Vietnamese green "rice"

[nickarte]

I saw what I thought was raw bright green colored rice in the markets in Hanoi, so I bought a half kilo. When I got it home and cooked it, it turned into mush, sort of the consistency of oatmeal, and had little discernable flavor. The raw grains are sort of flat, not like rice at all. What could it be, and how would it be used?

PS. I have photos, but am not sure how to post them...

[PPPans]

Oh! It's not supposed to be cooked like raw rice. That kind of rice is called Cốm (wrong diacritical mark - it won't show properly on many sites) and is pounded roasted unripe rice grains. When did you get it? It's about to go off season now, I can imagine.

When you cooked it, did the green colour leach into the water? I would love to see close-up pictures as I've been researching this kind of rice. It's something many Southeast Asian societies have in common.

I recently did an extensive write-up for the Filipino equivalent - duman. I found a Vietnamese website which indicates it's made almost exactly the same way.

Here's my write-up with step-by-step pictures of the process - Duman: Epitome of Artisanal Food.

P.S. You can upload the pictures on ImageGullet or on a free hosting site. PM me if you need help.

Edited to add the link to the Vietnamese green rice flakes.

Edited January 18, 2006 by PPPans (log)

[nickarte]

Thank you, that must be it! I made an album called "Vietnamese green rice" if you know how to find it, I´m not sure...

[PPPans]

You can still salvage the re-cooked Cốm. Make some rice pudding. We do that with duman. Or make some Filipino-style champurrado. Dissolve chocolate paste/tablets/chips in boiling water, add the Cốm and sugar. Milk if desired.

I just hate to see something so precious go to waste.

[aznsailorboi]

It's called "PINIPIG" in the Tagalog language, a dialect from the Philippines. there's only two uses for this that I know, one is like PPPans mentioned, and another one is by frying it in hot oil to puff it up just like rice crispies almost then sprinkled with granulated white sugar and eaten as is, or as delectable garnish on top of different rice cakes or the famous halo-halo.

[PPPans]

Not to nitpick aznsailorboi, but Tagalog is indeed a language and not a dialect.

In other parts of the Philippines:

Mountain Province = tsu-om, du-om or do-om

Ilocos = dumdumen

Pangasinan = deremen

Tagalog and Visayan regions = pinipig

Indonesia = emping

By the way, I've uploaded a video of how the rice is pounded. The first part is for the detail, one mortar to three people. The second part is when at least three mortars assembled in one place have the pounding synchronised.

Click for the video.

[aznsailorboi]

Not to nitpick aznsailorboi, but Tagalog is indeed a language and not a dialect.

In other parts of the Philippines:

Mountain Province = tsu-om, du-om or do-om

Ilocos = dumdumen

Pangasinan = deremen

Tagalog and Visayan regions = pinipig

Indonesia = emping

By the way, I've uploaded a video of how the rice is pounded. The first part is for the detail, one mortar to three people. The second part is when at least three mortars assembled in one place have the pounding synchronised.

Click for the video.

←

It depends on how you look at it. Tagalog is a language but it is also a dialect. Tagalog is the dialect spoken in some of the regions in the lower Central Luzon to the upper Southern Luzon area, namely Bulacan, Rizal, Manila, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon, etc. Granted, most of the dialects branched out from Tagalog, it is both considered well as a Language and also a dialect.

just to clarify my point, refer to this analogy. Mandarin is China's national Language, its mostly spoken in the areas surrounding Beijing in the Northeast region. Cantonese, on the otherhand is also a widely spoken language but in the south in the areas of Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Both these languages are spoken widely but they are still called dialects, because they belong to the same country but divided by differences in the way of oral communication, though there are similarities, they are still distinctly different from each other.

[PPPans]

Oh, I think what you mean is that there is the Tagalog language and it has multiple variations called dialects. Example of Tagalog dialects are what they speak in Laguna, Quezon, Bulacan, etc.

Just to get back on topic, I have been wondering about the similar freshly harvested rice delicacy in Thailand. I still haven't found the way it is processed or what it's called. I hope someone from the forum can help.

Edited January 25, 2006 by PPPans (log)