Banh Tet

Vietnamese Steamed Rice Cake

by Hien

Banh Tet is eaten at every Vietnamese New Year. Every family that celebrates this holiday must make this cake or buy it at the market, but it is much better when you make it at home. This kind of cake is very hard to make and it takes a long time. To make this, you need banana leaves, sticky rice, pork meat and steamed ground green beans. To cook the Banh Tet you need to steam it for a long time and then you can eat it. When I was little, my mom made the steam cake on our new year. It took her a very long time to do it so now she doesn’t make it anymore. Now she goes to the market and buys it. When my mom comes home, she calls the whole family out to eat the rice cake at dinnertime. We would talk about the Banh Tet and how good it is. When I take a bite it has a lot of flavor. It has the smell of the green beans and the taste of the pork meat. The steam rice cake is long and it is round. It is sticky when I bite into it. It sticks in the middle of your mouth. When my family eats the steamed rice cake we mostly eat them with soy sauce or radishes. It is good.

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