Exquisite Vietnamese Crispy Savoury Pancakes

Cooking Adventure Number #9 – Exquisite Vietnamese Crispy Savoury Pancakes

For my ninth main ingredient, my friend selected ‘prawns’. I researched and selected three recipes including Char Kway Teow, Chinese – Style Mushroom Rice and Vietnamese Crispy Savoury Pancakes. All recipes look amazingly delicious however I chose Vietnamese Crispy Savoury Pancakes because it is a traditional Vietnamese recipe, one of my favourite recipes that my mum cooks and I want to know how to make it like my mum. The ingredients for ‘Vietnamese Crispy Savoury Pancakes’ are:

Mushroom

Pork Belly

Bean Sprouts

Prawns

Spring Onions

Coconut Cream

Ground Turmeric

Salt

Onion

Garlic

Sugar

Water

Rice Flour

Pork Belly

Since this is my first time making this recipe, I’ve let my mum do most of the steps such as cutting the pork belly. The first thing you have to do is to separate the bones and the meat (belly). While my mum was cutting through the meat it made this squeaky sound which I didn’t like.

Once my mum separated the bones form the meat, the next thing she did was cut the fat off the belly. According to Luke Nguyen’s pancake recipe, you would usually leave the fat on but since my mum and dad do not eat the fat, she cut it off. I love eating the fat but it’s my mum’s decision.

Once she removed most of the fat from the meat she cut the meat into strips.

She probably cut around 60 strips and I couldn’t wait to fry them.

Pancake Mixture

This is me pouring in the coconut cream into the rice flour. The coconut cream tasted really sweet and smooth but the rice flour was tasteless so I believe the combination would only taste like coconut.

The next thing that went in was the water. Obviously it tasted plain but it made the mixture look less powdery.

Next was the milk. The milk added a smooth texture to the mixture and after adding all the other ingredients in, it still smelt like coconut.

The next thing was the ground turmeric which is an Indian spice. It smelt really bad but when I added it into the mixture it was delicious!

Next was the chopped spring onions. It gave the mixture a lovely onion scent.

he last step was to mix it all together so it turns into a smooth mixture with no lumps of rice flour left. While I was mixing, the turmeric flew into my eyes and I couldn’t see for like five minutes but I could still mix! When I got my vision back, the mixture was smooth and had no lumps.

This is what the mixture looked like after mixing it for ten minutes. I tasted it and it was absolutely divine!

Fillings

This is me cutting the mushrooms in half for the filling which goes into the pancake. Although it says not to use mushrooms on Luke Nguyen’s recipe, my mum tends to use mushroom for extra flavour. Since I love mushrooms, I agreed with her to use them.

These are the finished prawns after ripping their heads off, peeling the skin and legs off. This is my first time actually peeling uncooked prawns, it was difficult at first but I got the hang of it after my fifth prawn. Some of the prawns had sharp things coming out of their skin which pricked me a couple of times.

This is me lightly frying the stripped pork belly with garlic. The aroma in the kitchen was amazingly delicious! 

Making “banh xeo “

The first thing was to put three strips of pork belly onto a heated pancake pan with oil on it. I left the pork belly on the pan for a few minutes. Sometimes the oil splatters so it may be best to put a pan on top. Then I put in two prawns and left it for a few minutes. Next I put in a handful of chopped onion and leave it for a few minutes.  The aroma from the fillings was exquisitely indulgent and I couldn’t wait to try it with the pancake mixture.

Once it had been in for a couple of minutes, I put one ladle of pancake mixture into the pan and spread it evenly around the pan and cooked it for three minutes. At this point, the kitchen smelt like a real Vietnamese restaurant.

After three minutes, I put in a bunch of bean sprouts on one side of the pancake and then placed a handful of mushrooms on top of the bean sprouts.

I then use a spatula to flip half of the pancake to one side. The tip from my mum was to slide the spatula ¾ of the way under and flip it. So far, it has been successful as this photo shows.

After two hours of cooking this recipe, I was extremely pleased about my final product. The presentation of the pancake with the salad and fish sauce looked strikingly brilliant. The pancakes looked like bowls and the salad looked like the food which was in the bowl. I was the first person to try the recipe.  The pancakes were fairly crispy but may have been crispier if we ate them immediately and the filling was gorgeous and exotic. Dipping the pancakes into the fish sauce made it taste marvellous. My family enjoyed the recipe, as usual but most of pancakes had too much turmeric which overpowered the filling. My highlight was the pancake with the filling and the lowlight was the mint because I didn’t like the taste of it. I can’t wait for my TENTH RECIPE!

This recipe was taken from SBS Food Website and my mother’s knowledge.

Q: Do you like Vietnamese cuisine? If not, why?

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