Bánh Xèo

This was a delicious savoury Vietnamese pancake made with rice flour and coconut milk, stuffed with an assortment of fresh vegetables and herbs, and served with a flavourful dipping sauce.

There was a little bit of time involved in mincing some ingredients for the sauce and prepping the herbs and vegetables for the filling but not too much and the crepe batter took only minutes to make, and the pancakes only a few minutes to cook.

I had a few issues with this recipe: the first was with the sauce. It had the typical Vietnamese flavour profile of hot, sour, salty and sweet but in my limited experience in making these dipping sauces from scratch, they include water to lessen the intensity. This recipe didn’t and it needed some “ I added 2 tbsp.

The second issue was with cooking the pancakes. They were extremely fragile and couldn’t be flipped with a spatula without breaking. I resorted to sliding the crepe onto a plate once the bottom was cooked, placing the pan upside down over it, and then inverting the pan & plate. I later read that these pancakes never get flipped but are steamed instead, while the bottom gets brown and crispy. The delicate texture of my pancakes may have been due, in part, to using whole grain rice flour.

Overall, though this was a relatively quick, very fresh tasting and light meal. Definitely one to repeat.