Chè
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Chè is a Vietnamese term that refers to any traditional Vietnamese thick, sweet dessert soup or pudding.
As such, it may, with the addition of qualifying adjectives, refer to a wide variety of distinct soups or puddings, which may be served either hot or cold. Some varieties, such as chè xôi nước, may also include dumplings.
Chè are often prepared with one of a number of varieties of beans and/or glutinous rice, cooked in water and sweetened with sugar. Other ingredients may include tapioca starch, salt, and pandan leaf extract. Each variety of chè is designated by a descriptive word or phrase that follows the word chè, such as chè đậu đỏ (literally "red bean chè").
In southern Vietnam, chè are often garnished with coconut milk.
Chè may be made at home, but are also commonly available freshly made in plastic containers, in Vietnamese grocery stores in Vietnam as well as overseas.
In northern Vietnam, chè is also the word for the tea plant. Tea is also known as nước chè in the North or more commonly trà in both regions.
The Chinese category of sweet soups called tong sui is very similar to chè.
[edit] Varieties
There is a nearly endless variety of named dishes with the prefix chè, and thus it is impossible to produce a complete list. What follows is a list of the most typical traditional varieties of chè.
- Bobochacha or Bocha - a popular Singaporean sweet soup in Hanoi
- Chè bà ba (this dish's name may have two possible origins: 1) "Ms. Third's sweet soup": it is likely that this dish was first made by a person whose nickname was "Third."(Vietnamese: ba). However, it is also possible that this name is only symbolic; in Vietnam, customers typically call women who sell chè by their position in their families: i.e., "Ms. Third," "Ms. Fourth," "Ms. Fifth," etc.; or 2) "bà ba-wearing sellers' sweet soup"): made from taro, cassava and khoai lang bí, a kind of sweet potato that is long, with red skin and yellow flesh.
- Chè bà cốt- made from expanded glotious rice.
- Chè ba màu (literally: three colours sweet soup: three is an important number in Vietnam)- usually including green colour by mung bean, white colour by black-eyed pea and red colour by red beans (or people can cook with any ingredients making any three colours they like).
- Chè bách niên hảo hợp (literally: one hundred years of a good match/marriage) – made from red beans, lotus seed, water lily bulb and others. [1]
- Chè bánh lọt - made from bánh lọt - a cake from Huế (lọt means to sift/sigh).
- Chè bắp (called in Southern or chè ngô called in Northern) - made from corn and other ingredients which people like.
- Chè bột lọc
- Chè bột sắn (or chè sắn bột) - made from cassava powder
- Chè sắn lắt- made from sliced cassava.
- Chè bưởi - made from grapefruit oil and slivered rind
- Chè chuối - made from bananas and tapioca (Vietnamese: bột báng).
- Chè con ong (literally "bee sweet soup"; so named because this dish is viscous and yellow, like honey that bees make) - made from glutinous rice, ginger root, honey, and molasses– this is a northern dish, usually cooked to offer to the ancestors at Tết.
- Chè cốm- made from young rice.
- Chè củ mài - made from Dioscorea persimilis
- Chè củ súng - made from water lily bulbs
- Chè củ từ (or chè khoai từ) - made from Dioscorea esculenta
- Chè đậu đen - made from black beans; one of the most popular varieties of chè, particularly for northern Vietnamese
- Chè đậu đỏ - made from azuki beans , usually using whole beans, rarely using ground beans.
- Chè đậu huyết
- Chè đậu ngự - made from Phaseolus lunatus (or moon beans) - specialty in Huế, an imperial dish
- Chè đậu phụng (also called chè đậu phộng in southern Vietnam, or chè lạc in northern Vietnam) - made from peanuts
- Chè đậu trắng - made from black-eyed peas
- Chè đậu ván Huế - made from Dolichos lablab (hyacinth beans); a specialty in Huế
- Chè đậu xanh - made from mung beans (whole)
- Chè đậu xanh phổ tai- made from mung beans and phổ tai- a kind of kelp
- Chè đậu đãi - made from ground skinless mung bean (đãi means to remove the skin)
- Chè hoa cau - a northern dish made from ground skinless mung beans with betel nut flower-shape (a similar dish called chè táo xọn, prepared in southern Vietnam, uses less mung beans)
- Chè hạt sen - made from lotus seeds
- Chè sen trần
- Chè sen dừa- made from lotus seeds and coconut water.
- Chè hoa quả mixture of different fruits including pineapple, water melon, apple, pear, mango, litchi dried banana, cherry, and dried coconut with milk, yogurt and syrup
- Chè hột lựu (called by this name in southern Vietnam; called chè hạt lựu in northern Vietnam)- in this dish, ingredients are cut into pomegranate seed (hạt/hột lựu)- shaped pieces.
- Chè Inđô - imported from Indonesia
- Chè kê - made from millet
- Chè khoai lang - made from sweet potato
- Chè khoai môn - made from taro
- Chè môn sáp vàng - made from a variety of taro grown in Huế
- Chè khoai tây - made from potato
- Chè lam- made from ground glutinous rice
- Chè lạp xường or chè lạp xưởng - made from Chinese sausage
- Chè long nhãn - made from longan
- Chè mã thầy (or chè củ năn) - made from water chestnuts
- Chè mầm
- Sâm bổ lượng - cold, sweet soup containing Job's tears, dried longans, red jujubes, lotus seeds, thinly sliced seaweed, and sometimes other ingredients, with water, sugar, and crushed ice
- Chè thạch or chè rau câu - made from seaweed
- Chè thạch lựu- made from seaweed and other pomegranate seed-shaped ingredients.
- Chè thạch sen - made from seaweed and lotus seeds
- Chè Thái - any one of a variety of sweet soups originating from Thailand
- Chè thập cẩm (chè lẫn) meaning ten-ingredient sweet soup or mixed sweet soup is a mixture of various kinds of ingredients such as black-eyed peas, azuki beans, lotus seeds, mung beans, coconut, syrup, ice cream, milk and trân châu. This is one of the most popular forms of chè served in Vietnam.
- Chè thịt quay - made from roast pork
- Chè thưng - made from dried red jujube, peanut, and dried Auricularia auricula-judae fungus
- Chè trứng đỏ- made from egg and other ingredients which people like.
- Chè trái cây- made from fruits
- Chè vừng - made from sesame seeds
- Chè xoài - made from mango
- Chè xôi nước - balls made from mung bean paste in a shell made of glutinous rice flour; served in a thick clear or brown liquid made of water, sugar, and grated ginger root.
