Com hen in authentic Hue-style recipe

Secret to make a tasty com hen in authentic Hue-style recipe must be wondered by multiple cooks. Com hen is certainly one of the excellent dishes renowned as an impeccable Vietnamese food. Particularly, in the hot days, com hen is the best choice to bring the gentle and cool taste for your family. Let us follow two below com hen recipes with Runcooking.com!

I. First recipe for authentic Com Hen

1. Ingredients to make com hen: for four servings

• 2kg fresh mussels
• 400 grams rain rice
• 50 grams pork skin
• 150 grams peanuts
• 2 star fruits
• 200 grams “Doc mung” (a kind of vegetable is very crisp, slightly spongy often called elephant ear)
• Fresh vegetables: young banana shoot and banana blossom (thinly sliced), shredded water spinach, fresh bean sprout, lettuce, herbs (basil, perilla, mint, etc)
• Shallot, ginger, lemon, chili paste, shrimp paste, spices, seasoning powder, cooking oil.

2. Process to make com hen

Step 1: Rinse grain rice under the water, add water, cook. When it is finished, stir well, wait until cool. Fry peanuts with a little cooking oil until they are fragrant and turn nice colour. Clean star fruit, peel off its edges, slice thinly. Cut pork skin into mouth-sized pieces, heat the cooking oil, fry, take them out, and drain the oil.

Step 2: Clean fresh vegetables and herbs, drain. Remove shell of shallot, ginger, slice thinly. “Doc mung”, peeled off shell, sliced then mixed with salt, squeeze. Boil a pot of water, blanch doc mung, squeeze all water.

Step 3: Soak mussels in the water, clean, place in a pot with some salt, cooked. Place mussels and its boiling water in two different bowls.

Step 4: Discard all the sediments of mussels’ boiling water, boil, add a tablespoon of shrimp paste and seasoning powder, add sliced ginger to make broth, keep warm on the stove. Transfer boiled rice into bowl, stir well, add fresh vegetables, herbs, fried pork skin, then add stir-fried mussels on the top, scoop the broth, add some fried peanuts.

You can add fresh lemon or chili paste depending on your appetite. Serve with cool boiled rice or noodle. It is not fat at all, actually.

See more:

Mushroom rolled chicken breast Vietnamese recipe.
10 Vietnamese rice foods in Vietnamese cuisine

II. The second recipe to make Hue-style Com Hen

1. Ingredients for com hen:

• 2 packs of boiled mussels (hến) you can buy from market (250 grams/pack)
• 1 pack of mussels (nghêu) about 1 kg
• Cool boiled rice
• Peanuts, sesame, cooking oil
• Annatto seeds, pork skin, chili powder or saté
• Ginger, garlic, Hue-style shrimp paste

Tips for processing the vegetables:

• 1 young banana blossom: slice very thinly, soak in the cool water, added some lemon juice to remove the dark color
• Clean herbs
• 4 star-fruits or 1 green mango/apple, thinly sliced
• Clean 200 grams bean sprouts

2. Process to make Com Hen

Step 1: Fry sesame

Step 2: Peanut: add cooking oil + 2 tsp annatto seeds to get nice color, after that, discard seeds. Add 2 cups of peanuts, quickly fry. Season some salt.

Step 3: Clean pork skin, drain, slice into short strips. Add a tablespoon of cooking oil to heating pan, add pork skin to fry. Make sure in the first 2 minutes, cover the lid to avoid splashing out the cooking oil, then open lid to make pork skin stunning and crunchy.

Step 4: Chili pepper: add some cooking oil to the hot pan, add some minced garlic until get the flavor, add chili powder, stir quickly, turn off heat.

 Step 5: Soak mussels (nghêu) in salt water in 20 minutes to discard all sand, clean well. Add 2 litters of water to the pot, add some salt, add mussels to boil. After 5 minutes, mussels will open their mouth, then take them out. Filter the clear water without any sediment. Pick mussel flesh, add to the pot and continue boiling to make the broth more sweet and tasty. Next, cut ginger into thin pieces, smash, and add to the pot.

Step 6: Shrimp paste: mix 3 teaspoons of shrimp paste + 3 teaspoons sugar + 3 teaspoons mussel (nghêu) broth. If you do not like sweet, do not add sugar. Or add more mussel broth if you want.

Step 7: Mussel (hến): clean again. Stir garlic with cooking oil, add mussel to stir-fry. Season a teaspoon fish sauce and a teaspoon of black peppers.

Taste com hen dish:

• Com hen: cool boiled rice, stirred well to separate all seeds
• Place ingredients to the bowl, scoop mussel broth (nghêu) to the bowl, add shrimp paste
• Season the dish by the shrimp paste, salt and MSG
• The most importance: the mussel “ngheu” broth must be heating.

Right now is time to try the spectacular com hen. Have appetite and good luck for your cooking!