Come to Dien Bien to eat sticky rice with cassava, rice lam sticky rice with upland rice

Compass Travel Vietnam
Come to Dien Bien to eat sticky rice with cassava, rice lam sticky rice with upland rice

Thai people in Dien Bien eat cassava sticky rice, rice lam dipped with salt and chili, skewered.

Going to the Northwest, especially Dien Bien, in the late autumn days when the weather starts to get cold, visitors are often attracted by the hot new rice dishes prepared by the locals. One of them is sticky rice with cassava – a traditional dish of the Thai ethnic group. Cassava sticky rice has the soft, fleshy, greasy and aromatic flavor of upland sticky rice cooked with cassava roots.

Cassava is grown on the fields, after harvesting, choose short, friable and round tubers to steam sticky rice for guests.  Photo: Dien Bien Tourism Center
Cassava is grown on the fields, after harvesting, choose short, friable and round tubers to steam sticky rice for guests. Photo: Dien Bien Tourism Center

Cassava must be short, round tubers, after being washed, boiled, then drained and then mixed with rice to make sticky rice. Thai people often eat sticky rice with chopsticks. Unlike the bowl of sticky rice in the lowlands, made of stainless steel, the traditional Thai bowl is made of bamboo. After the sticky rice is cooked, the Thai people often pour the sticky rice into a tray, spread it thin to cool it quickly, reduce the steam, and then put it in baskets woven with lids. At meals, people will bring these baskets of sticky rice to invite guests.

Upland sticky rice is also a specialty often seen on the tray of rice for guests of the highland people. Glutinous rice grains are round and round, when the food is usually shiny, sweet, and fragrant. In addition to the original white color, people often color sticky rice with leaves, fruits, tubers… Therefore, sticky rice also has purple, yellow, green colors… Just like cassava sticky rice, rice is washed and washed. put in a wooden crate to cook and usually cooked twice to cook thoroughly.

It would be a mistake to ignore the rice lam dish which has long been one of the unique dishes in the culinary culture of the Thai people. Fresh glutinous rice mixed with sticky rice (purple), add salt and ginger and then soak overnight. After draining, the rice is put into a bamboo tube about 20-30 cm long, add a little water, and then tie the top with a banana leaf.

In addition to the original upland sticky rice, Thai people often use purple colored sticky rice to cook lam rice.  Photo: Dien Bien Trade Center
In addition to the original upland sticky rice, Thai people often use purple colored sticky rice to cook lam rice. Photo: Dien Bien Tourism Center

Next, people will bake these rice tubes on embers, or bury them in the fire, stirring to cook the rice inside. A delicious, standard rice tube is when the hard outer shell is peeled off, the silk inside of the bamboo tube sticks to the rice. The rice inside is cooked evenly, has a nice plasticity, aroma and light yellow color.

In addition, there is also the red rice of the Ha Nhi ethnic group. Red rice is only available in terraced fields. Red rice is appreciated by many people for its elaborate processing. For delicious rice, the rice must be soaked for 3-4 hours before cooking so that the seeds swell and soften. Then, bring the water to a boil in a pan, then pour the rice into it and boil for 5 minutes. Use a large spoon to stir the rice so that it doesn’t stick to the pan, then take it out on a large rack, and continue to stir to spread the rice grains. After that, continue to boil the pot of water, pour the pre-processed rice into the pot and place it on the dishes for 40-50 minutes.

Lam rice, sticky rice with cassava... served with grilled pork and chicken.  Photo: Hoa Thang
Lam rice, sticky rice with cassava… served with grilled pork and chicken. Photo: Hoa Thang

In the above dishes, Thai people often eat them together (instead of the usual sesame salt). Chem diagonal is a famous dip of the Northwest, including salt, roasted peppers, and crushed macadamia nuts. In addition, diners can eat dishes on top of traditional dishes of local people such as chicken, grilled fish, dried fish , or kitchen buffalo meat.

Come to Dien Bien to eat sticky rice with cassava, rice lam sticky rice with upland rice
vinlove.

Source: vinlove