The steamed sticky rice Ke Ga – Hanoi traditional food with the fragrant flavor of the green beans, fatty, and crunchy fried onion attracts people in Hanoi when far away from home.
Referring to Phu Thuong Ward, Tay Ho district, Hanoi, most people remember the area of peach blossom and kumquat cultivation. But there is one thing that people cannot forget when mentioning it is the secret to cooking steamed sticky rice, sticky rice in Ke Ga.
Ke Ga Village
Phu Thuong previously belonged to Tu Liem district, now in Tay Ho district, Hanoi. Phu Thuong today consists of three villages: Phu Gia (Ga Village), Phu Thuy (Bac Village) and Phu Xa (Xu Village). Phu Gia ancient village has traditional cooking sticky rice, glutinous rice liquor, banh da ke, floating cake … but the most famous is still sticky rice.
Arriving in Village in the early morning or late afternoon, visitors on Hanoi street food tour will see flavors of sticky rice spread around the village. Cooking sticky rice in the village is kept from generations to other generations. Nearly everyone in the village knows how to make sticky rice, make giay cake, floating cake, cook rice wine.
At 2:00 am, the village’s kitchen stove burns again. The red flames reflect the shape of people cooking sticky rice. When the first sunshine is bright, the scent of sticky rice also spread all over the village. In the kitchen, the smoke from the oven and the smoke rising from the large pot blends together, forming a mysterious silver gray smoke.
The secret to cooking sticky rice
Ke Ga steamed sticky rice is made from the best kind of glutinous rice – nep cai hoa vang – in the Phu Thuong field (Tay Ho, Hanoi) and soaked from the morning. The rice is bumped several times and clean again, then drained.
If you join in Hanoi cooking class to cook sticky rice with green beans, pick up the beans peeled, which are regular and round, then soak them enough time and mixed with the rice which was drained. The mix of beans and glutinous rice should be even, so that the sticky rice will be delicious, not to be flaccid.
Ke Ga steamed sticky rice also has many flavors and ingredients, in which, the most characteristic is coconut sesame sticky rice and gac sticky rice. With coconut sticky rice, before pouring the rice into the saucepan, people have to check the water carefully. The water must be clean and pour enough, the racks should be thoroughly rinsed. Rice is poured into a saucepan, then put on the fire stove was red. For good taste, green beans will be put into the clean cloth, placed on the top of the pan to cooked by steam and not wet.
With gac sticky rice, the cooking process is more complex, soaking rice is quite long, about 3 and a half hours. Gac fruit puree is mixed with white wine and then mixed well in rice, seasoned salt, and sugar. The deliciousness of xoi gac (gac sticky rice) is depended on the cooking stage on the kitchen stove. Always keep the fire evenly, if the fire is too strong, the sticky rice will be burnt, if the fire is not enough strong, the sticky rice will not be sticky and cooked evenly.
To deliver the most delicious sticky rice to customers, people will wrap the rice in the lotus and banana leaves which are fresh, cleaned and dried.
Ke Ga steamed sticky rice is famous for its aromatic, round grain rice is not limp or hard. It can be said that Ke Ga sticky rice is always a kind of food attracting Trang An gourmets.
For more information/details: street food tour in hanoi, Vietnam food tours, food walking tour