Cong Cake (Banh Cong) - Soc Trang’s Best Street Food
One of the best Soc Trang Street Foods is definitely Cong Cake (Banh Cong). It is a hot, crispy drain cake with the greasy meat, shrimps and the green beans served with sweet and sour sauce and vegetable
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | All Best Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang
1. Better to Know as a Tourist
Find them: Dai Tam Commune, My Xuyen District, Soc Trang City
Best time: After 2pm
Don’t miss: Bun nuoc leo cay me
Local’s pick: Banh Cong vendors, 500m from Bowl pagoda
Tourist’s pick: Many Cong cake local restaurants in Soc Trang city center.
2. Better to Know Cong Cake (Bánh Cống)
The origin of the name "Soc Trang Cong cake"
The Southwest is the cradle of many rustic dishes, "old-fashioned off-season cakes" that captivate and captivate many diners, but are so memorable that when they enter the lyrics of the song, the Cong cake will never stop. is a prime example.
Soc Trang's Cong cake in the right way will have a delicious aroma, showing all the crunch right from the outer layer of the cake. When eating, people feel more fatty, fleshy taste of green beans, very suitable with shrimp, meat creates a delicious feeling right from the tip of the tongue. In Soc Trang in particular and the neighboring western provinces such as Can Tho, Kien Giang, Dong Thap, banh cong is considered a familiar dish, but the most famous must mention authentic cake in Dai Tam commune, My Xuyen district, Soc Trang province.
If you have never tasted this cake and just heard the name, many people will feel curious about the name of the cake. Why is it called a Cong cake? The name of this Western specialty cake is associated with the baking tools, which are the Congs used to fry the cakes. They are shaped like a small coffee cup, only about 10cm high.
After adding ingredients such as flour mixture, green beans, stir-fried meat and then adding another layer of flour to the drain and finishing the dish by adding one or two shrimps on top, the drain will be dipped into the pan. Fill with boiling oil and let it sit for about 2-3 minutes until the cake is cooked and slowly slides out of the drain. At this point, the seller just needs to take the cake out and drain the oil. Then add raw vegetables and cut into small pieces, the cake has grown, golden, fragrant, dipped with sweet and sour fish sauce to become a Western delicacy that makes anyone crave to salivate.
3. Cong Cake (Banh Cong) in Soc Trang
It’s called “Banh Cong” because people use a “Cong” to cook. A “Cong” has a long handle and looks like a small metal milk bottle. In the Mekong Delta, people still use “Cong” as a unit of measures in dealing at the market. “Cong” has many sizes: ½ “xị”, 1 “xị” (4 “xị” equal to 1 liter), ½ liter, 1 liter and the biggest size is 2-liters Cống.
The “Cong” used to make Bánh Cong has only one size with diameter 5 cm, height 5cm with the handle about 1 span. The “Cong” used to fry Bánh Cống does not have cylinder shape like the “Cong” used for measuring, it has the bottom a little smaller than the topping, it helps Banh Cong to float up once it is done.
Banh Cong is made with rice flour mixed with wheat flour to keep Banh Cong soft and crispy. You can use rice flour or soak rice then grind to make Banh Cong. Rice flour grinded is always better than buying rice flour from the market because it keeps the fragrant flavor. If you don’t know how to select rice flour at the market you can easily get old, moudy flour and make your cake sour and bitter.
Banh Cong is always served with sweet-sour fish sauce, lime and minced chili. Fish sauce adds more shredded cucumber, carrot and radish. Aromatic herbs are fish mint, lettuce, basil, herb mint…
The eater can wrap Banh Cong, Banh Hoi (fine rice vermicelli) and aromatic herbs together to enjoy.
4. How to Make Cong Cake (Bánh Cống)
- 100gr mung bean (green bean) (Which no cover)
- 200gr rice flour
- 50gr wheat flour
- 200gr shrimps
- 250cc water
- ½ tsp salt + 1 tblsp sugar + 1 whole onion.
- Cong patterns.
Process:
Step 1: Soak Mung bean (green bean) in water for about 2 – 3 hours, next steam until it is cooked.
Step 2: Rice flour + wheat flour mix with water, stir frequently if you do not make it curdle. Add more salt + sugar and continue to stir for about 10 minutes. Please make this step correctly, because it is the main step to create one of delicious Vietnamese dish recipes.
Step 3: Peel off the cover of onion, mince it. Clean shrimps. Cut the heads. Next, add minced onion and shrimps and mung beans into mixture flour. Keep some shrimps if you want to add on the face of cakes.
Step 4: Boil oil, put all Cong patterns into oil to make them hot. Then, pour mixture flour into each pattern, and put into the pan again to fry it. You can add more shrimp on the cake when it is nearly done. Fry for about 3 minutes.
