Lye Water Rice Dumpling (banh u tro) is the cake specific to Doan Ngo festival, a traditional Vietnamese and Chinese festival on the 5th day of the fifth lunar month. To make it, local people soak the rice into lye water, mold a cake like a pyramid, wrap it by leaves, and then steam. In this article, HoiAn Day Trip Company will tell you everything about lye water rice dumplings (banh u tro).
You may also like: Specialty Food in Hoi An Vietnam
• Content by Tam Le, founder of HOIAN DAY TRIP CO.,LTD
• Designed by Giang Cong Minh, co-founder of LS E&C LTD and his team
• Photo by Dang Cong Loi, Dao Xuan Son, Tam Le & others
Must Knows about Banh U Tro (Lye Water Rice Dumpling)
– Origin: China
– Other name(s): banh tro or banh gio in northern Vietnam,
– Time: Doan Ngo festival
– Price: 15,000 to 30,000 VND/10 dumplings
– Serve for: Doan Ngo Festival (aka ‘Dragon Boat Festival’)
– Where to find: local markets in Hoi An
– Calories:
– Travel blog: https://hoiandaytrip.com/banh-u-tro-lye-water-rice-dumpling-hoi-an
– Fact:
Legend about Lye Water Rice Dumpling
Lye water rice dumpling (banh u tro in Vietnamese, zongzi in Chinese) was first made more than 1,700 years ago in China. In a Chinese legend, in the 3rd century AD, Qu Yuan (a Chinese poet and aristocrat) was loyal and talented, but wasn’t used and respected by the king. One day, he immersed himself in the river, after haters harmed (on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month). Later, to keep his body away from fishes & bad spirits, people in nearby villages made rice cakes as offering food to him, and to distract fishes from his body. Since then, to pay homage to him, Chinese people celebrated ‘mid-year festival’ on his day of death, and made the lye water cake to worship and eat.
When Chinese people moved to Hoi An, they also brought this festival and tradition to the town. Other local communities (like Vietnamese) accepted, and participated.
Ingredients & How to Make Banh U Tro (Lye Water Rice Dumpling)
Lye water rice dumpling is made by glutinous rice in wood ash water & wrapped by broom leaves. This food may have been introduced by Chinese communities when they moved to Hoi An in past centuries. In China, there is a similar cake called ‘zongzi’.
Because the lye water rice dumpling (banh u tro) is used for Doan Ngo festival on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. So, local people will make this cake 2 or 3 days before it occurs. In Hoi An, most local families don’t make it by themselves, and go to the market to buy and eat then to celebrate the festival.
Here are steps to make the lye water rice dumpling (banh u tro):
Step 1: Local people will buy glutinous rice at local markets or from farmers from Hoi An’s villages. The price to buy good glutinous rice is from 30,000 to 60,000 VND. After buying, they wash and sun dry the rice on the bamboo tray for 1 day.
Step 2: Local people will soak the rice into the lye water. Proportion between the water, rice and wood ash, requires experiences that are often a family secret. The best ash comes from willow trees, especially the ones living in Cham Islands, an offshore archipelago of Hoi An (just like Cao Lau noodles). Popular recipe is 100 kilograms of glutinous rice and 180 liters of lye water. The water should be taken from Ba Le Well, a 1000-years-old fresh water well in the Hoi An Ancient Town. This soaking step lasts up to 6 hours, so local families often leave the rice overnight (and start making the cakes the next morning).
Step 3: Local people will wrap the cake with dried dot leaves (the leaf of Thysanolaena latifolia or tiger grass or broom grass) and then use sedge to tie around. Dot leaves are collected from January to March annually, in mountainous areas of Quang Nam province. The flower of this plant is harvested in February, to make brooms (that’s why the tree is called ‘broom grass’). If traveling to My Son Sanctuary, visitors will see local women come to the forests there and do this work. Right from January, lye water rice dumpling makers told the leaf collectors already, to have the right amount of good leaf.
When the days are closer to Doan Ngo festival, local people will boil dried dot leaves. The reason is that dried leaves can be too brittle to wrap, or too sharp to cut the hand of makers. To burn the dirt on the surfaces of the leaves, they continue putting them quickly on the flame.
Local people will make 10 cakes first, and then tie them together by sedge, to have one cluster. Then, they make 5 more clusters (50 cakes) and tie them together. Meaning that lye water rice dumplings will be sold by cluster.
