Bánh lọt
Friday, December 11, 2009
Haha. Sorry, that's Miku, not Bánh lọt
Anywho, if you've never had Bánh lọt before, you don't know what you're missing!
Bánh lọt is a Vietnamese desert made from pandan leaves and water chestnut flour. Don't know what you'd call it in English. It's fairly bland tasting by itself, but when served with other things, like in Chè ba màu (three coloured "sweet soup", similar to 糖水) or with a sweet syrup, among other things. My mom makes it for the restaurant our family owns, and during the winter, she leaves some at home, as it's a cold dessert, and doesn't sell as much as it does in the summer.
That aside, I've had lots of photos with Kagami, so I decided to give Miku some spotlight. Just realized I haven't done her photoshoot yet, so I'll get that done within the next week or so...hopefully. Getting stuff for school and stuff if quite a hassle.
5 comments
I found your post thru Google Image. I LOVE banh lot but I can't seem to find any good ones that resembled the ones I first tasted...soft and slightly chewy...plump in the middle and tapered at the ends. I've been searching for recipes to try to make my own but I can't figure out if I should use rice flour, mung bean flour, or water chestnut flour as the base and how to get it to that unique shape. Would your mom mind loaning me her recipe?
ReplyDelete-Jen
My mom uses water chestnut flour as the base. To get the shape, she presses it through...what's essentially a bread pan with holes on the bottom, and they then fall into an ice bath. That's all I know about the process. Aside from that it's just a lot of stirring until the mixture is really thick.
ReplyDeleteoooh. I will try making it with water chestnut flour next time. I used a colander to form the shape...but either the holes weren't spaced out far enough from each other or my mixture was too thin so i just got globs. The globs then slowly dissolved in the ice bath. >.< How thick is the mixture would you say? Like Playdoh thick?
ReplyDeletePlaydoh thick would be terrifying xD
ReplyDeleteAnywho, here's...what I think is the process. I'm not sure what the measurements are, but my mom mixes the flour with water and lets it sit for a while (not sure how long either).
I'm guessing she mixes the flour mixture in with more water when she starts it because she fills a medium sizes pot. Anywho, with the pot she adds pandan leaf extract and stirs it until the consistency is...thick and viscous. Should still be able to stir it. Think it takes..maybe 10-15 minutes? Once it gets hard to stir, I think that's good enough. Ice bath and then strained and refrigerated. And that's all I know. Hope this helps a bit o:
Kenn!!
ReplyDeleteI finally (had time to) try making Banh Lot again! I bought a bag of banh lot mix from the Vietnamese store and a box of water chestnut flour.
The water chestnut flour worked great and even better than the banh lot mix! I followed what you told me and just gauge using the best of my knowledge. I mixed 1 part flour to 3 part water then cook it until it thickens. OMG it wouldn't thicken for the first 10 minutes then when it did, it quickly thicken into almost like Playdoh. Yes that was terrifying! I added more water and mix and mix and mix until it was like a pudding. Good arm workout. Squeezed the mixture through a potato ricer into an ice bath. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. I couldn't wait! I tried some as soon I could. The texture and taste was PERFECT! (maybe too much pandan extract) It was 70% soft and 30% chewy. Just perfect!
I didn't like the texture and floury taste of the banh lot mix result.
Thank you so so so so so so so much!