Kieu Moc green rice cake is simple and elegant from the Doai region.

When mentioning young rice in Hanoi, many people will think of famous places that make young rice such as Vong village or Me Tri . Young rice is also made into many delicious dishes such as young rice sweet soup, young rice sausage, young rice cake and young rice sticky rice…

Perhaps many people do not know about the sticky rice dish associated with the name of Kieu Moc village (Co Do commune, Ba Vi district, Hanoi). With a way of making it unlike anywhere else, Kieu Moc sticky rice makes people remember it forever after just one taste.

Kieu Moc green rice sticky rice

Le Ha

I have a university friend, originally from Kieu Moc, now living and working in Hanoi. Every autumn, no matter how busy he is, he arranges his work to visit his grandparents and parents. The gifts he brings down are always packages of sticky rice with the faint aroma of ginger mixed with the smell of pandan leaves and the coolness of young rice, very delicious and not boring to eat.

You said: “Grandma loves me so much, every time she returns to her hometown at the beginning of autumn, she cooks sticky rice for me to take with me. She said that she only cooks sticky rice for her loved ones, the most important people to her. Every early September, I just want to come back to grandma to enjoy sticky rice from my hometown and bring it to you. You should eat it, it is simple and elegant like the people of our Doai region .”

Kieu Moc green rice uses young but plump yellow sticky rice due to “milk”. Kieu Moc people cut each rice flower into bundles and bring them home. They carefully use a small bowl, cover the rice stalks and gently scrape the grains apart without crushing them.

Unlike Com Lang Vong or Me Tri, where people roast and pound the peeled rice, in Kieu Moc they boil the rice, dry it, and put it in a mortar to separate the husk. The finished product is a batch of ivory-green rice, long, flat grains, with a sweet aroma of rice milk. Then, Kieu Moc villagers pound a mixture of ginger and pandan leaves, mix it with water, and soak the rice for 1-2 hours. When the rice turns a certain color, they put it on the stove to steam it into sticky rice.

Sticky rice with green rice is often made by Kieu Moc people to offer to Thanh Hoang Hai Te Toi Linh Dai Vuong, believed to be the youngest son of Lac Long Quan and Au Co, every early autumn.

According to legend, he is a god who always protects and blesses people with peace and bountiful harvests. Not only that, sticky rice is also a specialty that Kieu Moc people often make to give to grandparents, parents and important people. This is one of the traditional customs that Kieu Moc villagers have preserved for generations.

Kieu Moc green sticky rice, when completed, will have a light green color, a faint sweetness of colostrum from rice and the cool aroma of ginger, the rich aroma of pandan leaves... The sticky rice does not add lotus seeds or sugar like other places but respects the original flavor of green rice.

It is this rustic flavor that makes the difference for the specialty sticky rice from Kieu Moc village - a simple, elegant gift that is typical of the culture of the Doai region.