Cudweed sticky rice cake is the best to be served hot. Ingredients for this dish includes glutinous rice, mung beans, pork (lean and fat), and most importantly: cudweed (Rau Khuc) which can be found along the edges of rice fields or river bank. In Hanoi, banh khuc is popular all year round but until the cudweed season in January or Febuary comes, when drizzling rains last day after day, we can enjoy the most flavorful and delicious cudweed cake. In the early morning, people pick the lush little cudweed leaves, wash carefully, crush, remove fibers and then thoroughly mix with glutinous rice flour to create a dark green dough then divide it into child’s fist- sized parts. To make stuffing, peeled mung beans are steamed, crushed, mixed with chopped pork and seasoned with seasoning mix and pepper. Arrange cudweed sticky rice balls into a steamer, put a layer of cake then a layer of soaked sticky rice. After that, we cover the steamer tightly, keep the heat gradually until rice grains are evenly cooked.

Holding a steaming hot cudweed cake in hand, just take a bite and enjoy the taste of cudweed harmoniously mixed with sticky rice, mung beans, pepper, and pork. That is strangely delicious.

Recommended places: Banh khuc Co Lan - 69B Nguyen Cong Tru Str., Hai Ba Trung Dist.

Source: Hanoi’s cuisine - Hanoi City Tourism Department