Harmony comes from simplicity and delicacy

Passport & Plate - Bún riêu cua

Vietnam | Friday, March 7, 2014 | 3 photos

Ingredients
Prepare for 2-3 persons

For the broth:

500gr of freshwater paddy crabs (everything but the carapace);
100gr – 200gr of pig’s rib bone (optional).

For the rest:

Carapace of those freshwater paddy crabs (no, we are not eating the carapace, I will explain later);
600gr of bún (a special kind of Vietnamese rice vermicelli);
Some spring onion;
Some garlic;
3 spoons of pig’s fat or cooking oil;
3 tomatoes;
Around 100gr deep-fried Tofu;
100gr of beef (optional);
100gr of giò l?a (This specialty of Vietnam is made of tenderloin of pork crushed finely then wrapped in banana leaf and boiled. The result is a cylindrical piece of tender meat-like product. Think of sausage in a different shape and taste);

Optional side dishes/seasoning:

Around 10 pieces of Chinese-Vietnamese Crullers (a type of deep-fried bread, crunchy and hollowed inside. Think of the Spanish churros but not at all sweet, much lighter, much more floppy yet crunchy);
Vegetable side dish: comprises of any of (totally depending on the seasonal availability and personal taste): split morning glory (or water spinach), shredded banana flower, rau kinh gi?i (Elsholtzia ciliata), spearmint, and/or bean sprout;
Chilies, rice vinegar or some slices of lime.

 

How to prepare this recipe
First, clean paddy crabs carefully with water and salt. Split the crab into 2 parts: the carapace and the rest. Rinse the vegetable, tomatoes and spring onions. Cut the tomatoes into slides and the spring onions into 2 – 3 cm long pieces.

Put the rest of the crab into a grinder and make a fine paste (Traditionally, mortar and pestle are used in this step). Put the paste into a sieve, put the sieve on top of a pot and let water run slowly through the sieve, while at the same time use a spoon to stir the paste. Decant the paste until the water turns really brown, while the rest of the crab itself turns pale. Run water through the paste until you have around 5 big bowls of water.

Set the pot on a hot plate, turn on low fire. Over 30 minutes, the water will boil gently and a cloud of brown foam will form on top. Optional: boil pigs’ bones with excessive water with low fire, then use that broth instead of water for the above step.

While waiting for water to boil, get a tea spoon and scratch out the residue of the inner side of the carapace. You will manage to get around 2 table spoons of that soft part.

Next, chop 4-5 gloves of garlic finely, pour the fat/cooking oil into a frying pan with high fire, fry the garlic until yellowish. Pour the residue of crab into the pan, and then 2 tomatoes. You can also throw in half a handful of spring onions. Quickly stir everything for a minute.

Pour everything from the pan into the boiling pot; add the rest of tomatoes, tofu, spring onion, beef or giò l?a. While the water boils up again, put bún into big bowls.

And now you have the feast! Pour the broth into the bowls, be careful not to break the crab foam into million pieces: you should present a bowl with white bún underneath, a piece of brown crab foam in one corner, red tomato, yellow pieces of tofu, some more brown beef or giò l?a, and green onions dotted around. Serve hot with vegetable and crullers, adding lime or vinegar and chilies up to your personal taste.

 

The story behind this recipe
Bún riêu cua literally means bún (rice vermicelli) and crab. Apart from those two main ingredients; one can put other ingredients as (s)he pleases.

Bún riêu cua comes originally from poor rural households in Vietnam: crabs are easy to find under the mud in paddy fields where farmers work, bún is also a cheap item easily found in rural markets. Farmers would grab some tomatoes, onions, and vegetables – anything available in the garden, and make a hot, delicious soup. Bún riêu cua is rich in calcium from the crab, in vitamins from the vegetable, is easy to digest yet is filling, is extremely fresh and healthy.

Nowadays, one can order bún riêu cua in any shop vendor or most luxurious hotels around Vietnam. The dish is eaten in the morning, at lunch, or for dinner. It can be eaten alone or in family dinners and friends’ get-togethers, with choices for diners to adjust the taste and ingredients. Most important of all, bún riêu cua is a song of harmonious combination of water and earth – of crabs living in the paddy field and vegetable sprouting in the garden, it is the perfect pastel of vibrant colors: white, brown, red, yellow, green, it is a seductive mix of smell and taste: the sweet fragrance of the broth, the crispy, caramelized, sizzling, hot flavor of the fried mixture, the oh-so-soft taste of broth-drenched tofu, the fresh sweetness of vegetable, and the warm, rich, lovely broth mixed with white tender bún. Your five senses will be waken up and pampered.

Bún riêu cua is a simple yet delicate dish, is easily done in its birthplace Vietnam or abroad, is good to be served in summer and winter, is heavenly tasteful and beautiful. I’d go to the open market, ask the lady selling crabs to prepare some for me and sit there chatting with her while waiting. She smells of the rice field and has an abundant flow of stories about life in her village which bring the city-kid me as close to the rural life as possible whilst stuck in a crowded capital city.