Bot Chien - Vietnamese Fried Rice Flour Cake

     

Magnificent photo of "Bot Chien"

 

    There are many rice flour cake versions in southeast Asia but "Bot Chien"...what a pleasant word. Vietnamese street food that has and will continue to rejuvenate my heart forever. Before I tell you why this 1$ dish is so special to me I would like you to know this dish briefly. The dish is made with rice flour cakes, which include a little tapioca starch as well, and are cut into rectangles. The rice flour cakes are then fried in oil(my mother uses lard in her recipe) with eggs cracked over the top of it, and then it's seasoned with deep-fried pork cracklings and green onions. At this point the dish sounds greasy but here's my favorite part of the dish. A layer of crispy sour fresh young shredded papaya beneath the rice cake absorbs the tasty oil, drizzle some spoons of Bot Chien sauce (containing soy sauce, black/white vinegar, sugar, chopped bird's eye chilies) over the top. I like to personally poke the rice cake with my fork and pick up both the rice cake and papaya with my spoon and just let the chewy yet very crunchy rice cakes dive in a pool full of sweetness so they absorb as much sauce as possible. But why is this ordinary dish so important to me? Let's turn the calendar way back to 2007 in Vietnam.

     I asked my mother "Mommy? Can you make Bot Chien for me this weekend too?" my face full of joy after coming back from school and she answered "I got it! I'll make sure to put in your favorite topping." I still remember that day clearly because I caught a cold since our house was not fully windproof and it was an unpleasantly cold stormy day and was also the day I realized the importance of nutrition and how much my mother cared for me. I was wondering why I usually felt some kind of pressure on my left lung and there was not a single day without coughing for about a year. But that night, my symptoms gotten really worse. Never ending dull pain from my left chest to left shoulder, intense dyspnea that caused me to breathe rapidly and every cough felt like needles stabbing inside out from my left lung. My doctor told me that I had stage 2 pneumothorax on my left lung and he was really surprised when my mom told him that I had pneumothorax for a year and the fact that my lung withstood it so he asked my mother what she often does for me to stop the progressing of pneumothorax. It was a fruit that she usually include when cooking for me, apples. The polyphenol in the apples helped stabilize my capillary around my lung and pectin increases when you cook the apples. Normally we have to go through an operation if we have stage 2 pneumothorax but thanks to my mom there was no need of that and I just needed to drink medicines. 

Including apples in Bot Chien is really uncommon in Vietnam and although my friends laughed when I told them that I eat Bot Chien with apples but they loved it after I let them try my mother's recipe. The fresh fruity juice and the crunchy texture from apples comes in great harmony with the sour papaya and deepens the flavor for Bot Chien in general.

     Bot Chien has taught me many things; harmony created by multiple ingredients, exploring different foods and combination, found delight in cooking, importance of nutrition and especially my mother's love for me. I remember the recipe that my mother uses when making Bot Chien completely and I've even taught my siblings how to cook it too. I love every process when eating food with my family; buying ingredients, preparing and cooking the dish, eating foods with everyone, cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes. Food can connect people and if we are what we eat I would prefer eating what I made for my family or what my family made for me. There's 1 final thing I want to tell in this paper. If you want to make Bot Chien really crispy... Be careful of oil splash and scalds!

        

               The reaction video of food reporter Mark Wiens eating Bot Chien

 

        Photo Credit:

        "Ho Chi Minh City" by phswien is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

        Video Credit:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDqnueWObMI&ab_channel=MarkWiens