Western gifts in Saigon

Article and photos: Duong Thuy

Delicious flavor of steamed banana cake, fried banana and grilled sticky rice banana

These three snacks all originated from the Southwestern region during the reclamation of wasteland. In the past, the alluvial soil of the West was so fertile, bananas grew in forests and green bushes, rowing boats on the rivers and canals to catch shrimp and fish, looking up to the shore and seeing any bananas that were slightly green, people would just cut them and hang them in the kitchen. At every meal, people would break bananas and put them in a bowl of rice, eat bananas with grilled dried fish, or fish braised with pepper to replace vegetables, which seemed convenient.

When the bananas are ripe, in addition to pressing and drying them to eat gradually, people in the West also simmer and squeeze the ripe bananas with coconut milk, ginger and crushed roasted peanuts to make huge trays of banana candy. When guests come to visit, the host takes a knife and cuts a plate for them to enjoy. Gradually, clever housewives created the dish of steamed banana cake.

With the basic ingredients of ripe bananas, rice flour, tapioca flour, shredded coconut and coconut milk, on a summer afternoon in the old garden, the girls of the West only needed to stand on the other side of the pond and say "Let's make banana cake together later!". So, the girl quietly went into the kitchen, broke about twenty ripe bananas on the counter, cut them into thin slices and mixed them with the above flours and coconut milk until thick, carefully adding a little salt and sugar to the dough. She dropped the thinly sliced ​​coconut meat into the bowl of fragrant light yellow flour. Thus, the ingredients for making the cake were completed.

Gradually, people in the West created fried bananas and grilled sticky rice-wrapped bananas. The best thing is that the banana used to make these dishes must be Siamese bananas, so that they can be delicious, healthy, and nutritious snacks. On rainy, slightly chilly days, there is nothing better than enjoying a piece of fried banana that is fragrant, crispy, and hot. To make fried bananas, the seller chooses ripe bananas that are slightly soft, and places them on a clean cutting board lined with plastic. Next, use another cutting board to press down on the banana to flatten it; use a wooden spatula to scoop the banana pieces off the cutting board, place them on the spatula, and dip them into a bowl of pre-mixed flour including: rice flour, wheat flour, tapioca starch, crispy flour, sugar, and salt according to specific standards. Dip the bananas just right, drop the banana pieces covered with flour, and gently drop them into a pan of boiling oil on the stove. Watch the heat so that the flour mixture covering the banana pieces turns golden brown. Quickly, the seller scoops the bananas up and puts them on a grill to drain the oil. Now, she waits for her regular customers to come and enjoy the food.

In addition to fried bananas, Saigonese people also love charcoal-grilled bananas wrapped in sticky rice. Compared to steamed banana cakes and fried bananas, the sticky rice wrapped banana dish seems more elaborate because the sticky rice must be dried with shredded coconut. Then, the seller kneads the sticky rice with a little coconut milk to make it really sticky; the ripe bananas are peeled and soaked in a basin of slightly warm water with a little salt, then taken out to drain. Very skillfully, the seller pinches a ball of sticky rice to fit the hand, rolls the banana into the round sticky rice bag evenly and beautifully. Wrapping the bananas in banana leaves, the seller fans the charcoal grill but does not use a high heat because the bananas will overcook and lose their deliciousness. The seller turns the bananas on the grill to make them evenly cooked... When customers stop by the sidewalk to order, the seller cuts the bananas into quarters, pours a cup of coconut milk on the plate. The fatty taste of coconut, the sticky aroma of sticky rice and the characteristic sweetness of bananas will attract all diners.

Rustic orange cake, bird's nest cake, sponge cake

With a simple nature, when creating orange cake, people in the West immediately named the round cake like oranges in their garden. So the cake has the name orange but the ingredients do not contain any fruit.

At first glance, the orange cake is quite similar to the fried cake of the Northern people. Actually, the ingredients to make orange cake are sticky rice flour mixed with rice flour according to the recipe so that when fried, the cake is always crispy. The fried cake is made entirely of sticky rice flour, so the cake is very sticky and mushy. The filling is usually mashed green beans, the surface of the cake is covered with a layer of sticky sugar that is caramelized to a golden color like malt, sprinkled with fragrant roasted sesame on top. Orange cake has a crispy, slightly sweet taste, very appetizing.

The dish of Banh Tai Yen also originated from the West and followed the villagers to Saigon. The ingredients to make Banh Tai Yen are simple: rice flour, a little tapioca starch, coconut milk and sugar mixed together until thick and then fried until golden brown. The most difficult part of making Banh Tai Yen is frying the cake so that the bird's nest ears expand evenly and beautifully. To fry this dish, the seller pours cooking oil into a small cast iron pan, when the oil boils, pours each cup of dough into the pan very skillfully, pouring the dough quickly and decisively so that the dough sticks together in a circle, not spreading around. When the middle part of the dough is cooked and puffed up, the edges of the cake curl up, golden brown, the cake has the shape of an upside-down cone, take it out, place the cake on a paper towel to absorb the oil, then arrange it on a plate.

As for banh bo, it is more diverse. Westerners have many ways to make banh bo such as steamed banh bo, banh bo with bamboo roots, banh bo in steamed form and banh bo n nuong… It is said that banh bo came to the West following the Chaozhou people from China. Over time, this cake has been improved a lot, suitable for both snacks and savory parties (bo bo with roasted pork).

The ingredients to make banh bo are also simple, including rice flour, sugar, coconut and yeast. However, whether the cake is delicious or not depends on the skill of fermenting the dough. Initially, there was only steamed banh bo eaten with banh tieu, gradually the people of the West invented grilled banh bo (some places also add milk so it is called grilled milk banh bo). Very quickly, this dish quickly became the favorite snack, especially for children and students.

When it rains, sitting in a small office, a bag of fragrant banh bo is enough to attract. At this time, banh bo, tai yen or banh cam, though simple and rustic, have a strange attraction when you let your soul wander and sip a delicious cake to remember your hometown in the West when you were still a student.

Enjoy food at:

Delicious Restaurant 

160, Pasteur, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Tel:(08)38277136

26 Tran Hung Dao, Hanoi. Tel: (04) 3933 6133

http://www.quananngon.com.vn

quananngon@hcm.vnn.vn

The Thanh