I’d never tried Vietnamese food before I came to the United States. There was no Vietnamese restaurant in my hometown and Vietnamese cuisine had never crossed my mind. Then, Thai food was the only exotic food I knew.
I first tasted Vietnamese food when I was attending graduate school in the Midwest. Stuck in the middle-of-no-where AKA Fargoland, Vietnamese food was a treat to my taste buds. I loved the familiar southeast Asian flavors: the noodle dishes, the steaming hot pho, the rice plates, the fresh bean sprouts, herbs, mint leaves, and oh yeah, fish sauce. Vietnamese food reminded me of the tastes of home–well, not quite, but they were close. It was comfort food back then and I gradually fell in love with Vietnamese cuisine.
Chao tom, or Vietnamese sugar cane shrimp is one of the appetizer dishes that I absolutely adore. While I always order them at restaurants, I have never attempted to make chao tom at home until recently. I got myself some fresh sugar cane and adapted my recipe of tau hu ky (shrimp paste with bean curd skin) and deep-fried them. (The traditional way of making sugar cane shrimp or chao tom is grilling.)
The sweet thing about making these chao tom (sugar cane shrimp) at home was that I could wrap as much shrimp paste around the sugar cane as possible, so every bite was a mouthful of delicious and springy shrimp paste. Yum!
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Based on 12 Review(s)
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Anon
Add 1/4 tsp baking soda to the recipe you’ll get an even smother texture :-)
ravenouscouple
Thank you for the great recipe. We recently made it and was great!
Rasa Malaysia
Awesome. Are you going to post on your site?
ravenouscouple
yup.. we just did a few days ago. :) Thanks again and keep up the great work.
handicapped
OK…it’s official, I’m a terrible cook. This recipe seems like a cakewalk, and I managed to mess it all up. There was something extremely suspect with the way mine turned out, I used the freshest shrimp that I could (was alive when I bought it), and still failed. I so far back I don’t think there is a drawing board to go back to!
zafer cetinoz
This Vietnamese dish instantly reminds me of Thailand’s deep-fried chicken wrapped in pandan leaves. It is comfort food to me while overseas. I have my fair share while in HCMC. It is a wonderful aromatic dish with a sweet after-taste (from chewing the sugarcane). Cheers to good cooking!