B�nh Tr�i - Vietnamese Glutinous Rice Dumplings

I was first interested to b�nh tr�i when I saw pictures of Vietnamese foods that taken by one of Indonesian foodies during his travel to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and Hanoi. At one of his pictures, he stated that he forgot the food name and described how it tasted. Then, I was asking Anh what that was and she explained it to me.

B�nh Tr�i is actually similar to Indonesian klepon. While in some parts of Sumatra, people call it onde-onde which is the same as the Malaysians do. The difference, klepon is covered with grated coconut and filled with palm sugar or coconut sugar. B�nh tr�i is sprinkled with roasted sesame seed and sugarcane rock candy as its filling.  Yep! Most of Asian countries have their own sticky rice dumplings!  Shame on me! I haven't made my own klepon yet.^_^

Short story, I was browsing the recipe for it. I found two recipes which one was in Vietnamese and another one was in English. The one in English was to complicated to follow. I decided to choose the Vietnamese one. For the first time, I was following a recipe that is not in the language that I speak. Off course, I used google translate. Even though google didn't translate to a proper English, I quite understood with the recipe.

Since those two recipes are slightly different in ingredient. One is with a mix of glutinous rice and rice flours and another one is only with rice flour. Again, I bugged Anh to make sure that I got the correct flours. She mentioned the ratio 9:1 for sticky rice flour and rice flour. Thanks, Anh!

One thing, I changed from the recipe. The recipe applies sugarcane rock candy for the filling. I used Indonesian palm sugar (known as gula aren) that has a darker colour since I don't have any sugarcane rock candy.

This post goes for Delicious Vietnam #4 and is hosted by Bonnibella

B�nh Tr�i
- Vietnamese Glutinous Rice Dumplings -
recipe by Trang Emi, modified by me
 
Ingredients:
180 g (1 cup + 1 tbsp) glutinous rice flour
20 g (3 tbsp + 1/4 tsp) rice flour
190 ml warm water
palm sugar (depends on how much filling you want)
roasted sesame seed

Directions:
1. Combine glutinous rice flour and rice flour. Add warm water gradually to flour mix. Mix well and form into a dough ball--it should be like play dough consistency.

2. Take a small dough and shape into a ball. Repeat the earlier step until all dough is shaped into small balls. From this recipe, you will get about 35-40 small balls.

3. Pinch a small ball of dough and flatten it out into a thin disk.

4. Place a small amount of palm sugar and close the dough around it.

5. Meanwhile, you are busy with shaping the little balls. In a pot, bring water a boil. Once you�ve covered an entire plate and your water is boiling and your little ball soldiers are starting to stick.

6. Plunk your balls into boiling water and wait until they float to the surface.

7. Prepare a bowl with cold icy water on the side. Once the balls are floating, with a slotted spoon or spider, transfer them right away to the a bowl of cold water. Place on a serving plate and sprinkle roasted sesame seed.