#1 VIETNAMESE CRISPY RICE BALLS I XÔI CHIÊN I VIETNAM STREETFOOD I BY THOA TRAN

Welcome to Vietnam street food. Today I'm going to share with you a very crunchy rice ball with only a few simple ingredients in your kitchen and still very tasty. Let's get started. Here I have some sticky rice. Wash a couple of times and leave it overnight in water with some dried mushroom. This is a dried mushroom after soaking in water for like an hour. Let's give it a try. Crunchy. Glass noodles, eggs and shallot. That's all. This is glass noodle after soaking in water for five minutes. Shallot is so important in Asian cooking. Now we will go ahead and steam the rice. Don't forget to put a layer on the bottom of the steamer to avoid the grain going through those big holes. Make sure you cut some holes for the steam to go through. Steam for about 20 minutes. When it comes to sticky rice, most of my friends hesitate to cook it. Just leave them in cold water before you go to bed and the next day the steam pot does the rest. If you're not familiar with the characteristics of sticky rice and you think it's easier to cook with a glass cooker, I'm telling you, it's so easy to mess it up because it is too much water or it's too little water. The rice will come out either too wet or too dry and most of the time you will lose a nice texture of the grain. Stick with this classic method and today I will show you the extra little trick how to make the best steamed sticky rice. After 20 minutes of steaming, the rice is pretty much done. Now we're gonna add one or two tablespoons of coconut milk. Steam for another 10 minutes. While waiting for the rice to be cooked, let's go ahead and prepare the fillings. We will fry the egg and slice it later. If you prefer an easy way, just scramble it. One tablespoon of oil. Shallot. Wow, the smell. Mushroom. Half teaspoon of chicken powder. Some pepper. I wish it were here in my kitchen. It smells so good. I usually don't use chicken powder but the mushroom base, it tastes great and I can also use it for vegetarian dishes. This is a very classic recipe but if you would like to have some meat, at this point just add some ground pork. Make sure the meat will be well cooked or just use your fantasy. Leave out the whole thing and replace it with some pink sliced fried cabbage. It will go perfectly well with such a recipe. Mix all the ingredients together for the fillings. I will just eat like this, like salad. The rice is so soft, glutinous, still can feel the texture of the rice. Today I'm going to share with you the trick that I've learned from a very experienced chef in my hometown. How to make super super crispy rice ball. Put the ball in and just keep doing this. By doing this, we'll technically glue them together. Don't overdo these steps. You want to have a nice texture of the grains shown after frying. I'm just doing this for a few minutes and we keep it during the time in the steamer. We will use the two same size bowls. Using the meat while I'm planning with those. You might wonder why the homemade crispy rice ball is never that crunchy. They are sold in the restaurant on the other street. Here's a trick. Add a bit of vinegar with water. That is the magic. So I just go ahead and wet my hands with this vinegar water mix. Spread them out in a thin layer. Close it at the edge. If you find it sticky and difficult to work with, just wet your hands with the vinegar and water mixture. The reason why we have to seal the edge very well is not only to look good but so that when you fry it, the oil doesn't come in. That's it. We have it. Our very first one. I know it looks so complicated and difficult but trust me, after two months, you'll become a master of it. You know, this rice ball reminds so much of my high school in Vietnam. For a quick snack between our school break. I still remember the taste of it. Ta-da! The rice balls are done. Just a little trick. Vinegar will make it crispier when frying and help the crunch stay longer. I can't wait to fry it. It's quite fast to fry those. See the texture of the rice grains. Let's get them out. It's such a good memory of mine. So crispy. Wow! It's soft inside. Light taste of coconut but not too much. Crunchy outside. The texture of glass noodles, of dried mushroom. The whole combination of all. I can't have enough of this. This makes my day. I hope you enjoyed the video today. Subscribe the channel and feel free to leave any comment of any Vietnamese street food that you are to learn. Thank you for watching and see you next video.