White Rose Dumplings – Hoi An Food

Hoi An White Rose Dumplings Introduction

White Rose Dumplings Hoi An is one of the best foods in Hoi An Ancient Town that you should taste. The white rose dumplings are made from translucent white dough bunched up like a rose.

Besides the ancient houses with mossy green bushes and Lantern-Making Workshops, Hoi An cuisine is undeniably for its captivating. Not only famous for Quang noodles, Cao Lau Noodles, Phuong Bread, or Hoi An chicken rice, but Hoi An specialty also has the world-renowned white rose dumplings (Banh Bao – Banh Vac). Indeed, these are the delicious dishes of Hoi An that anyone who has the opportunity to visit the old town also must belove since its deliciousness.

The white rose cake includes dumplings and cauldron cakes. This dish is called “white rose cakes” because they have a small and pretty shape, pink meat inside, thin white rice shells on the outside, and are tender like roses. Let’s find out more details with Culture Pham Travel.

White Rose Dumplings Hoi An History

The white rose dumpling is a long-standing specialty of Hoi An. It was from a family of Chinese origin that settled in Hoi An 130 years ago, and their descendants have carried on the tradition of making Banh Bao, and Banh Vac white rose until now.

Long-time bakers have recalled that due to the shape of the cakes, people in the past often called them cauldron cakes or dumplings. It wasn’t until one day that an international visitor to Hoi An enjoyed the cake and said, “Beautiful white rose,” at first sight. Since then, people have started calling this dish an alluring and genteel name – “Hoi An White Rose”.

Therefore, the white rose dumplings have been enjoyed in Hoi An for centuries and are now beloved far and wide. This is due to combining a local, time-honored recipe and the city’s vibrant atmosphere.

Best Restaurants In Hoi An To Enjoy Rose Dumplings

For those seeking out this iconic dish, there is no shortage of places to enjoy it. In Hoi An old town, along small streets lined with vibrant lanterns and paper umbrellas, many restaurants serve their delicious Hoi An food.

Moreover, each restaurant serving the dish has its unique recipe, often adding herbs and vegetables. Hence, this has become a special thing for the white rose dumplings. We highly recommend some best restaurants in Hoi An Old Town to enjoy this dish as below:

White Rose Restaurant

• Address: 533 Hai Ba Trung, Cam Pho Ward, Hoi An City, Quang Nam
• Opening hours: 7:00 – 20:30
• Reference price: 50,000 – 100,000 VND/ dish

Traveling to Hoi An, if you want to try this specialty, don’t forget to visit the White Rose restaurant on Hai Ba Trung Street. Here, you can not only enjoy delicious dumplings and cauldron cakes but also see their elaborate cake-making process firsthand. Most importantly, you can also make this dish at this restaurant by booking our Hoi An Street Food Tour.

The main ingredients for processing these two types of cakes are rice, which is white, whole grain, flexible, fragrant, and grown on clean fields. Plus, the cauldron cake is made from ground shrimp mixed with a bit of pepper, garlic, onion, lemongrass and esoteric spices. Besides, the dumpling filling is made from pork, cat mushrooms, and thinly sliced scallions and then sautéed with that esoteric spice.

Trung Bac Restaurant

• Address: 533 Hai Ba Trung, Cam Pho Ward, Hoi An City, Quang Nam
• Opening hours: 7:00 – 20:30
• Reference price: 50,000 – 100,000 VND/ dish

Trung Bac restaurant is a restaurant that has existed for about 100 years on the land of the old town, has been through 4 generations and is still on the rise. Besides the famous dumplings and cauldron cakes, the restaurant also serves many other specialty dishes such as Cao Lau, spring rolls, wontons, etc.

Trong Com Restaurant

• Address: No. 92 Bach Dang Street, Hoi An City, Quang Nam
• Opening hours: 08:30 – 22:30
• Reference price: 50,000 – 100,000 VND/ dish

Trong Com is a pure Vietnamese restaurant serving dishes with bold national identity and traditional values. Therefore, the white rose cake here retains the original flavor of the traditional heirloom cake. The restaurant’s cauldron dumplings have a very impressive flavor, fragrant, soft, and flexible.

Cauldron Cakes – White Dumplings Recipe

Ingredients to make white rose dumplings

The cake is made from rice flour, but it is very meticulous from the stage of choosing rice to mold the cake. For the cake to have a sweet taste, the surface of the cake must be white and smooth. Thus, it is necessary to choose the rice carefully. It is a new type of fragrant and flexible rice milled and filtered many times through water.

Then the dough is kneaded into elliptical shapes, and rotating a few turns will quickly produce a tiny piece of dough. After that, Hoi An bakers roll lightly in a circle into a beautiful thin crust from that piece of dough. The cauldron cake is made from ground shrimp mixed with a bit of pepper, garlic, onion, lemongrass and esoteric spices.

Dumplings are made from pork, wood ear, and thinly sliced green onions and then fried with esoteric spices. Is this spice also why dumplings and cauldron cakes can taste only delicious when traveling to Hoi An?

