Diners can enjoy spicy and fragrant silkworm cakes with curry aroma, silkworm skin cakes combined with the fat taste of coconut milk, sweet and flexible tapioca silkworm cakes dipped with sesame salt.
Silkworm cake is a rustic dish that is widely sold in shops and rural markets in the Southwest region. According to a funny interpretation of the local people, the name of the cake comes from the long, oblong shape of the cake’s fibers, which are molded to resemble a silkworm. Different local people add ingredients to the dish to have its own unique flavor with the name silkworm cake, spicy silkworm cake, or tapioca silkworm cake.
Silkworm cake is quite popular, with fibers made from flour milled from rice, steamed in a water bath, then kneaded, carefully seizing silkworm cakes into long, soft, chewy fibers that do not dry out. While making the cake, cane sugar can be added to give the cake a sweet, golden brown color, or no flavoring is added to keep the white color and faint aroma of rice.
In addition to the cake, the skin and the accompanying ingredients are equally important, the skin is sliced into thin evenly, mixed with sliced lean meat and cooked rice that is both crispy and delicious. In some places, the seller also adds soft char siu and fried spring rolls or grilled meat to enhance the flavor.
The part of silkworm cake is usually blanched, cucumber, chopped herbs, then the cake is put on top, added with skin, char siu and then drizzled with fatty coconut milk, harmonious sweet and salty taste, some places also add carrots, Shredded radish for a filling portion. Diners mix the plate of silkworm cake and enjoy, if not satisfied, they can add salty fish sauce prepared at the stall.
In Ca Mau, there is a famous spicy silkworm cake , the yarn is also made from rice flour like silkworm cake, but the shape is smaller and longer, looks like a beef noodle but the way is different. Accordingly, the baker takes the rice and grinds it into a powder and then mixes it with water, brings the paste over the fire, when the lake cools, sprinkles dry powder on the tray and separates it into strands, then steams it to get soft silkworm cake. tough.
The sauce of silkworm cake is the highlight of the dish with its spicy taste and the aroma of curry, always keeping the warmth on the charcoal stove. Ca Mau people like to eat spicy silkworm cakes with soft cooked chicken or round shumai balls made from fish cakes or minced meat marinated in rich spices?
When diners order, the owner will take the shredded silkworm cake to separate the stalks, then put chicken, shumai on top and add a spicy curry sauce to warm up the aroma, absorb the flavor into each strand of cake. dishes with extra price, herbs, fresh crispy salad. Diners can add kumquat, chili to the dish and dip the meat with salt to make it more delicious.
Compared to silkworm cake or spicy silkworm cake, tapioca silkworm cake is more popular, associated with many people’s childhoods, and has a simple way of processing. The baker takes the cassava tubers (cassava roots) and peels them off, grinds them, squeezes the water, and mixes them with sugar, condensed milk, tapioca starch, and coconut milk, and vanilla flavor to make a thick, flexible mixture.
The cake is more eye-catching thanks to the rustic coloring ingredients such as green pandan leaves, purple leaves, yellow gardenia, red-orange gac fruit, etc. The bakers steam the mixture in the mold and then use it. knife cut into bite-sized pieces, then mixed with grated coconut. Tapioca silkworm cake is chewy thanks to tapioca flour, the outside of the shirt is a layer of grated coconut with a greasy taste, when eaten, it has a light sweet taste. The cake is often covered with peanuts or roasted sesame on top to increase the aroma, when eating, diners can dip it with sesame salt.