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| Crispy burnt rice is a childhood favourite that never grows boring for many Vietnamese people.- Photo anninhthudo.vn |
Thanh Hà
A recent return to my parents’ home town brought back a taste I had not enjoyed for years: crispy burnt rice, one of my favourite dishes and a flavour tied closely to childhood.
When I was a little girl, I always spent summer holidays with my grandmother in a rural village in Thái Bình, now part of Hưng Yên Province.
Twice a day, my grandmother and I prepared meals for the family, beginning with a large cast iron pot of rice on a wood-fired stove. For a city girl, the smoky kitchen was not an easy place to stay, as the smoke often made my eyes sting. Yet my love for crispy burnt rice, a flavour that could only come from wood-fired or straw stoves, kept me beside the stove for nearly an hour until the rice was ready.
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| Wood-fired stove and cast iron pot are important for making crispy burnt rice. — Photo anninhthudo.vn |
At the bottom of the pot, the rice grains turned golden, crispy and fragrant. My grandma gently pried the crust off with chopsticks and the burnt rice would peel away in round pieces, following the shape of the pot. It was always for me, the “main cook who took good care of the pot”, as my grandma often said.
Normally, she would prepare kho quẹt, a traditional gravy mixed with various ingredients.
We would dip a piece of burnt rice into the kho quẹt sauce or place small pork crackling and dried shrimp, the main ingredients of kho quẹt, on top and then enjoy. It was delicious.
Another way my grandma made this crispy rice was by spreading the rice evenly in a thin, round layer in a pan with a little hot oil. She rotated the pan and pressed the rice down until it turned brown on one side before flipping it over to make it crispy.
The rice was then cut into smaller pieces and dried t in the sun, which added fragrance to the scorched rice. After one to two days, the sun-dried scorched rice was deep-fried in oil.
This cơm cháy or burnt rice went well with fish sauce mixed with green onions fried in oil or simply with pork floss.
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| ‘Cơm cháy’ is a perfect match for kho quẹt. — Photo eva.vn |
As I grew older and became busy with daily life, I rarely had time to visit my grandmother. At the same time, electric rice cookers became widespread in Việt Nam, meaning there was no more burnt rice for me.
When I complained to her about missing her dish, she said the wood-fired stove was still there waiting for me and suggested I could make it on a gas stove. But honestly, it was never the same, because it lacked the smoky aroma I had known throughout my childhood.
Today, what began as simple burnt rice cooked on a wood-fired stove has been transformed into many modern snacks. The common feature remains the crunchy texture of fried or grilled rice, but many attractive sauces and toppings are added to suit the tastes of different customers.
The most famous variety is cơm cháy chà bông (crispy rice crackers with pork floss).
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| ‘Cơm cháy chà bông’ is a popular snack nowadays. — Photo tcdulichtphcm.vn |
Rice is steamed in a saucepan. The rice at the bottom of the saucepan is then dried under sunlight for two days and deep-fried in oil until golden.
Drizzle sweet fish sauce over the rice while it is still hot and sprinkle pork floss over it. It is even better with hot chilli pepper and green onion fried in hot oil.
The beautiful golden colour and the crispiness are so inviting that nobody can resist.
Other toppings include dried chicken and spicy sauce; dried seaweed and roasted sesame; and kho quẹt, of course.
If you have any leftover rice at home, you can turn it into a wonderful, addictive and hard-to-resist snack. Once you start, there is no way to stop.
If you have no time, there is still an option: Ninh Bình Province is famous for its specialty cơm cháy dish dipped in a tasty goat meat sauce.
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| ‘Cơm cháy’ served with tasty goat meat sauce is a famous specialty of Ninh Bình Province. — Photo mia.vn |
The dipping sauce is made from a broth of goat bones, goat meat, onion, carrots and cassava starch. Together with the crispy rice, it creates a rich and savoury bite loved by many diners.– VNS
Read original story on Vietnam News