Bánh chưng and bánh tét to the Vietnamese Tết are like turkey and ham to the American Thanksgiving. The holiday feast just wouldn’t feel right without them. Although I have blogged about these sticky rice squares and logs before, the lunar new year has come back, and so are they. Sticky rice can be uberfilling in large quantity, and like all festive food, it’s not recommended that you feast on these dense beasts day after day, as satisfaction would turn into tiresomeness. But once a year, or maybe twice, a couple slices of banh tet sound so much more interesting than cereal, rice, even noodle soup. Banh chung and banh tet have rather similar ingredients, especially when they’re made by Vietnamese Southerners. Both are wrapped in leaves (although slightly different kinds of leaves), and boiled for hours in water that is sometimes spiced with lemongrass. After cooking, a heavy weight is put on banh chung to drain the water, while banh tet are rolled around to perfect the cylindrical shape. I remember we used to hang pairs of banh tet in my grandfather’s kitchen, taking one down everyday during the week of Tet to whip out a nice […]
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