The cuisine of the Southwest is as rustic as the people here. If customers from all over the world want to find that taste of the Southwest region, choose Ca Mau Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken.
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | All Best Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau
1. Better to Know as a Food Lover
Find them: Ca Mau city.
Best time: Dusk-Dawn
Don’t miss: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken)
Local’s pick: Co Lan Banh tam ga cay restaurant
Tourist’s pick: Restaurant in Ca Mau
Blog: https://vemekong.com/silkworm-rice-cake-with-curried-chicken-ca-mau/
Facts: Its name is audible, rustic but the characteristics are recorded. That is worthy of the name of delicious dishes of the Southwest region, the special cuisine of Ca Mau.
2. Better to Know Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken)
Ca Mau cuisine has no shortage of famous delicacies, but spicy glutinous rice cakes still have a certain place. That place is the idyllic taste of country rice, the rustic feature in the presentation of dishes, and the simple restaurant decoration that diners cannot find in a series of other specialties or luxury restaurants. That’s why talking about Ca Mau without eating spicy cake is considered as not knowing the taste of the Southwest region
Saying it is a dish, but more precisely, it must be street food, a cake to play with because spicy cakes are mainly sold on mobile phones or on sidewalks, under the porch. Their diners are diverse from all walks of life from working people to knowledge or students. Perhaps this point is also the factor that makes the cake more attractive.
3. Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken) in Ca Mau
Many types of processing, many flavors, but Ca Mau people still prefer spicy chicken curry and silkworm cake. They say that the spicy and hot taste of curry with the fatty sweetness of silkworm combined with fragrant silkworm cake is the harmony of the five senses, expressing the soul of the cuisine of the Southwest region. And each of them comes with its own secret. Like making curry powder, it must have all the ingredients: cloves, star anise, turmeric, cinnamon, dried coriander seeds and dried chili; All roasted fragrant then grinded finely. Only standard flour is used to cook with cleaned chicken to have a delicious chicken curry sauce. Particularly, silkworm needs delicious pork with both lean and fat, seasoning to taste so that when combined with curry sauce, you can still see the taste of silkworm. After processing the ingredients, the seller will now follow the customers’ wishes to present the dish.
A big pot boils on the charcoal stove, and some sellers will pick up the fat and opaque strands of Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken from it and put it on a pure white plate. Customers who order chicken curry will be covered with a thick yellow curry sauce that will overflow the cake and add chicken, chicken gizzards or chicken blood. And don’t forget to include a plate of fresh vegetables, basil and a cup of salt and pepper with lemon to serve. When ordering, we will display two or three hot round silkworm balls on top for guests to enjoy.
Called spicy cake, the main flavor will be spicy, pungent but not overpowering the sweet and sour taste of other ingredients. Spicy sweat, sweet to the bone, sour, salty protein. Therefore, eating does not feel boring but feels extremely. The typical country cake of Ca Mau cuisine is delicious to enjoy at any time: breakfast, lunch or dinner. Not only eating full stomach, full of nutrients but also bone marrow.
4. How to Make Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken)
Ingredients for Ca Mau Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken
1 duck
500g silkworm cake
1 onion
15g lemongrass
15g minced lemongrass
50g minced garlic
15g tapioca flour
1 handful of lime leaves (optional)
50g accompanying vegetables including lettuce, herbs, bean sprouts, chives
Bread and salt and pepper served
Seasoning: Curry powder, shrimp satay, sugar, salt, monosodium glutamate, cooking oil
How to choose delicious duck
For raw ducks, you should pay attention to have a full, smooth coat, round breast, thick belly or neck skin, you can also cross the wings to see if you can choose that duck.
As for ready-made ducks, choose a duck that has just been pecked, the outer skin is not too dark yellow, and when pressed, the meat is firm and elastic. If pressed, if it is deformed, it should not be selected.
How to make Ca Mau Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken
Step 1 Prepare ingredients
First, you buy a duck, separate the intestines and wash them, use vinegar or alcohol to rub the duck and leave it for 10 minutes. Then bring it to boil in hot water for 10 minutes, then use tweezers to pull out clean hairs, wash them and cut them into bite-sized pieces.
Next, you wash the lemongrass, cut it and smash it. Onions you peel and cut each areca. The accompanying vegetables include lettuce, herbs, bean sprouts and chives, washed, soaked in salt, and drained. Lemon leaves you wash.
Step 2 Marinate duck meat
You put the duck meat in a bowl, marinate with your hands with spices in the ratio of 20g minced lemongrass, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons MSG, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon curry powder, 1 teaspoon Shrimp satay coffee, marinated cashews to absorb duck meat.
Step 3 Stir-fry onion duck meat
Next, you put a pot on the stove for 1 tablespoon of cooking oil… 1 teaspoon of minced garlic and saute until fragrant. Then, you add 30g of lemongrass, 1 teaspoon of curry powder, 1 teaspoon of shrimp satay and stir well to blend.
Next, you put the duck meat in with the onion and lemongrass and pound it on the cashew island for 10 minutes on medium low heat, stir until the duck meat is hunted and fragrant.
