Gia Village is located in Yen Do commune, Hoai Duc, Hanoi. This place has a very famous cake, which is the village of gai cake.
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Gai cake – a popular Vietnamese dish
Throughout Vietnam, there are many famous places making the type of cake. For example, Hai Duong has gai cake Ninh Giang, Nam Dinh with gai cake Cau Oc, Thanh Hoa with Lang Mia gai cake, and Binh Dinh with banh it la gai. Gai cake of Gia village in Hanoi is also located in the list of places where the famous gai cake is made.
The gai cake is a Hanoi traditional food made from easy-to-find ingredients in Vietnam. Therefore, almost everyone knows and used to eat this cake. Years ago, when the market did not have many kinds of industrial confectionery like now, the hand made cakes such as gai cake are very popular dishes.
Currently, industrial confectionery is very rich, many types, long-term preservation time. But the gai cake still has its own place in the market and so is Gai’s village cake. When travelling to Hanoi, visitors can go to the market of Gia Village to enjoy this cake. Or want to be more interesting, tourists on Hanoi street food come to Gia village on the 10th day of the third lunar month.
Every year, on this day, Gia village holds village festival with many unique folk activities. And no matter how big or small the festival is, the people of Gia village always make gai cake. Gai cake in Gia Village is made right and enough stages and can be saved up to 1 month.
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Elaborating gai cake village Gia
In order to make the famous cake, the villagers must spend a lot of effort. First is the stage of making flour. The flour used to make gai cake is processed from pureed sticky rice. After that, the powder must be pounded with a stone mortar and a wooden pestle. The Gia villagers claim that hand-pounding flour will be more fresh, flexible and delicious so they still keep this traditional way of cooking.
After finishing, people will sieve the flour. The sieved flour must be soft and smooth to meet requirements. After making the dough is the stage of choosing leaves. The hemp leaves for making cakes must be large, thick, and fragrant. Hemp leaves are soaked in clean water for about 20 minutes and then put into a well-cooked boil then picked out. Doing so many times until the water is clear, the leaves will be crumpled and then grinded.
Next, leaves are kneaded with sugar cane molasses. Molasse with leaves after kneading to each other has black color. People then will put glutinous rice flour into the mixture. This stage took a lot of effort because of the need for some people to pound and reverse the cake. When you have finished pounding the dough, put the peanuts (peanuts) that have been roasted into the cake. People must make all the mixture of thorny leaves, molasses, glutinous rice and peanuts blend evenly together.
Stuffing of gai cake is a kind of green bean that has been carefully selected and then cleaned and then cooked. Next, green beans are put in a mortar for puree. In addition to green beans and gai leaves, gai cake in Gia village also includes coconut – the coconut is grown right in Gia village, so it has its own flavor, which is different from the gai cake in other regions.
After the preparation of all kinds of ingredients, the flour cake is rolled on the face of the tray and cut into square pieces. People do put the green bean on the middle of the powder and then cover it. During the work, the maker can add a few pieces of lotus jam, squash jam or some pieces of fatty meat to flavor the cake. Finally, the cake is rolled with a roasted sesame paste to make the sesame stick to the cake, making the cake look more beautiful. At this time, the new cakes are wrapped in banana leaves.
Unlike gai cakes in many places, the village of gai gai after being wrapped in banana leaves is also covered with a layer of coconut leaves. This layer of coconut leaves is very cleverly arranged into a square like a small box. On the outside there was a small toothpick stuck between the edges of the leaves. After that, the cake is brought into steaming.
With elaborate processing. Gai cake in Gia Village has a delicious taste, sweet and soft, very special. This dish is classified into one of the Hanoi specialties, loved by many tourists on Hanoi street food tour.
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