FULL MOON REFLECTS ON THE AUTUMN POND
In the ninth lunar month, the rice grains sown in the third month have turned into heavy rice ears. People hurriedly harvest the ripe rice, mill it into precious pearls, and then use them to cook sticky rice and sweet soup to celebrate the new rice season and to thank heaven and earth for the favorable weather.
Such is the spiritual life of the residents of the rice civilization: March sows seeds, September harvests cotton, March plants rice, January plants beans, and then when the rice ripens, there are both beans and fragrant sticky rice to cook a bowl of areca flower sweet soup, first offering to the Gods and Buddhas, then leisurely enjoying the taste of Autumn.
The connection between sticky rice and sweet soup has therefore become extremely close. Not only are they two popular foods of the Vietnamese people, but they are also two extremely important ingredients to create the shape and identity of Vietnamese cuisine. Aren’t Lang Lieu’s banh chung and banh giay made from rice grains wrapped around beans?
Rice is used to cook sticky rice, beans are used to cook sweet soup, and rice is also used to cook sweet soup, beans are also used to cook sticky rice. Sticky rice is inherently soft and fatty, while sweet soup is inherently fragrant and sweet, however, when eaten together with sticky rice, it creates a culinary world of different smells and flavors, very new, harmonious and attractive to the point that sometimes one eats until one is "full of sticky rice, bored of sweet soup".
But no matter how full or bored, the pair of sticky rice and sweet soup remains unchanged in the calculation of offerings on the last day of the lunar month, not only on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, but also on all offerings that require purity and vegetarianism, and then spread to other types of dishes as a delicious dish.
The value of the plate of sticky rice and the bowl of areca flower sweet soup is that it encompasses all of those standards: closeness, purity, fragrance, and beauty. The plate of sticky rice is skillfully arranged to be full and round, exuding a feeling of fullness and fulfillment to create the image of the moon on the full moon day.
Small bowls of areca flower sweet soup with clear sugar water, dotted with light yellow beans. Looking at that simple bowl of areca flower sweet soup, one cannot help but think of an autumn pond reflecting itself under the moonlight, with sparse golden waves that never stop spreading out.
Covering all is the subtlety and meticulousness of people in transforming ordinary ingredients into offerings that possess the above values. The simpler the things, the more elaborate it is to turn rice into jade, beans into gold.
Therefore, Vietnamese people often cook areca flower sweet soup and sticky rice to worship on full moon days, especially the Mid-Autumn Festival, the September Full Moon, and the October Full Moon (Ha Nguyen festival). Then, the weather is ready to enter a new year according to the Lunar calendar with January - December - January - February.
A SIMPLE DELICIOUS PIECE IN LIFE
To have a tray of vo xoi or cau flower sweet soup is not simple. Vo xoi is the most difficult type of sticky rice to make. To have a standard vo xoi dish, you need to put in a lot of effort and sincerity. The rice used to cook vo xoi must be carefully selected, usually using velvet sticky rice or golden flower sticky rice, the grains must be even, no broken grains, the grains must be black so that when steamed, the sticky rice will reach the same level of doneness.
Wash the rice, soak it in water for 6-8 hours until it is fully saturated with water, then when cooked, you will have soft, plump sticky rice grains like bees. After soaking, rinse gently, then put it in a colander, turn on the fan to dry the water. This is the secret to making the sticky rice grains separate and not stick together.
Green beans are green beans - small, fragrant, and flavorful beans. Fastidious people will never buy pre-shelled beans at the market to cook because these beans are large but bland. Crush the green beans with a bottle or coarsely grind them until they break in half, then soak them in water for a few hours to soften them and separate the shells from the bean core.
After cleaning the shells, wash them thoroughly until the water is clear, then pour them into a colander to drain. Next, steam the beans until cooked, then pound them in a mortar until smooth. Still not done, you have to form the beans into round balls like the ones used to make sticky rice. Oh, and remember to leave a small bowl of unpounded beans for later to cook sweet soup!