Step 4 Duck Curry Stew and Done
Continue, you cook a pot of boiling water and then pour into the pot of fried duck so that it is just enough to cover the duck meat. Then, you put in the duck intestines with a little bit of soft crushed lemongrass leaves and close the lid, keep the heat low and stew for 30 minutes until the meat is tender.
You dilute 1 tablespoon of tapioca starch with a little water and slowly add to the curry pot and gently stir until the broth reaches the desired consistency.
You take a bowl to add some vegetables to eat, silkworm cake and add curry broth with duck meat, now you can enjoy it.
5. Pro tips:
Here are our tips for easing your mind (and stomach) around food-handling environments that you may not be used to.
Make sure the food is freshly cooked. If you’re eating hot street food, it’s always safest (not to mention more delicious) to eat food you can see being cooked to order.
Look for lines and busy stalls. Busy street food stalls are an indicator of popularity, and their high turnover rate means the food is never sitting out for hours and developing dreaded bacteria. Yes, long lines can be discouraging when you’re hungry after a full day of exploring, but it’s not worth the risk of grabbing precooked food from the empty spot next door.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho: Co Ut’s Cong cake, Ut Dzach Fine Rice Vermicelli, Thanh Van Grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Noodle Soup At Floating Market, Scorched Rice with Caramelized Fish Sauce, 7-Toi’s Duck Meat Pancake, Banh Mi Thuy, Banana Blossom Salad, Fried Spring Rolls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Fetal duck egg (balut), Honeycomb Cake, Mini Sticky Rice Cake, Cassava Silkworm Cake, Grilled Banana Wrapped in Sticky Rice, Khmer-style Bun Goi Da Soup, Egg Coffee, Con Son Grilled Snakehead Fish, Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup, Lau Mam – Fermented Fish Hotpot, Grilled Snails with Pepper, Magenta Sticky Rice Cake, Duck cooked with Fermented Tofu, Rice Noodle Pizza, Vegetarian Noodle Soup, Snails Stuffed With Pork…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Chau Doc: Chau Doc Fish Noodle Soup, Sugar Palm Fruit, Basa Fish Hot Pot, Mam (Fermented fish), Phu Huong Beef Noodle Soup, Broken Rice with Pork Chop, Long Xuyen Broken Rice, Nui Cam Pancake, O Thum’s Chicken Grilled with Lime Leaves, Stir-fried Shrimp with Sesbania Flower, Sweet & Sour Soup with Siamese Mud Carp Soup & Sesbania Flower, Caramelized & Braised Catfish, Grilled Rice-field Rat with Salt and Chili…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang: Pia Cake, Cong Cake (Banh Cong), Bun Nuoc Leo Soc Trang’s Noodle Soup, Soc Trang’s Bun Goi Da Soup, Duck Noodle Soup with black Pepper, Curry Noodle Soup, Grilled Beef on Tile, Khmer-style Tube Cake, Khmer-style Mung Bean Cake (Banh In), Dried Radish (Xa Bau), Stir-Fried Noodles with Seafood (Mi Sua), Soc Trang’s Green Rice Flakes…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre: Phu Le Rice Wine, Ben Tre’s Coconut Candy, Flat Banana, Coconut Rice, Snail Pancake, Sea Snail with Coconut Milk, Coconut Worm, Young Coconut Salad with Shrimp & Pork, Son Doc Puff Rice Paper…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Cai Be: Puffed Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Vinh Long: Elephant Ear Fish (fried giant gourami)…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in My Tho: Fried Sticky Rice, Snakehead Fish Rice Porridge, Hu Tieu My Tho (Noodle Soup), Coconut Banana Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Tra Vinh: Macapuno Coconut, Bun Nuoc Leo Tra Vinh’s Noodle Soup, Tra Cuon’s Sticky Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Sadec: Sa Dec Noodle Soup, Sadec Crab Hotpot, Lai Vung Spring Rolls, Sa Giang Shrimp Puff Pastry, Lai Vung Tangerine…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Bac Lieu: Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, Bac Lieu’s Three-striped Crab, White Radish Pies, Bac Lieu Thick Noodles & Creamy Coconut Milk, Bon Bon Pickles…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken), Grilled Vop clams with salt and pepper, Grilled Mudskipper Fish, Stone Crab Roast With Salt, Young Bee Salad, Nam Can’s Crab, U Minh Forest’s Honey, U Minh’s Fermented Fish Hotpot…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Hau Giang: Cau Duc Pineapple, Cai Tac’s Pork Organs Porridge, Hau Giang’s Bronze Featherback Fish Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ha Tien: Herring Fish Salad, Spider crab cake soup, Ken Noodle soup, Xoi Xiem (Siamese sticky rice), Steamed Noodle soup, Ha Tien Oyster porridge…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Rach Gia: Stir Noodle Soup, Kien Giang Fish Noodle Soup…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Con Dao: Bang nut jam, Vu Nang Snail, Roasted Pork Bread (Banh Mi), Coconut Ice Cream…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Phu Quoc: Phu Quoc Sim Wine, Phu Quoc Pepper, Phu Quoc fish sauce…
Hopefully, the above tips will help you to come up with a great plan for your adventure in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Have a safe trip!
“Sleep less, travel more, respect more” – Thomas Vietnam – Local travel expert.
Thank you
