Son Tay rice cake
With its poetic natural scenery, Xu Doai always attracts tourists with the famous Duong Lam ancient village. In addition, this place also has a special rustic dish that you should enjoy. The honest and simple villagers here often have banh te instead of banh chung, banh day, and xoi in their offerings. The small, long banh te has minced meat inside, mixed with wood ear mushrooms, and is always a gift that visitors from all over the world buy as a gift when they come to this land.
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| The cake smells of wood ear mushrooms, onions, and minced lean meat. Photo:Dang Tuyen |
Usually, the rice used to make banh te must be delicious, white, sticky and fragrant rice, soaked thoroughly and the water changed many times. After soaking, the rice is ground until the rice water is pure white. The rice water is drained to the right consistency, then put into a pot to thicken and then wrapped, so that the cake is sticky but still crispy.
The process of making the filling is simple but requires skill and seasoning to the right level. The half-lean, half-fat meat is minced, the black fungus is sliced into strips and then stir-fried with onions until fragrant, then the spices are absorbed before being wrapped. The dong leaves must also be small, green and the leaves must be thinly sliced and wrapped along the length of the cake.
To keep the cake's delicious flavor without it being soggy, people do not boil it but steam it. The steam makes the dough cook evenly, not soggy and the filling is not bland. The cake is pretty, when you open the green dong leaves, the cake appears white, hot, and has a gentle aroma.
Honey cake, gai cake
During Tet, some families often make Banh Mat, Banh Gai, a rustic cake made from sticky rice flour. Usually, after grinding, the sticky rice is drained and mixed with molasses until smooth. The filling is made from green beans, stir-fried with sugar, adding a little coconut or fatty meat boiled in sugar water and then put in the middle of the cake, wrapping it into a square. If it is Banh Gai, add a little dried ramie leaves, boil them and chop them, mix them into the flour and molasses.
To wrap these cakes, you usually have to use dried banana leaves, then put the cakes in a steamer until they are cooked enough, not too mushy but not too hard.
To eat molasses cake and gai cake, the person enjoying it must also be very meticulous when peeling off each banana leaf, otherwise the cake will stick to the leaf layer, revealing the filling inside. When peeled off, you will see a thin brown or black color, covering the fragrant green bean filling with the smell of molasses, gai leaves, and dried banana leaves, creating a unique flavor, full of rustic flavor.
Stuffed candy
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| White candy, a rustic gift from the countryside. Photo:Mr. Phuong |
The food is not a delicacy, but very simple, but always attracts tourists. The ingredients to make the candy are simple, usually made from malt, sugar and peanuts, but it requires the effort and skill of the maker. The malt must be cooked to a certain viscosity, not too liquid and not too hard to "beat" the candy successfully. Therefore, the maker must have good health and endurance.
The whole sugar block is spread out as thinly as possible, then the peanut mixture mixed with sugar and malt is put in the middle, rolled up into the shape of a sausage. Wait until it cools enough, then use a knife to cut it diagonally into pieces of candy like sausage.
After admiring the countryside scenery, sitting at the tea shop at the village entrance, enjoying white sausage candy with a cup of fragrant green tea, you will feel that life here is really interesting.
Famous Nem Phung
The square spring rolls, when opened, smell of rice bran, pork skin, and the pungent smell of fig leaves... making anyone who eats them once remember them forever. Phung spring rolls are special because of the meticulous selection of ingredients and the elaborate preparation. To make delicious Phung spring rolls, people must choose lean and fatty pork buttocks, and the skin must be hairless. Based on the grain, the maker cuts them into pieces, then dips them in boiling water until they are rare, then takes them out, separates the skin, lean meat, and fat.
The pork skin must be boiled twice until it is thin and clear, then sliced into thin, fragrant, and crispy strips. The lean meat and fat must also be cut into tiny pieces like green beans, the fat must be even thinner and smaller like pencils, mixed with a little seasoning such as salt, pepper, good fish sauce, and MSG in the right amount.
The rice used to roast the rice powder to make nem must be mixed with sticky rice and regular rice in the right proportions to make the rice powder fluffy and fragrant. Roasting the rice powder to make nem is also very elaborate, how to heat it up enough, to get the golden color like cockroach wings. Then mix the rice powder with the meat filling. To make the nem delicious, people mix the pork skin in later. The leaves to wrap the nem must also be banana leaves, still green, washed and dried, then wrapped tightly with string, kept warm for a few days before it can be eaten. Nem Phung must be eaten with young fig leaves, ginseng leaves, dipped in sweet and sour fish sauce with a spicy taste to fully enjoy the delicious flavor of this rustic dish.
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| Nem Phung is famous in Son Tay. Photo:dulichgo |
Sugarcane Chicken of Doai
When talking about the poetic land of Doai, people cannot forget to talk about the famous Mia chicken breed. In the feasts on holidays, death anniversaries, worshiping, and Tet, boiled Mia chicken is always a favorite dish of many people.
Mia chicken is a purebred chicken breed that has been raised and preserved in the Duong Lam area for a long time. This is a breed of chicken with a moderate weight. When boiled, let cool, cut into pieces the size of a matchbox, sprinkle with thinly sliced lemon leaves. The meat is white, firm and especially delicious. The meat still has the skin, underneath is a thin layer of fat, sweet but not greasy, not fatty like some other chicken breeds.
When eaten with a piece of pickled celery, the fatty taste of the fat, the sweet aroma of the chicken mixed with the sour and crunchy taste of the celery makes the eater remember it forever.