The reason it is called "xoi vo" is because to meet the standards, it must go through "3 vo 2 lo" which means kneading mung beans with rice 3 times and steaming sticky rice 2 times. After the rice is fanned dry, put it on a tray, take half of the mung beans, use a sharp knife to cut them into very thin slices, cover the rice, then wear gloves and knead gently to mix the beans with the sticky rice more evenly.
Put the rice and beans into the steamer. After about 30 - 35 minutes, when you smell the aroma of sticky rice and beans, the sticky rice is about 70% cooked, take the sticky rice out onto a tray, spread it evenly to let the steam escape quickly. Continue to thinly slice the remaining beans into the sticky rice, knead it a second time to mix the beans with the sticky rice. Drizzle some chicken fat, knead it evenly to let the sticky rice absorb.
Steam the sticky rice a second time until it is fully cooked, remove it to the tray and continue to gently knead it a third time to coat it evenly. The kneaded sticky rice is soft but not sticky, the bean powder coats the glutinous rice grains thinly but still does not overpower the aroma of the rice. When eaten, the sticky rice grains are soft, fatty, and fragrant with both the aroma of rice and beans. After a few hours, it will still be as delicious as if it was just steamed.
Sticky rice can be eaten alone with salty foods such as ham, chicken, but it is best eaten with areca flower sweet soup. This sweet soup is called by the old people by its common name, sugar sweet soup, also called areca flower sweet soup because the beans float in the bowl of sweet soup like areca flowers falling into a jar of water in a corner of the country yard.
Sweet soup is made from tapioca starch, marinated with grapefruit flowers and rock sugar water. Boil water, add filtered sugar water and season to taste. Mix tapioca starch with water until dissolved, filter out dirt and then “pour in the flour”. This means stirring the pot of sweet soup with one hand, tilting the bowl of tapioca starch with the other hand and slowly pouring it in.
Stir gently, in one direction, continuously to prevent the pudding from burning or clumping. When you feel the mixture is a little heavy, it means you have enough flour. Too little flour will make the pudding thin, too much flour will make the pudding thick and less delicious and beautiful. Continue stirring until the tapioca starch and sugar water are smoothly blended together.
When the pudding is clear, the powder is cooked. Take it out and let it cool down a bit, then take the bowl of steamed beans from before, stir the pudding with one hand, and sprinkle the steamed split beans with the other hand, sprinkle enough so that the yellow beans float in the clear white tea like marble. Take a small bowl, scoop the pudding in, when the pudding is slightly dry, sprinkle the remaining beans on the bowl.
Do not sprinkle too much beans on the sweet soup, just a little bit, to give the bowl of sweet soup room to breathe. Also, sweet soup with areca flowers is a dessert or a snack, so it is not meant to be delicious, but not filling, so there is no need to sprinkle too much beans. The ancients were very careful, so just looking at a bowl of sweet soup with areca flowers sprinkled with beans, they shook their heads in disapproval.
In the past, rock sugar often had threads, so it had to be dissolved and then filtered to remove the threads and dirt with a muslin cloth. When the water was clear, add it to the pot of sweet soup and continue stirring until the tapioca flour and rock sugar blended smoothly together. When the sweet soup was cooked and had a clear color like jade, sprinkle in the steamed split beans.
Obviously, we see the relationship between sticky rice and areca flower sweet soup is a mutual opposition. Dry sticky rice - watery sweet soup, sticky rice with thick texture - sweet soup with thin texture, sticky rice coated with beans - sweet soup with sparse garnish. Yet when eating the two together, sticky rice and sweet soup blend together strangely.
That combination is very rustic, simple but delicious to remember. Nowadays, I don't know why people like to add vanilla to enhance the aroma or add shredded coconut, but that is a haphazard innovation. Eating sticky rice and sweet soup, the whole dish smells of vanilla, you can no longer distinguish the aroma of sticky rice, beans, rock sugar... Then the bowl of sticky rice and sweet soup is ruined!
