Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Banh cuon



This is Banh cuon, one of my favourite food. It's a northern dish, but sometimes can be found on the street of Saigon. Banh Cuon originally is from Thanh Tri district, just outside Hanoi.
To make Banh Cuon seems simple and easy, but it actually requires good skill. You'll need a steamer, a ladle, ready made rice flour mixed with water. A ladle full of the white mixture is spread across the skillet of the steamer covering the surface. It is then covered for 30 seconds or so. And the mixture turns into a kinda like cooked noodle pancake, very thin and clear. This is why you need the skill to not tear the Banh Cuon's flimsy rice film when trying to stuff it with mashed pork, mushrooms, prawns.
It comes served with mixed nuoc mam (fish sauce), maybe cha lua (mortadella), sliced cucumber, beansprouts, mint... You will also need a delicate touch to eat the dish also, by using chopsticks. (I sometimes can't handle it)
Here is the video of Making of Banh Cuon
http://noodlepie.typepad.com/blog/files/making_banh_cuon.MPG
Back in my country, whenever I went to my dad's hometown for a visit, I and my cousins, even dad, uncle, grandma... would go to the Banh Cuon place right across the street very short after we arrived. They made really really good Banh Cuon and my dad often had to stop us from eating too much, because we had to have lunch later. Banh Cuon is not expensive, by 2000dong (about 15 cents) you can buy a big dish, and 2 dishes is enough for lunch.

1 comment:

Courtney said...

That sounds really yummy (minus the pork of course)!