The rain poured down, Diem village was submerged in white water. Cung Temple - Jade Well, Quan Ho Ancestor Temple... return with a silent, ancient appearance. It's raining, there are no more people selling banh khuc in front of Temple Gate like every day. People pointed me to the house of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Them - a famous banh khuc woman in the village.
No one in Diem village remembers exactly when Banh Khuc first appeared. According to legend, the cake dates back to the reign of King Ba in parallel with the appearance of Quan Ho folk songs . In the past, Diem village always heard the sound of pestles pounding cake dough. Up to now, only Mrs. Them and a few other households still keep the profession of making banh khuc.
"In the past, every family in the village made banh khuc to burn incense on Tet holidays and festivals," Mrs. Them told me. Banh Khuc has two main ingredients: rice flour and vegetable chunks. Rice flour is always available, only kale grows on its own in large fields, and people in the village cannot grow it.
“The vegetable season falls around October - November of the lunar calendar. We harvest it and store it in the freezer. Vegetables chosen to make cakes must be plain vegetables, with flowers sprouting and green leaves covered with white dew-like powder," Ms. Them said.
Mrs. Them said to choose carefully so that when making the cake, it avoids wasting vegetables, and the cake does not become stringy, but is very flexible and delicious. The crust is usually made from Khang Dan rice, which helps keep the cake chewy and flexible but still makes the cake crumbly.
To create a batch of dough to make banh khuc crust, we have to go through many steps. Ms. Them soaked batches of white rice for about 4 hours, drained them and then ground them into liquid powder. From that water powder, filter it until it is completely dry to obtain a smooth, white powder mass that can be "sterilized". The most difficult step in making Banh Khuc is also the dough mixing stage.
Scooping the dough means dropping the dough into a pot of boiling water, watching it until the dough is "half-cooked", then taking it out. The dough after sterilization is very flexible but not cooked enough. Because if the dough is overcooked, it will fall apart and cannot be kneaded. If it's still alive, the dough will be friable and not sticky.
Once the dough is finished, it will be kneaded with chopped vegetables. Vegetable chunks should not be left raw, but must be washed, boiled, then minced, and squeezed out of the water.
Mrs. Them mixed the flour with the vegetable chunks and joked: "The elders in the village jokingly call this "crying cake." Because in the past, children sat around the tray waiting for their parents to pound cake dough for so long that they cried."
Now that there is a machine, the dough and vegetables are beaten together faster. People just need to take a batch of flour and pound it again until it has the right green color. There are two types of banh khuc filling: bean-meat filling, including steamed and pounded green beans mixed with pork belly and pepper. Wood ear filling - is diced pork belly, stir-fried with wood ear mushrooms, dried onions, and pepper.
Seeing Mrs. Them preparing to shape the cake, the children in the house gathered around to help her roll the dough. Every child competes to roll the dough and press it into the mold for Mrs. Them to wrap the cake. There was no longer the sound of crying waiting for adults to pound dough to make cakes, instead there were giggles and chirping conversations of the children of Diem village following their grandmother to practice making banh khuc.
Banh Khuc in Diem village is semicircular in shape, similar to pillow cake, but the edges of the cake are not twisted too elaborately. The cake is steamed in the steamer in several batches, each batch takes about 15 - 20 minutes to cook. After a few words of conversation, Mrs. Them looked into the red wood stove and called out: "The cake is cooked."
In the chilly rain, a woman from Diem village with a small figure and gracefully brought out a bowl of hot banh khuc. As soon as I opened the lid, the aroma wafted up. When the cake is cooked, it turns moss green and becomes shiny. Banh Khuc is best eaten when it's still hot. Bite into a piece and immediately feel the delicious aroma of green leafy vegetables. The soft, chewy crust and the greasy wood ear filling or bean filling make the cake taste less and less without realizing it.
Talking with Ms. Them, I learned that as one of the 49 original Quan Ho villages, Diem village is the only place where there is a temple to King Ba - Quan Ho Ancestor. Besides, this place also has hundreds of legends and folk tales passed down orally such as: Thanh Tam Giang, Duc Ba, Thiep stream...
As a land with many cultural and historical imprints, Diem village's cuisine is also very unique. Like the simple, fragrant Banh Khuc dish that has become a typical hometown gift for the land of Quan Ho.
