Bánh Nậm
Averey Nguyen
Memories are Fickle
Memories were hard to come by, moments left you like handfuls of water cupped in your hands, slipping through the cracks. As far as you can remember, you see only the photographs taken, lost in time with the moments your seven-year-old brain couldn’t grasp. Perhaps you’d remember the cart ride with your cousin or the movie your auntie drove you to by motorbike, but all you remembered were the things that were photographed, recalling brief stories. Yet besides all, without fail, the food memories you made always came when you thought of Vietnam and the dishes you had: phở, chả giò (egg rolls) and, of course, you couldn’t forget bánh nậm.
You could remember arriving at mệ ngoại, your maternal grandmother's house, and the rice and eggs she made. You called her thạc sĩ nấu ăn, the Master of Cooking, a term you learnt before your trip. You recalled your mother teaching you words to say, given your limited vocabulary in Vietnamese. Looking back, you wished you retained more of the words you were taught instead of forcing yourself to choke down the confusion from failing to compute translations. You truly missed the praise you received, surprising your relatives with your speaking ability, being born outside of your native country.
Bánh nậm was the dish you adored, you once had at a restaurant, steamed to perfection and wrapped in banana leaf. The unwrapped dish was delectable, silky rice cake, fragile enough to fall apart if you weren't careful, topped with shrimp and pork mince, sweet and tangy nước chấm, and fried shallots. You had probably too many, satisfied with the simplicity of the flavours. It was the bánh nậm you missed most, you didn’t know why.
It was all that mattered to you, and you remembered that much.
When your auntie came back with the knowledge of the recipe to bánh nậm, you were excited, unknowing of the amount of work and labour put into the dish. You spent hours wiping banana leaves, preparing batter, making cakes, wrapping them up. So much work for a dish you devoured in minutes. You wished such a dish wouldn’t take so much, but it was the beauty of food; so much labour and love goes into it, you couldn’t get enough. It made you recognize how food is a love language.
And you couldn’t think of it in any other way.
You could remember arriving at mệ ngoại, your maternal grandmother's house, and the rice and eggs she made. You called her thạc sĩ nấu ăn, the Master of Cooking, a term you learnt before your trip. You recalled your mother teaching you words to say, given your limited vocabulary in Vietnamese. Looking back, you wished you retained more of the words you were taught instead of forcing yourself to choke down the confusion from failing to compute translations. You truly missed the praise you received, surprising your relatives with your speaking ability, being born outside of your native country.
Bánh nậm was the dish you adored, you once had at a restaurant, steamed to perfection and wrapped in banana leaf. The unwrapped dish was delectable, silky rice cake, fragile enough to fall apart if you weren't careful, topped with shrimp and pork mince, sweet and tangy nước chấm, and fried shallots. You had probably too many, satisfied with the simplicity of the flavours. It was the bánh nậm you missed most, you didn’t know why.
It was all that mattered to you, and you remembered that much.
When your auntie came back with the knowledge of the recipe to bánh nậm, you were excited, unknowing of the amount of work and labour put into the dish. You spent hours wiping banana leaves, preparing batter, making cakes, wrapping them up. So much work for a dish you devoured in minutes. You wished such a dish wouldn’t take so much, but it was the beauty of food; so much labour and love goes into it, you couldn’t get enough. It made you recognize how food is a love language.
And you couldn’t think of it in any other way.
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Time: About 2 days
Servings: 8 - 10 Ingredients Batter: 2 cups rice flour ¼ - ½ cups of tapioca starch (to preference) 1 tablespoon table salt 6 cups water 2 tablespoons neutral oil Banana Leaf: 16 ounces frozen banana leaf (1 package) ½ cup neutral oil Filling: 1 cup dried wood-ear mushrooms (optional) ½ pound shrimp ½ pound pork, ground 2 tablespoons annatto seed oil 1 teaspoon oyster sauce 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 shallot, minced ½ tablespoon fish sauce Nước Chấm: 1 cup fish sauce 1 ½ cups hot water ½ lemon, juiced 3 tablespoons sugar 3 cloves garlic, minced 3 Thai chili peppers, chopped |
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