Vietnam: Bánh Xèo (Vietnamese Crêpe)

 Thi Hong Hoa Vuong

Bánh Xèo (Vietnamese Crêpe): Vietnam

Vietnam is a small country in Asia, and so not many people know about it as well as Vietnamese food culture. Because in the past, Vietnam was ruled by China for at least one thousand years and controlled by France later for about one hundred years, China and France influenced Vietnamese culture including food culture strongly. However, Vietnamese food still has its traditional taste.“Bánh xèo” is one of the dishes combining Vietnamese food culture with French and Chinese food culture because this cake has  a thin batter similar to a French crêpe, and it is dipped in a sweet sauce like many Chinese foods, but that sauce is made from fish sauce, the Vietnamese traditional sauce.  “Bánh xèo” literally means “sizzling cake”. It has that name because of the sizzling sound when the batter hits the hot oil. This dish is a traditional and famous dish in Southern regions of Vietnam. The specialty of “bánh xèo” is that the batter is crispy; people eat this cake by wrapping small pieces in vegetables and served dipped in sweet fish sauce. I had never eaten “bánh xèo” until I came to Montreal and knew a lot of Vietnamese friends from Southern regions. They just cooked for me and the taste was so great. Then I learned how to cook it. It was not as hard as I thought.

THE RECIPE

·         Ingredients (The batter)

• 1 cup rice flour (not glutinous rice flour)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 small tin coconut milk (165 ml)
• 1.5 cups water
• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
• 100g pork belly, sliced into small thin pieces
• 100g small shrimps
• bean sprouts
• oil

·         Procedure

1. Mix the rice flour, salt and turmeric together in a bowl
2. Pour water and coconut milk in the mixture, stir it slowly until the rice flour dissolves, then put the spring onion in and stir through it again.
3. Stir fry pork, shrimps and bean sprouts separately
4. Heat a non-sticky pan (about 10 inch to make a good shape for the cake) and wait for about 1 minute.
5. Put 1 teaspoon of oil to the pan and heat it about 30 seconds.
6. Stir the batter mixture and add a ladle of batter mixture to the pan and at the same time, turn the pan quickly to make the mixture cover the entire pan.
7. Put some shrimps, pork and bean sprouts on the batter, then cover the pan and wait for 3-4 minutes.
8. Fold the crêpe in half when the batter’s edge pulls away the sides of pan.
9. Put the crêpe in a plate and redo from step 5.

·         Ingredients (The dipping sauce)

• 3 teaspoons lime juice
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 cup water (125 ml)
• 2.5 teaspoons fish sauce
• 1 clove garlic minced finely
• 1 teaspoon chili paste

·         Procedure

1. Mix the lime juice, sugar and water until the sugar dissolves.
2. Add the fish sauce to the mixture
3. Add garlic and chili paste and stir it.

Serve with the dipping sauce and salad plate including lettuce, coriander, fresh mint and basil.

Source

“Bánh xèo” posted by Su-lin on March 27^th, 2009

http://tamarindandthyme.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/banh-xeo/