Wake up early in the morning at Saigon, walking around Ben Thanh market, you may see some old lady with the bicycle and the basket is full of sticky rice with so many color. This is sweet sticky rice or Xôi in Vietnamese.
So what is Xôi?
Xôi in English is glutinous rice, sweet rice, waxy rice or sticky rice. It is a type of rice will become sticky when you cook it. Before cooking, we usually soak the glutinous rice for around four hours until the grains have absorbed enough water. Then we steamed but less water than rice so that the grains can remain as the whole, soft but not mushy, sticking together in a lump.
Actually we can’t count how many kind of sticky rice dish Vietnamese have. But usually it will come with sweet style and salty.
Sweet style will come with sugar, coconut milk or copra coconut, sesame, … Normally, you see the sweet sticky rice will have so many different color from natural: green from pandan leaf, red from red melon, baby jackfruit, purple from magenta plant, … sometime people can cook it with some bean like peanut, green been, black been, corn, …
Salty style is more simple. You just steam the sticky rice and then put some topping like: chicken, shrimp, pork, galic, green onion, …
This post i will share with you the sticky rice with char siu. Char siu is a grilled pork but with Chinese style and seasoned with a mixture of honey, five-spice powder, hóngfǔrǔ (red fermented bean curd), lao chou (dark soy sauce), hoisin sauce, red food colouring, and sherry or rice wine (optional).
Xôi Xá Xíu will serve with fried onion, green onion put above and you can add a little soya sauce and chili sauce.
Where to try Xôi Xá Xíu?
Xoi Che Bui Thi Xuan – 111 Bui Thi Xuan, District 1
