Although I’ve known of the dish for a long time, I've never had the chance to enjoy it until recently during my trip to visit my aunt in Ca Mau who cooked me this speciality.
A trip to Ca Mau Province is the perfect place to try some amazing seafood. And while the area is famous for roasted oysters, xoi cua (sticky rice with crab) is certainly a must-try treat.
My aunt Nguyen Thi Hai said Nam Can District in Ca Mau is famous for quality and tasty crabs so she asked her friend there to find me the best crabs which were so fresh that I can almost smell the sea.
'Xoi cua', a special dish popular with diners. Photo Kim Quan
Apart from crab, sticky rice from Dien Bien Province in the northwest region, plays an important role in making the dish tasty and delicious, said Hai.
“The Dien Bien sticky rice has been grown on hilly land so it is soft and fragrant compared with others, Hai said.
"When steamed, each rice grain is separate but still connected with each other. It never becomes too wet.”
She soaked one kilogram of sticky rice for eight hours over night. When the next day came, she steamed the rice and the crabs.
Sticky rice with crab dish, made by Ca Mau locals. Photo baocamau.com.vn
She asked me to help her to take out meat from the crab to put it in a plate. Very different from crab I had bought in Ha Noi, where its meat is not as fragrant as it is in Ca Mau.
Other ingredients include dried onion, Phu Quoc fish sauce, broth mix, chili and pepper.
After frying the minced dried onion in a pan over medium fire, Hai put the crab meat in the pan and regularly stirred it for several minutes before pouring fish sauce and broth in.
'Xoi cua' is nicely decorated. Photo Le Thuong
The sticky rice should be steamed twice to be softer, Hai told me.
She quickly took several table spoons of steamed sticky rice out of the steamer and put it in the crab’s shell then topped it with fried crab meat, chili and pepper.
She placed the dish on a plate then arranged two big claws of the crab on either side.
“The dish is more enjoyable when eaten hot because crab meat will have a fishy smell if eaten cold," she said.
It was love at first taste because this was the first time I have had a chance to enjoy xoi cua cooked by a Ca Mau resident.
Usually I did not like to eat sticky rice because I find it a little hot but this dish is different. The blend of the sticky rice is fragrant and soft while the crab meat is fresh and sweet.
'Xoi cua cu nang' (sticky rice with crab and water chestnut) is also tasty and delicious. Photo gocdiepdung.worldpress.com
During my stay, Hai also cooked me mien cua (vermicelli with crab), a popular dish that every Vietnamese housewife knows how to prepare so I thought the dish would not be so attractive but I was wrong.
When Hai brought me a bowl of mien cua, which is yellow colour from the fried crab fat used as a broth to give a bowl of quality soup and also crab meat topped with fresh onions, particularly laksa leaves.
The laksa leaves help to give the dish an aromatic flavour.
I asked Hai about recipes of xoi cua and several other specialties of Ca Mau so as to cook it at my home in Ha Noi for my family and friends to try.
Duy An
