It is a breakfast favourite, and the most popular late night-early dawn snack or meal.
It is sold by vendors in early morning markets and it can be found in fanciest restaurants serving traditional Vietnamese food.
There are any number of specialty xoi restaurants, as well as push carts that stand on street corners or bicycles that go around the streets well past midnight, long after restaurants and other eateries have closed.
Xoi, as the name suggests, is made with glutinous rice, steamed or cooked. There are those who love having this regularly for breakfast and those who have it at any time of the day or night, but almost every Vietnamese will have it at least once a month.
But xoi is not one dish. There are many varieties, each with its distinct taste, colour and/or flavour.
Food expert Vo Quoc, head of Mon Ngon Restaurant and Cooking Class, said: “Each region has its own (collection of) xoi dishes. Vegans and vegetarians can enjoy xoi with muoivung (ground sesame and peanuts) or sugar, while others have a wide range of meat choices, including xoi thitkho tau (sticky rice with Chinese braised pork) and xoi with liver pate, sausage, fried eggs, char siu, chickens or roasted piegons.”
On full moon days, New Year holidays, weddings, death anniversaries and other occasions, xoi is a must-have dish on the feast’s platters.
The ways to make sticky rice depend on the variety, family recipes or individual creativity that housewives bring into play.
However, the most popular method is to soak the glutinous rice in warm water for many hours until it expands; wash and mix the rice with a little salt and other ingredients separately; place them in an autoclave (called cho in the north and xung in the south); pour boiling water into the bottom of the autoclave and place it on a pot so that the ingredients are steamed without touching the water.
Later, the sealed autoclave and the pot are placed on a stove and boiled over low heat until the sticky rice is well-cooked and limber.
Now, busy women use electric rice cookers with the steaming function, but the majority preference is for xoi cooked the traditional way.
Xoi dau xanh (green bean sticky rice) is one of the most popular xoi dishes because it can be served with many different ingredients, including meat. Since it is easy to cook, it is a popular choice among housewives as well.
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