One of the ways we enjoy avocadoes in Vietnam is to smash them with a bit of sugar, condensed milk, and serve in ice for a refreshing dessert. This is a traditional recipe that doesn’t require a blender. It’s simply smashed avocadoes, resulting in chunks that you scoop with a spoon.
Read MoreHere’s a cheat version of Vietnamese sweet coconut purple sticky rice using a rice cooker. There’s no need for overnight soaking and no need for a steamer with the perfect size holes. All you need is what you probably already have, a rice cooker.
Read MoreIn Vietnam, sương sâm is a refreshing green jelly drink, mixed with sugar, flavored with banana extract, and served over crushed ice. It is a refreshing drink to quench your thirst and cool you down on hot summer days.
Sương sâm can be enjoyed as a simple dessert on its own or added as a tasty topping to other beverages, such as milk tea/boba drinks.
Read MoreBanh Bong Lan is a French-influenced Vietnamese sponge cake. It’s made with eggs, flour, sugar, and vanilla. It translates to “orchid cake.” Because of the whipped egg whites, the cake bakes up like a souffle, resembling a blooming orchid. Unlike western cakes, Banh Bong Lan is light, fluffy, and not overly sweet.
Read MoreA popular refreshing Vietnamese dessert made with assorted sweetened beans, wiggly jellies, creamy coconut milk and crushed ice. Typically, the three colors are made up yellow mung beans, red kidney beans, and green pandan jelly. Since I’m not a fan of red kidney beans, this recipe includes faux pomegranate seeds made from water chestnut, making this dessert technically Chè Sương Sa Hạt Lựu.
Read MoreThese candied strawberries are fresh strawberries coated with a thin hard candy shell. With strawberries in full season, it’s a fun way to enjoy them. Working with sugar to make candy is tricky. Achieve that hard candy shell the first time with this foolproof recipe.
Read MoreGrass jelly, or Suong Sao, is a black gelatin that begins with boiling the leaves and stalks of the Chinese mesona plant then gelatinized with starch. The jelly is cut into cubes for use in many desserts and drinks in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. One quick recipe that utilizes grass jelly is Sua Suong Sao. Sua Suong Sao is a simple iced drink of grass jelly and milk, sweetened with simple syrup. It’s a quick and refreshing drink for a warm and sunny day.
Read MoreVietnamese Coconut Pandan Waffles (Banh Kep La Dua) is crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. This wonderful treat is made with a combination of all-purpose flour, rice flour, tapioca starch, baking powder, sugar, coconut milk, pandan and butter.
Read MoreMooncakes are round or square pastries with various savory and sweet filings. Typical mooncake fillings include different sweet pastes, mixed nuts and salted egg yolks. The pastes are typically sweetened lotus seed paste, red bean paste, black sesame paste and mung bean pastes. Before going into the oven to bake, the mooncakes are molded and stamped with an elaborate designs, usually a Chinese characters expressing good will, flowers or a simple beautiful geometric pattern.
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