If you are bored with traditional green banh chung filled with meat, this Lunar New Year 2024, make it yourself and try these 5 new types of banh chung to change the taste. Vegetarian and salty banh chung with eye-catching purple and red colors are not only beautiful but also delicious, and will definitely be the highlight of this year’s Tet tray.
1. Vegetarian banh chung
Tet with a lot of meat is boring, especially for people who are vegetarian or have lost weight Chung cake Vegetarian is the best choice. Vegetarian banh chung simply means banh chung without meat, instead there are vegetarian fillings. This type of cake can also be transformed into many different styles such as cake filled with green beans, coconut, squash, lotus seeds, sesame, grapefruit perfume, shiitake mushrooms… All are clean ingredients and easy to buy anywhere. anywhere. Vegetarian banh chung used on occasion Lunar New Year Usually has a sweet taste, soft, flexible, fragrant, frugal but not boring, not greasy meat, pickled onions but still has its own unique flavor.
Package vegetarian banh chung Very simple with ingredients like traditional banh chung but no pork belly. You can refer to the simplest way to prepare sticky rice, green beans, vegetarian seasoning, scallions, leek onions, cooking oil and common spices such as salt, sugar, pepper.
The most special part is the filling. After soaking and cooking green beans until soft and mashed, add 1 teaspoon of vegetarian seasoning, 1 teaspoon of sugar, ½ teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of pepper, fragrant tilapia onions and 4 tablespoons of frying oil. Mix all ingredients well and then divide into desired fillings.
Packing vegetarian banh chung is no different from meat banh chung, except that pork belly is not added (Photo: Banhchunghanoi).
Another version for those who eat healthy but still want to enjoy Chung cake On Tet, it’s brown rice banh chung. If you want to change the flavor for Tet 2024, you can try making brown rice cakes with a new purple crust that is also delicious and good for your health. This type of cake is made entirely from brown rice instead of sticky rice, so you don’t have to worry about getting fat if you eat a lot of it. Brown rice is milled with only the husk removed, leaving the bran intact, so it is rich in trace elements and fiber to help you feel full longer and reduce boredom.
The kernel of brown rice banh chung Replace with healthy ingredients like chicken breast or lean meat instead of pork belly. Although not as greasy, it is a great choice for people who want to stay in shape.
Buy brown rice and green beans, wash them and soak them. Chicken breast or lean meat is also marinated with salt, pepper, and MSG then wrapped as usual.
3. Black sticky rice cake
Next comes a version Chung cake The same purple-red color but a completely different flavor is black sticky rice cake. Black sticky rice is different from brown rice, which is black in color but turns purple when cooked. It has nutritional value and high starch content and is very good for health. If brown rice is often used for people on a diet, black sticky rice acts like a normal sticky rice but is more delicious and is used in many dishes such as sticky rice, cakes, yogurt, and wine.
Cause of black sticky rice cake Completely similar to traditional meat banh chung, mainly containing pork belly and green beans. The crust is made from black sticky rice mixed with a little white sticky rice, soaked for 14 hours, rinsed with water, drained, then wrapped and boiled like a normal cake.
The filling for black sticky rice cake is exactly the same as traditional meat-filled banh chung, the only difference is that the type of rice used is black sticky rice (Photo: Nepcam).
Almost like vegetarian banh chung, sweet banh chung Do not use pork belly, pickled onions and salty spices such as pepper, salt, seasoning seeds, but use sugar, lotus seeds, etc. and maybe add a little lean meat.
What makes it special Chung cake Sweet is sugar. The sugar must be good quality, shaved thinly into large pieces, dark brown in color and rich in sweetness. Besides, there are also star anise and cinnamon bark ground into fine powder and then marinated with meat to create a unique flavor different from the usual salty banh chung.
Wrapping cakes is simpler and faster without needing to soak rice or boil green beans first. Just put in a bowl of rice, a bowl of beans, a few slices of meat, a layer of sugar, then cover with rice, beans and wrap tightly, boil for about 12 hours for the best taste. Sweet banh chung filling can also be meatless and add peanuts and coconut.
The finished cake is peeled off and has a cockroach brown color. When eaten, it is sweet but still feels the richness of sticky rice and pork. The blend of sugar, star anise and cinnamon bark makes people unforgettable.
5. Gac Chung Cake
Just by hearing the name, you can probably guess that this cake is made from gac fruit. Characteristics of Chung cake Gac is a cake crust with a striking red color, not only beautiful and strange but also a symbol of luck and prosperity in the first days of the new year. A plate of red gac banh chung in the Tet tray will definitely be the highlight.
How to package gac banh chung Completely similar to green banh chung. The savory filling is still familiar ingredients such as green beans and pork along with traditional spices such as salt and pepper.
Gac Chung Cake is red so it is always the highlight of the meal during the Lunar New Year 2024 (Photo: Nepcammoc).
The special feature of this cake lies in the sticky rice dyed red from gac fruit – a fruit extremely familiar to Vietnamese people. Gac must choose ripe red fruit without worms. Buy them, wash them, cut them in half, then use a spoon to scrape out the insides of the seeds. After soaking the sticky rice for 8 hours, wash it, take it out and mix it with all the gac intestines. To make the red color durable and beautiful, add a little sugar and white wine and knead the mixture well. Once done, remove the gac seeds and wrap as usual with the prepared filling. The finished product produces a beautiful and attractive red Gac Chung cake.
This Tet 2024, if you want to change the flavor and enrich your meal, try making the delicious and unusual banh chung as above to make the Lunar New Year days more fun and fulfilling!
