Vietnamese fried rice cake stuffed with sweet bean

If you travel to Vietnam, you may want to try this cheap street finger food. Especially when you visit Hanoi during winter time, the cold weather is the best friend of this little sweet thing. Because these rice cakes are deep-fried, so it is more pleasant to eat in cold days and you will not feel it is any oily. Instead, you will feel warmer if enjoying these simple things with your friends while trembling in Hanoi’s severely cold weather.

There are some variations of this rice cake, which are mainly the ways of coating the cake. What I made this time is sesame coated rice cake. The cake can be coated with caramelized sugar which "dresses" the cake with a dark brown skin. Another way is to shake the hot rice cakes in a wok of powder sugar so that the sugar coats all over the cake, makes it look like a snow ball. The two ways using sugar add more sweetness to the cake, which I don’t like so much because they are too sweet to me. I always prefer having rice cake coated with sesame seeds. The sesames make the crust more crispy and fragrant.

Ingredients:

* For the crust:

- 1 large boiled potato, mashed

- 100g glutinous rice flour

- 1/2 tbs rice flour

- 50g potato starch

- 30g sugar

* For the green been filling:

- 50g bleached green bean, soaked in water to soften

- 40g sugar

- 80g cononut flesh (old flesh, the hard one), shredded

* Others:

- sesame seeds, as needed

- vegetable oil for deep-frying, as needed

Cooking:

- Combine all the ingredients for the crust in a large bowl, gradually add in warm water, a little by little until a smooth non-sticky dough forms. The dough will not stick to the side of the bowl. Divide the dough and form into small balls of about 4cm diameter.

- Steam the soaked green beans until they are cooked through and become light and fluffy looking. Mash the beans, then mix in sugar and shredded coconut. Roll into small balls of about 3cm diameter.

- Flaten the rice ball with your hands, put the green bean ball in the centre and carefully wrapped the green bean ball inside the rice dough. Roll the cake over a plate of sesame to evenly coat the outer rice skin.

- Heat the oil in a deep wok over medium-low heat, drop the rice cakes into the oil and cook until they turn golden brown.

These cakes should be consumed when they are still warm.