PUFF PASTRY

“New Year time in the past was so much fun; We were all innocent, so as our laughter; Our hearts beat as the pace of mashing rice; In the afternoon of the last day, we carried river water to bring in luckiness.”(Thu Nguyet). Puff pastry is available in many types, including cassava puff pastry, sticky rice puff pastry, banana puff pastry, ve puff pastry. Cassava puff pastry is made from wheat flour, coconut milk, and sugar. Raw material of glutinous rice puff pastry is glutinous rice, coconut milk and sugar. Ve puff pastry is made from crushed white rice and mixed with some flavors such as ginger juice, wine, pandan leaves, gardenia jasminoides powder, etc. Making rice paper and puff pastry is temporary, mainly in the months of Lunar New Year, villagers must stay up all night. When enjoying the cakes, visitors can recognize the spiritual value contained in each of the cake. It is said that puff pastry is delicious not only thanks to its own recipe, or the unique coconut flavor, but also thanks to the love from the cake makers. Making puff pastry depends on the weather; everyone is looking forward to sunny days, so the pastry will be dried faster, and its flavor will be more delicious. The pastry must be baked with big fire from charcoal to bring the best taste. When it is done with baking, the cake will be 3 or 4 times larger with good smell, spongy, and delicious. To make the delicious puff pastry with unique flavor, the most important feature is to select the sticky rice. Sticky rice must be good, flexible and fragrant. Soak it for 2 or 3 days, then grind into smooth powder to form the flexible pastry. Pouring the dough gently and quickly so that the pastry is thin and round evenly. The maker must be aware of the weather’s signs before making the puff pastry; otherwise, the pastry is not dried completely. Visitors to the Mekong Delta, every time passing by the Rach Mieu Bridge, even though in Tieng Giang or Ben Tre end, will buy some puff pastry to bring home and share it with their friends. If you enjoy the puff pastry once, it is hard to forget its passionate scent of sticky rice and coconut milk when it is baked on the charcoal stove.

Tien Giang cassava puff pastry: Ingredients are cassava, cow milk, coconut milk, sugar, maltose, sesame, etc. The villagers must start working from 3am with all types of tasks, such as peeling, steaming, grinding cassava, kneading, and forming the dough, etc. If you have a chance to visit the handicraft village where most people there make cassava puff pastry in Cai Be Town, Tien Giang Province, on a sunny day or right before Lunar New Year, you can feel the vibrant atmosphere when the villagers making cassava puff pastry. The village is also one of the tourist attractions, where many foreigners choose to visit when they are in the Mekong Delta.

Ben Tre glutinous rice puff pastry: Phu Ngai is a commune of Ben Tre Province, about 50 km away from Ben Tre’s center. It is a purely agricultural commune with more than 90% of its population living on agricultural economics. In 2008, the village of Phu Ngai puff pastry is recognized by the Vietnam Handicrafts Association as the typical village of the country. According to senior puff pastry makers, the village of Phu Ngai puff pastry was formed more than 40 years ago. Initially, only a few households in the commune made puff pastry for their own families. However, thanks to its delicious taste and plasticity, Phu Ngai puff pastry was known and bought by people in other places, and has become one of the specialties in the area. Today, the village has more than 50 households producing regularly, more than 200 skilled workers. There are two types of puff pastry: cassava and glutinous rice, which are very tasty and sweet thanks to the ingredients of glutinous rice, cassava, milk, and coconut milk. The advantage of Phu Ngai is to make use of locally available materials and fuel, using mainly handcrafted techniques, products are easy to sell and can be sold at the furnace.

Son Doc puff pastry: The village of Son Doc puff pastry is also named after a place of Son Doc market in Hung Phuong Commune, Giong Trom District, where has been known for its glutinous rice puff pastry. Previously, they made puff pastry spontaneously with small scale, mainly to serve the ancestor worship, Tet holiday or to give relatives and friends as gifts. Just a few of them brought the puff pastry to Son Doc market to sell. There was no one thought that one day, their puff pastry would become well known. When visitors bought glutinous rice puff pastry on trial, they liked its unique taste, the sweetness of the pastry, scent of sesame, fatty taste of coconut milk; and somehow, they found out that Giong Trom had such a unique specialty. Since then, Son Doc’s puff pastry has become widely known, so as the development of the village. Son Doc’s puff pastry is sold inside the country and exported to some foreign countries; its name has become a trade mark.

Collected by Linh Trang