Step 4: Clusters of lye water rice dumplings are boiled in water for 5-6 hours. In local experience, to know when to finish boiling, people will burn an incense stick. When the stick is all burnt, they open the pot, lift the cake clusters up, and put it into a basket to drain the water. After that, they can bring them to the market for sale.
How to Eat Banh U Tro (Lye Water Rice Dumpling) Like a Local
To eat banh u tro (lye water rice dumpling), local people open the leaves and then eat the cake raw. If need a sweet flavour, let’s use sugar or honey. Without a fridge or any preservatives, this dumpling can be eatable for one week.
Better to Know about Doan Ngo Festival
Doan Ngo festival is one of the traditional festivals in Vietnam during the year. ‘Doan’ means ‘beginning’ and ‘Ngo’ means ‘the noon’, therefore Doan Ngo festival is sometimes called ‘mid-year festival’. It originated in China, and was accepted by Vietnamese people a very long time ago. Because the festival starts a hot period in which pests and diseases can be grown, Vietnamese will use this time to kill pests in gardens or rice fields. For that reason, it’s preferred to be ‘pest killing festival’ inside Vietnam.
Like other Vietnamese traditional festivals, local people will prepare many things for ceremonies, especially the one to pay homage to ancestors. They must buy flowers for worshipping purpose only (daisy, tuberose, orchid, lilies, …), fruits (green banana, orange, jackfruit, dragon fruit,…), joss paper (vang ma), millet seeds or lotus seeds (to make sweet soup), and banh u tro (lye water rice dumplings).
Besides eating the lye water rice dumpling, cleaning up the house, or worshipping ancestors, local people also buy medical and wild plants collected in mountains, to boil and then take showers. Somebody goes to the beach. They do this to kill ‘pests & deseases’ of their skins or in their body as well as ‘washing’ bad luck.
During the Doan Ngo festival, lots of local families eat duck. The duck will be boiled, chopped into small pieces and then dip into ginger-chilli-garlic fish sauce. Another popular dish is duck porridge. The main reason to explain this culture is hot weather. Duck, which is thought to be a ‘cool meat’, will make those who eat cool inside and have a better health. If visiting a local family during this festival (5th day of the 5th lunar month), you will see duck dishes anyway.
Better to Know about Eating Local in Hoi An
– Local family-run restaurants always serve better local foods than tourist restaurants. Places inside small alleyways potentially are hidden gems. The price is even more affordable at these lesser known spots.
– Restaurants where you can see a queue or crowds, food or drinks there are absolutely better or safer than others. Vietnamese people also avoid places without people eating, such as roadside eateries.
– Hot foods are often safe to eat for non-Vietnamese people. Refuse cold food (especially ones sold on the street, markets) or things you don’t see people cooking.
– Make sure that you learn some basic Vietnamese words or sentences to order foods, such as xin chao (hello, hi), cho toi mot (something) (I want one…), toi an chay (I am vegetarian), khong cay (no spicy), cam on (thank you), tam biet (goodbye) or numbers (mot/one, hai/two, ba/three, bon/four, nam/five, sau/six, bay/seven, tam/eight, chin/nine, and muoi/ten).
– Ask any local people you know (tour guide, driver, hotel receptionists, bellmen, etc) to receive their recommendation for good places to eat local.
– Raw vegetables are popularly used in local dishes, such as noodles or noodle soup or sandwich. They are often washed by tap water or unwashed. If can not drink tap water, remove or refuse them. Likewise, in most iced drinks (such as coffee or herbal tea), people add ice made by tap water also.
– On the 1st day and 14th-15th days of each lunar month, Hoi An citizens eat vegetarians. Many local restaurants and street businesses will be closed by that.
– If you don’t eat pork or beef, due to diet or religious restrictions, be careful when want to try local food here, if don’t see the ingredient description. Pork and beef are very popular meats, so they will be in numerous dishes. Street vendors may say ‘no pork’ or ‘no beef’ for better business, but please check before buying!
– Consider joining a food tour guided by locals who know much better about dishes in the city, including things never mentioned in guidebooks or on the internet.
– If have an allergy (milk, egg, peanut, wheat,…), ask anybody you know before trying or search for ingredients on the internet. By the way, fish sauce is popularly used to marinate Vietnamese foods, so make sure that you know this information if you’re fish allergic.
– Food portion (or size) here is often not really big (locals prefer eating with their family at home). You may try double or some different dishes for main meals.
– If don’t see the price on the menu, please ask in advance to avoid overcharging, especially when you are not a local. In Vietnamese, how much is bao nhieu.
– Most popular cutleries are chopsticks and spoons. To know how to use it, browse here