Step 5: Making Dipping Fish Sauce
5. Pro tips:
Here are our tips for easing your mind (and stomach) around food-handling environments that you may not be used to.
Make sure the food is freshly cooked. If you’re eating hot street food, it’s always safest (not to mention more delicious) to eat food you can see being cooked to order.
Look for lines and busy stalls. Busy street food stalls are an indicator of popularity, and their high turnover rate means the food is never sitting out for hours and developing dreaded bacteria. Yes, long lines can be discouraging when you’re hungry after a full day of exploring, but it’s not worth the risk of grabbing precooked food from the empty spot next door.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho: Co Ut’s Cong cake, Ut Dzach Fine Rice Vermicelli, Thanh Van Grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Noodle Soup At Floating Market, Scorched Rice with Caramelized Fish Sauce, 7-Toi’s Duck Meat Pancake, Banh Mi Thuy, Banana Blossom Salad, Fried Spring Rolls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Fetal duck egg (balut), Honeycomb Cake, Mini Sticky Rice Cake, Cassava Silkworm Cake, Grilled Banana Wrapped in Sticky Rice, Khmer-style Bun Goi Da Soup, Egg Coffee, Con Son Grilled Snakehead Fish, Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup, Lau Mam – Fermented Fish Hotpot, Grilled Snails with Pepper, Magenta Sticky Rice Cake, Duck cooked with Fermented Tofu, Rice Noodle Pizza, Vegetarian Noodle Soup, Snails Stuffed With Pork…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Chau Doc: Chau Doc Fish Noodle Soup, Sugar Palm Fruit, Basa Fish Hot Pot, Mam (Fermented fish), Phu Huong Beef Noodle Soup, Broken Rice with Pork Chop, Long Xuyen Broken Rice, Nui Cam Pancake, O Thum’s Chicken Grilled with Lime Leaves, Stir-fried Shrimp with Sesbania Flower, Sweet & Sour Soup with Siamese Mud Carp Soup & Sesbania Flower, Caramelized & Braised Catfish, Grilled Rice-field Rat with Salt and Chili…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang: Pia Cake, Cong Cake (Banh Cong), Bun Nuoc Leo Soc Trang’s Noodle Soup, Soc Trang’s Bun Goi Da Soup, Duck Noodle Soup with black Pepper, Curry Noodle Soup, Grilled Beef on Tile, Khmer-style Tube Cake, Khmer-style Mung Bean Cake (Banh In), Dried Radish (Xa Bau), Stir-Fried Noodles with Seafood (Mi Sua), Soc Trang’s Green Rice Flakes…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre: Phu Le Rice Wine, Ben Tre’s Coconut Candy, Flat Banana, Coconut Rice, Snail Pancake, Sea Snail with Coconut Milk, Coconut Worm, Young Coconut Salad with Shrimp & Pork, Son Doc Puff Rice Paper…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Cai Be: Puffed Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Vinh Long: Elephant Ear Fish (fried giant gourami)…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in My Tho: Fried Sticky Rice, Snakehead Fish Rice Porridge, Hu Tieu My Tho (Noodle Soup), Coconut Banana Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Tra Vinh: Macapuno Coconut, Bun Nuoc Leo Tra Vinh’s Noodle Soup, Tra Cuon’s Sticky Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Sadec: Sa Dec Noodle Soup, Sadec Crab Hotpot, Lai Vung Spring Rolls, Sa Giang Shrimp Puff Pastry, Lai Vung Tangerine…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Bac Lieu: Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, Bac Lieu’s Three-striped Crab, White Radish Pies, Bac Lieu Thick Noodles & Creamy Coconut Milk, Bon Bon Pickles…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken), Grilled Vop clams with salt and pepper, Grilled Mudskipper Fish, Stone Crab Roast With Salt, Young Bee Salad, Nam Can’s Crab, U Minh Forest’s Honey, U Minh’s Fermented Fish Hotpot…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Hau Giang: Cau Duc Pineapple, Cai Tac’s Pork Organs Porridge, Hau Giang’s Bronze Featherback Fish Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ha Tien: Herring Fish Salad, Spider crab cake soup, Ken Noodle soup, Xoi Xiem (Siamese sticky rice), Steamed Noodle soup, Ha Tien Oyster porridge…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Rach Gia: Stir Noodle Soup, Kien Giang Fish Noodle Soup…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Con Dao: Bang nut jam, Vu Nang Snail, Roasted Pork Bread (Banh Mi), Coconut Ice Cream…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Phu Quoc: Phu Quoc Sim Wine, Phu Quoc Pepper, Phu Quoc fish sauce…
Hopefully, the above tips will help you to come up with a great plan for your adventure in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Have a safe trip!
“Sleep less, travel more, respect more” – Thomas Vietnam – Local travel expert.
Thank you
