Can Tho: Cooking a banh chung weighing nearly 1.6 tons for the Hung King's death anniversary

(NLDO) - The cost of making a nearly 1.6-ton banh chung cake to prepare for the Hung Kings' death anniversary is currently 137 million VND.

On April 2, Mr. Tran Minh Cuong - Permanent Vice President of the Can Tho Professional Chefs Association, chef of the Song Hau Farm Ecological Zone - said that he and more than 30 chefs are preparing ingredients to wrap a "giant" banh chung to celebrate the Hung Kings' death anniversary. Currently, dozens of chefs are preparing banana leaves, sticky rice, beans, etc. to wrap the cakes.

Prepare banana leaves to wrap banh chung

To make this cake, the ingredients needed are 600 kg of sticky rice, 235 kg of green beans, and more than 215 kg of pork belly. In addition, the chef also prepared more than 1,000 banana leaves to wrap inside, ordered 1,800 dong leaves, and used short bamboo strings from the North. It is expected that when finished, the cake will weigh about 1.6 tons, measure 1.9 m x 1.9 m, and be 0.8 m thick.

• Cooking banh chung in the largest ceramic pot in Vietnam

The sticky rice used to wrap the cake is grown by people at Song Hau Farm, and the mung beans are also purchased from around the area. The cake is wrapped in a wooden mold and then put into a steamer to cook for more than 20 hours.

A special thing about this cake is that the sticky rice used to make the crust is seasoned with coconut milk and sugar to suit the taste of Southerners, instead of just using salt like a typical Northern banh chung.

Sticky rice for wrapping cakes is grown by people at Song Hau Farm.

According to Mr. Cuong, the cost to make the "giant" cake up to this point has been 137 million VND, from funding from Song Hau Farm Ecological Zone and Khanh Linh restaurant.

The cake is expected to be completed in 3 days and cut at the Southern Traditional Cake Festival on April 5. Festival-goers will be able to enjoy the cake for free.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/can-tho-nau-chiec-banh-chung-nang-gan-16-tan-lam-le-gio-to-hung-vuong-196250402161028131.htm