Thu Hà
Five Vietnamese dishes have been listed among the world’s 100 best-rated dishes with coconut by TasteAtlas.
The dishes include pomelo sweet soup (ranking 33), honeycomb cake (ranking 42), coconut steamed rice with baby shrimp (ranking 80), husband and wife cake (ranking 91) and coconut pandan waffles (ranking 93).
Pomelo sweet soup is not just a special dish, it takes a unique place in the traditional cultural fabric and spiritual life of so many Vietnamese. For many people, the dish is like the skies of their childhood, bringing back pleasant memories and peacefulness of a sacred time for their family, with the sentiments of their grandmother and mother, said Hanoian Nguyễn Ngọc Lan.
Lan said the dish originated from the country’s southwestern region, but it is a favourite dish of Hà Nội when autumn comes.
Main ingredients include pomelo pith, mung bean, tapioca starch, pandan leaves, sugar and coconut juice. 
“Cooking the dish is rather fussy. It requires a cook with skills and care to make a perfect pomelo sweet soup pot, which is a mix of colours, yellow and green, thick in consistency with buttery fat mung bean, pomelo pith pieces and creamy coconut juices,” said Lan, adding that the dish is more enjoyable to eat when the weather turns colder.
Along within the pomelo sweet soup is honeycomb cake, locally known bánh bò or cow cake, a popular dish across the western provinces such as An Giang and Cần Thơ.
This cake is cooked with palmyra palm sugar and is a point of pride among locals. Fermented glutinous rice and coconut juice give the cake its signature buttery rich characteristics.
Ingredients of the cake include special rice, planted only in the An Giang Province and palmyra palm, of which the thick inside is ground into powder, while the palmyra palm sugar should be pure and not adulterated with any other substances.
A local resident named Lam Kiều said fermented glutinous rice and coconut juice is also needed to give the cow cake its signature rich taste and abundant carbohydrates and saturated fats. “The cake can be used as a breakfast, desert, or eaten with grilled pork,” they said.
Locals like the cake so much because it is tasty amazing, nutritious and affordable, while visitors are advised to buy it as a special gift for their relatives and friends at home, Kiều said
The third Vietnamese dish which makes the list and is made with coconut is steamed rice with baby shrimp, a specialty of Bến Tre.
“I will never forget the taste great of coconut steamed rice with baby shrimp cooked by my mother in my childhood, particularly on my birthday. I although have lived abroad for many years, I still miss the dish so much,” said Phan Thu Hương, a native from the southern province of Bến Trem, where coconut trees were first harvested in Việt Nam.
Different from bamboo-tube cooked rice, locally known as cơm lam, of the Thái and Mường ethnic groups in the northwestern region, Bến Tre cooks make the steamed rice in a coconut. Other ingredients include carrot, pumpkin and yardlong beans cut into tiny cube sized pomegranate seed-shapes, which are then fried to create a deeper flavour for the dish.
When the rice is well steamed, Hương’s mother mixed it with the fried ingredients and continued to cook the mixture for between five and seven minutes to ensure the dish is cooked through.
“My mother said the dish is even more enjoyable when eaten with fried baby shrimp with coconut juice,” said Hương, noting that she also advised her that the coconut should not be too ripe, or too young and the coconut juice should be fresh.
Hương said she had enjoyed the dish in special way, eating it directly from the coconut shell. The combination of the sweet fragrance of coconut juice, the crispy addition of vegetables and roots and the savoury tang from the shrimp meat, along with the tender salty taste of the fried baby shrimp with coconut juice, was so special. “I feel as if all of my senses have come together to enjoy all the special characteristics of this genuine dish,” she said.
The fourth and fifth Vietnamese cakes in TasteAtlas list are husband and wife cakes, with a filling of coconut threads and coconut pandan waffles, which taste as good as they look, made with fresh coconut juice.
