![]() ![]() This is the method used for making the filling in this recipe. There are more variations in Japanese and Korean cuisines, but this is essentially our version of a Chinese dish, so, let’s stick with the Chinese method. Know, however, that the way the red bean paste was cooked is just one of two ways that it is traditionally made in Chinese cooking. But what we had was dry azuki beans so they were cooked to mushiness, sweetened and used as filling. Had we been able to source good ready-to-use red bean paste, we would have skipped making the filling. ![]() The filling used in this recipe is homemade. Ground meat, mushrooms and vegetables are common fillings. If you’re wondering why it says sweet tang yuan above, that’s because tang yuan can be savory too. The filling can be black sesame paste, lotus paste, red bean paste or chocolate. To reheat them, pop ’em in a toaster oven, or re-fry them in neutral cooking oil.Traditionally eaten during the Lantern Festival, sweet tang yuan evolved from a purely symbolic food to a sweet snack (or dessert) eaten all year round. After you fry these sesame balls, they do keep okay for a day or two. If you don’t eat too many of these at a time, it’s better to fry up fresh batches. Prepping ahead & storage – Before rolling and frying, the dough keeps in the fridge for a few days just fine. There are some legit local vendors who make it with boiled potatoes and their bánh cam is excellent. It probably has to do with getting the water levels right, but there was much better success for me with potato flakes. Shell ingredients – I have also tried using boiled potato instead of flakes, and it didn’t turn out as well. I tried the mung bean filling with vanilla too, but prefer it without. The amounts of sugar are adjusted so it’s not too sweet.įilling ingredients – Adjusting sugar for the filling is easy, but it may change the texture and color if you adjust too much for the outer dough. The adjustments were made to get a better crisp in the shell, and to develop a deeper brown color. It took a lot of recipe tinkering with mom to get to this recipe. These are excellent served with coffee or tea. It’s fun to flatten bánh cam into a disk before taking a bite, but I also like making them into little bite-sized poppers too. They were maybe the size of a small orange–large enough to satisfy a dessert craving. Locals rarely could afford more than one of these. These were usually sold by vendors as a snack. They’re done when no longer crunchy, and easily mash between your fingers, about 30 minutes. You can cook this on the stove, or in a rice cooker, just as you’d cook rice but it can be more finnicky to do it right, and you may lose a lot of beans sticking to the pot. Steaming is the simplest way to cook them because you just let it sit on medium heat, and don’t have to worry about stirring, or how much water you’ve added. The slower and easier way: add hot water to the beans, let it cool, the transfer to the fridge overnight. The faster way: add hot water to soak them on the kitchen counter, drain then replace the hot water twice over the course of two hours. There’s more air inside when you make the filling smaller and it’s highly likely cooks did that to stretch their daily supply. This increased the sweetness allowing the cook to save money by cutting back on sugar too.įor the mung bean filling, my parents swear no cooks or snackers cared for some detail such as if the ball of mung bean shakes inside or not. Since potatoes were scarce (expensive) in Vietnam so sweet potatoes were used instead. We add potatoes to prevent bánh cam from exploding in the fryer. In many cases, money determines how things pan out. If you add coconut to your recipe, do yourself a favor and use only freshly grated coconut! Shaped By Necessity Only in the South will you find freshly shredded coconut in the filling too, but that will vary by vendor. The most popular flavor added to the mung bean filling is with drops of vanilla extract. There is no essence of flower added to this. In this post, I make it in the Southern style. A sugary drizzle on these fried goodies can be found on them depending on the vendor.Īnother difference in the north is that when they are covered in sugar, the dough is made only with sweet rice flour and no rice flour, sesame seeds, or potatoes. These are made with a Jasmine flower essence for a nice aroma. Northerners call it bánh ran, or “fried cake”. My parents recount the differences in these fried desserts back home: North Vietnam – Bánh Rán Both styles can be found throughout the country though. Although they look very similar, there are differences between bánh cam from the South and bánh ran from the North. ![]()
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