Nam Dan mussel rice cake

Unlike many other places, in Nam Dan district, banh duc is made with whole grains of rice that have been thoroughly washed, not with pre-milled rice flour. The mussels served with it must be the kind that live in the Lam River to be delicious.

In the past, most people cooked with red rice, a very delicious type of rice; even if you pounded it until the stone mortar wore out, the red rice grains would still have a pink color, very salty and rich, not white like other types of rice. To cook a pot of delicious banh duc with red rice, you must have a pair of very strong bamboo chopsticks, to stir very hard, for a long time - until the whole rice grains have melted into a thick paste in the pot.

Mussels are a product favored by heaven and earth, available all year round in the Lam River; however, mussels are especially fat, abundant and strangely delicious in the summer every year. Mussels are small, but their intestines are very thick and white-green; when boiled, they give off a cool, seductive aroma. The broth of Lam River mussels is white and thick like milk, if you let it drip into your hand, it will feel sticky.

After boiling the mussels, take the water and set it aside to use as the sauce for the rice cake later. As for the mussels, leave half of the meat in the boiling water, and stir-fry the other half with fried onion fat. Stir-fry until just cooked, not over-heated. Scoop out as much as you can eat. However, the mussel rice cake must be eaten cold to fully appreciate the unique flavor of the dish.

Thanh Nga