Son Doc puff rice paper is a famous specialty that tourists should try once if they have the opportunity to come to Ben Tre. The blend from the aroma of sticky, greasy taste of Ben Tre coconut and the sweet taste of cane sugar has created Son Doc puff rice paper with a rustic, sweet and aromatic flavor that is hard to match. Many tourists choose to buy Son Doc puff rice paper as a gift after traveling to Ben Tre.
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | All Best Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre
1. Better to Know as a Food Lover
Find them: Ben Tre city.
Best time: Dusk-Dawn
Don’t miss: Son Doc Puff Rice Paper
Local’s pick: Son Doc Puff Rice Paper Village
Tourist’s pick: Supermarket in Ben tre
Blog: https://vemekong.com/son-doc-puff-rice-paper-ben-tre/
Facts: Over the years, Son Doc puff rice paper still maintains its brand name in the market.
2. Better to Know Son Doc Puff Rice Paper
Son Doc puff rice paper village (in Son Doc hamlet, Hung Nhuong commune, Giong Trom district, Ben Tre province) has existed for more than 100 years. This craft village has become famous not only in the Mekong Delta but also in some parts of the country, even abroad. Initially, Son Doc puff rice paper appeared only on traditional holidays and Tet. Thanks to the fragrant, juicy, and crispy taste, puff rice paper has become a familiar hometown gift for many tourists from far away. Over time, from generation to generation, puff rice paper is still loved by many people and has since become a traditional specialty of the people here.
To have a quality puff rice paper, the selection of ingredients is very important. Glutinous rice used to make delicious cakes must necessarily be the typical sticky rice of Ben Tre – waxy sticky rice (rice with natural flavor, fragrant, sticky). And, the coconut used to get the juice to make cakes only chooses the new type of dry coconut. Buy glutinous rice and soak it for a few hours to make it soft, then wash it and steam it until it’s cooked. Glutinous rice is just cooked, put it in a mortar and pound it with coconut milk and sugar, season to taste. Nowadays, people often use machines instead of mortars. Whether the puff rice paper is delicious or not depends on the person turning the dough, it must be turned evenly, quickly and continuously, then the dough will be smooth, the cake will rise and be spongy when baked. After the dough is mixed and smooth, the rolling process begins. When rolling the cake, the person wrapping the dough must peel it off so that each ball of dough has an even mass, it must be clever to make the cake round and thin. The finished cake will be dried in direct sunlight. Drying puff rice paper is also a feat and meticulous, depending on the weather a lot, if it is sunny, the puff rice paper will be dry for about half a day.
3. Son Doc Puff Rice Paper in Ben Tre
When baked, Son Doc puff rice paper expands 3-4 times larger than its original shape. To make the cake delicious, spongy and crispy, it should be baked on a fiery red charcoal stove. Usually, raw puff rice paper is bagged and sold. The finished puff rice paper bags are not only consumed all over the country but also packaged for export to Europe and America… Son Doc puff rice paper is considered a famous Ben Tre specialty that every visitor who has the opportunity to travel to the land of Coconut do not forget to try it. Holding a puff of rice paper in your hand and enjoying it, you can fully feel the deliciousness, quintessence and effort of the people who make this cake. Son Doc puff rice paper is often used to eat or worship on holidays and New Year. With a strong, sweet flavor, Son Doc puff rice paper makes it difficult for visitors to once try it to forget the taste.
Son Doc puff rice paper is delicious because of the quintessence from the secret of making coconut milk from the locals here, the taste of the cake is soft and fatty, it is difficult to mix with any other gift from the countryside. Besides the traditional production of cakes, local people in the area also try to process many other types of puff rice paper such as chicken seed puff rice paper, jackfruit puff rice paper, durian puff rice paper, shrimp puff rice paper, etc. to meet the needs of tourists near and far.
4. How to Make Son Doc Puff Rice Paper
Ingredients for making puff rice paper
1kg of glutinous rice
Soy flour
Coconut
Sugar
Preliminary processing of sticky rice
Choose a new type of sticky rice, both fragrant and flexible. Soak the sticky rice in water for about 5 hours to make the sticky rice swell and soft. Then wash and steam until the sticky rice is cooked.
How to make puff rice paper
– When the glutinous rice is cooked, put it in the mortar, when it is still hot, the dough will be flexible. Knead and pound until the dough is finely ground so that the glutinous rice grains will form a homogeneous mass.
– After brushing, knead with a little sugar, coconut milk in proportion to the flour, add a little ground soybean powder to help the cake be bigger. When the dough is evenly absorbed, shape it into balls and then roll them.
– When finished rolling, the cake should be dried in the sun, the sun should not be too harsh or too weak, so the cake will be called. After half a day of drying, the cakes are dried, removed and stacked.
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.
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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…
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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