How to make white rose dumplings

After finishing the cake’s filling, bakers will put the filling in the middle of the cake crust and then mold it into a cauldron shape to make cauldron cakes and lightly contour the crust into a rose-like shape to make dumplings. Gently place the cake into the steamer for about 15 minutes. When the cake is cooked, the rice color is white, soft, and chewy.

Along with the meticulous baking process, the preparation of fish sauce must also have all three flavors sour, spicy, and sweet. The sweetness is just enough, not too sour, and especially the chili in a bowl of fish sauce must be green and red peppers. With that, the bowl of fish sauce is luscious.

White Rose Dumplings are commonly served with a delicious dipping sauce made of soy sauce, vinegar, and diced ginger. Many people also like to garnish their dipping sauce with a few drops of sesame oil. Thus, this gives the dipping sauce an extra kick of flavor and adds richness to the dumpling’s flavor.

The traditional recipe for White Rose Dumplings needs ground pork, shrimp, and mushrooms. Many chefs like to add other ingredients, such as wood ear mushrooms and shredded cabbage.

Additionally, white rose dumplings can be served steamed, boiled, or fried. When steamed, they should be kept in a bamboo steamer lined with parchment paper to prevent them from sticking. For boiling, the dumplings are placed in a pot of boiling water, removed once they float to the top, and served with the dipping sauce.

For fried dumplings, a generous amount of oil is heated in a skillet, and the dumplings are fried until golden brown, usually about two minutes on each side.

Steps To Make White Rose Dumplings

Hoi An white rose cauldron dumplings are not difficult to make. What determines the deliciousness of the cake lies in the selection of ingredients, the meticulousness, and the heirloom experience in the processing. The process of making Hoi An white rose dumplings (white rose dumplings recipe) is as follows:

Making the dumplings crust

The cauldron dumpling shell is made from new rice. After preparing the rice, wash it and grind it into a powder. To make the perfect white cake, the water used to grind the rice must be pure well water, free of alum or impurities. In general, they use pure well water to make the smoothest and whitest crust.

The next step is to extract the rice flour from the water, which the Hoi An people call “powdering”. Usually, it will be distilled about 15-20 times until the powder settles below the water and is clear, then filter the dough out and knead it. Afterward, they put it in a clean bowl and stuff it into a long mold.

Making the filling of the cake

Before making the cake, it is necessary to pre-process the prepared ingredients. Shrimps are washed, filtered to remove the shrimp meat, and then pounded thoroughly. Wash the pork and cut it into small pieces.

The filling of dumplings and cauldron cakes are slightly different. Dumpling filling uses the main ingredient of shrimp meat mixed with spices such as onions, pepper, salt, etc.

Cauldron cake filling is more diverse, accompanied by pork, wood ear, shiitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, onions, pepper, spices, etc. Hoi An people also use bamboo shoots to make the filling in the bamboo shoot season. After mixing the ingredients for the cake, put the pan on, and stir-fry until cooked.

Molding the cake

Wrapping the cake is considered the most difficult stage when making Hoi An white rose cake. The person wrapping the cake must be very focused and meticulous in producing beautiful, beautiful, and even cakes.

Cake wrapping steps:

• Prepare a small cup of cooking oil, and dip two fingers in the oil, so the dough does not stick when kneading.

• The dough that has been stuffed into a mold is broken into small pieces, gradually rolling with your hands, spreading the dough into a fragile and even crust. Press your thumb in the center, so the crust sinks, creating space to stuff the filling.

• Carefully and deftly stuff the filling into the space. The cauldron cake is gradually grasping the crust to form a cauldron handle. Dumplings are lightly contoured to form a rose shape.

• Put the dumpling in the steamer for about 15 minutes, and the cake will have a clear white shell when cooked.

Dilute the fish sauce

Whether Hoi An white rose cake is tasty or not depends in no small part on the dipping sauce. A standard bowl of dipping sauce is a harmonious combination of 3 flavors sour, spicy, and sweet.

You choose a delicious fish sauce and add water in a certain ratio. Then add the pickled or fresh chili, add the lemon and stir well. The dipping sauce is bright yellow, and a strong aroma is sweet enough. Plus, numbing on the tongue when tasting and is not too sour.

How To Present The White Dumpling?

After steaming, steamed cauldron dumplings are placed on a plate, placed on top of a layer of green leaves used to line the plate. Dumplings will be arranged in the center and spread around, while the cauldron cake will be interspersed with dumplings. Finally, spread a layer of fried onion, crispy yellow, on the surface of the white rose dumplings.

When enjoying it, you will feel the softness of the cake. Then, the soft feeling and rich sweetness of shrimp and meat combined with the harmonious and incredibly delicious dipping sauce.

The dish will be delicious and flavorful if you enjoy it while it is still hot and served with the sweet and sour fish sauce prepared by the restaurant.

Conclusion

On the whole, the White Rose Dumplings of Hoi An are symbolic of the rich culture and history of the old town. Their unique recipe has been perfected over hundreds of years, brought to life with vibrant colors and delicious ingredients.

Each restaurant has a different way of cooking this dish, so white rose dumplings in Hoi An are sure to capture the taste buds of any visitor. Culture Pham Travel wishes you the perfect holiday in Hoi An Ancient Town, Vietnam!