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Preparation
1 hour
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Cooking
5 hours
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Difficulty
Medium
Bánh chưng is one of the traditional dishes during Tet holidays. If you are familiar with the square bánh chưng, let’s join the kitchen with TasteVN to explore the delicious and unique long bánh chưng and treat the family right away.
Ingredients for Long Bánh chưng For 4 people
Glutinous rice 400 gr Peeled mung beans 150 gr Pork 100 gr Dong leaves A little String A little Common spices A little (Salt/ ground pepper)
How to choose fresh ingredients
How to choose fresh meat
- Fresh meat usually has a pale pink or light red color, with firm and dry pork. The layer of pork fat will have a slightly creamy white color.
- You should choose meat with good elasticity; when you press gently with your finger on the piece of meat, a dent will appear and quickly return to its original state.
- Avoid buying meat that has a slimy texture or shows signs of bruising, as this is meat from sick pigs, which is very harmful to health.
How to choose good sticky rice for making cakes
- You should choose sticky rice with large, round grains, opaque white color, and not broken or crushed. It is best to buy freshly milled sticky rice, which has a light and pleasant natural aroma of sticky rice.
- Avoid buying sticky rice that has been polished too much, as it has lost many nutrients.
- Avoid purchasing sticky rice with unusual colors or musty smells due to prolonged storage.
How to choose good mung beans for making cakes
- You can use both peeled mung beans and whole mung beans.
- If you choose whole mung beans, be sure to select beans with shiny, plump skins, that are uniform in size, and not infested or shriveled.
- If you choose peeled mung beans, select those with a beautiful yellow color, the beans should be semi-firm, not infested, and have a pleasant mung bean aroma.
How to prepare Long Chung Cake
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Rinse sticky rice and mung beans
You soak the peeled mung beans in water for about 3 hours, then rinse and remove any bad beans, and drain, tossing in a little salt.
Soak the sticky rice in water for about 30 minutes to 1 hour. After that, drain the water and toss in a little salt.
Tip: when tossing salt into the mung beans and sticky rice, you should add just the right amount of salt to avoid being too bland or too salty.
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Prepare and marinate the meat
Clean the pork and cut it along the piece of meat, about 7 – 10cm in length. After that, marinate the meat with 1 spoon of ground pepper, 1 spoon of salt for 30 minutes to let the meat absorb the seasoning evenly.
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Arrange the leaves
First, you place 2 strands of string parallel to each other, then you place 2 banana leaves horizontally across the strands. Next, you place 1 banana leaf upside down in the middle of the previous 2 leaves.
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Wrap the cake
First, you put 1 bowl (rice bowl) of glutinous rice in the middle of the leaf stem and spread it evenly. Next, you add mung beans on top of the layer of glutinous rice and then add pork in the middle along the length of the mung bean layer.
Next, you add another layer of mung beans covering the pork. Finally, you cover with 1 bowl of glutinous rice to completely cover the mung beans.
To wrap the cake, first pull the 2 edges of the leaves together, tie tightly and proceed to fold the edges of the leaves to form a cylinder. Use the 2 strands of string from earlier to tie and secure the edges of the leaves. Fold one end of the cake and stand the cake upright, use scissors to cut off the excess leaves and then fold the edges of the leaves together. You do the same with the other end of the cake.
You use 1 long strand of string to secure both ends along the length of the cake. Tie another strand of string to secure the cake. After that, you tie more string horizontally around the cake for more security.
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Boiling the cake
Put a pot on the stove, arrange the square cakes inside, and then add boiling water. The amount of water should be enough to submerge the surface of the cake.
To prevent the cake from burning and being soggy, remember to add more boiling water to the pot when the water level decreases. You should boil for 6 to 8 hours and then take the cake out to drain.
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Final product
After completing, you will have a new and delicious long square cake. When eating, you will experience the fragrance of dong leaves, sticky rice, and the savory filling of meat and mung beans.
This dish goes perfectly with pickled onions!
Above is a shared article on how to make long chung cake with dong leaves that is extremely simple yet delicious, let’s get into the kitchen with TasteVN to make it right away. Wishing you success!
