Vietnamese Street Food: Rainbow Salad of Paper

Paper for Food? Definitely Delicious!

 

Vietnamese Rice Paper Salad



My creative rice paper salad

Aha, it is a special type of paper which is made of rice :). As you can guess, since it is as thin as paper, when it is translated in English, it becomes "paper". In Vietnamese, it is actually named "cake", or "Bánh tráng" (the literal meaning is the cake made by spreading the flour on the mould- the first word is cake, the second word describes the action of making it :D)

 

So this recipe is one of the most favourite street food of teenagers and young people in Vietnam. To be honest, some of my aunties are crazy about this dish as well due to its well-blended taste of sweetness, sourness, spiciness, all balanced with the right level of savouriness. It is just perfect!



Various choices of toppings at a street cart in Vietnam



 

 

All ingredients before being mixed

I have been studied abroad for nearly 5 years and I constantly dream of this salad. As last summer I did not go home and when the craving reached its threshold, I knew I had to make the dream come true. It was actually not hard to find basic ingredients, oriental markets in Norwich have all of the. However, the tricky part was green, unripe mango which gives the deadly addictive sourness to the dish. I could not find it here so I chose the greenest ripe mango I found in Mark&Spencer. The final product was not really a replicate of my favourite dish, but definitely assuaged my craving and homesickness a lot ;) !

 

The authentic recipe can be watched here: http://danangcuisine.com/recipes/recipe-68-banh-trang-tron-rice-paper-salad/ The recipe is quite complicated so have it twisted with your own signature. I can be your taster to judge it ;)