cooking class business in 2014 called Otao Kitchen."
is named after Ông Táo, the so-called Vietnamese 'Kitchen God', who is regarded as the messenger between Vietnamese families and the Jade Emperor (known as the ruler of heaven). Myth has it that as the lunar year ends, Ông Táo flies to heaven to report on each family's experiences over the past year. For a prosperous year, people recite various prayers and give offerings at the family altar during Tet.
Both my business and my cultures holiday celebrations provide me with the pleasure of meeting different people to cook, connect and share and that's what I love about food and eating.
Currently, Otao Kitchen employs five staff and serves a couple of dozen online and in-person cooking classes covering different cuisines including Indian, Japanese, Mexican, Thai, Italian and Vietnamese. The most popular is South American.
"In our vegan class, I decided to teach my mum's tofu recipe minus the pork and instead of stuffing the tofu, the ingredients are cooked and served independently in a bowl making it a nutritious and easy-to-make plant-based dish," he says.
Nguyen shares how the Vietnamese dishes he teaches at his school are not exact replicas of what he learned to make as a kid, but instead use ingredients that are easy to find in Australia and are familiar to the palates of his clientele. "I teach the recipes in a way westerners understand Asian food as our traditional dishes rely on ingredients people are not that familiar with and flavours that are not as rich in flavour."
His own home version of his mum's stuffed tofu recipe entails a mix of tofu, tomato and some pork mince with a bowl of Jasmin rice. "It tastes great, and I call it my 'happy moment' when I'm able to make it after a hard day's work," he says.
To celebrate Tet, he makes a platter of foods that remind him of home and often his friends will gift him sticky rice cakes.
He also helps organise the where his business is located, which he says, "is a great way to surround me by my own culture while away from my homeland.
"Both my business and my cultures' holiday celebrations provide me with the pleasure of meeting different people to cook, connect and share and that's what I love about food and eating. It's part of my life on a daily basis and this makes every day in some way a celebration."
Vietnamese stuffed tofu in tomato sauce
A sweet, tangy and cheerful tofu dish. This is quite a hearty dish often served as a main or side dish in Vietnamese households.
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
- 500 g block of firm tofu cut equally into 4 pcs 2cm thick
- 1 spring onion chopped
- oil for frying
- Steam rice for serving
Tomato sauce
- 1 shallot diced
- 5 medium Roma tomatoes cut into wedges
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar optional
- ½ cup of water or chicken stock
Pork filling
- 200g pork mince
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- ½ tsp salt
- ⅛ tsp MSG or chicken stock powder
- 1 chopped shallot
Method
- Cut the dry tofu into 4 equal pieces.
- Place oil in a frying pan and bring to medium heat. Fry the tofu on both sides. Remove and cool.
- Slit each tofu piece with a knife to make room for the pork filling.
- Combine the pork-filling ingredients and mix well. Stuff the tofu with the filling.
- Bring the frying pan to medium heat and add the chopped shallots. Fry for one minute.
- Add the stuffed tofu, tomatoes, tomato paste, fish sauce, salt, sugar and water or chicken stock to the frying pan.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce heat. Simmer for 10 minutes or until the tomatoes are softened and the meat filling is completely cooked. You can turn the tofu once.
- Taste and add more salt if you need. Garnish with chopped spring onions.
- Serve with steamed jasmine rice.
