It wouldn’t be tet (new year) without lion dancing, mut (candied fruit), lisi (red packets), marigold flowers and banh tet.
Lunar new year is like Western Christmas and New Year combined, it’s about family and love, but it’s also about looking forward to the future.
For me, banh tet is a symbol of love. It’s made from glutinous rice around a filling either meat or vegetarian, wrapped in banana leaf and boiled for at least six hours. The exhaustive preparation time involves dedication and effort, what better way to show love for your family.
It’s the weekend before the new lunar year and noodlies Sydney food blog visited a local temple in Cabramatta to see their preparation for the biggest event in the year.
As expected we found the old ladies, a Vietnamese working bee making banh tet with banana filling, watch it below.
Vinh Nghiem Temple in Cabramatta is typical of the many ‘house temples’ in the Fairfield local government area, Monks have rented or bought a house and slowly transform it into a temple. This one is in John Street and you can see in the video, the Monk and his Buddhist followers have managed to transform an Australian built house into something wonderfully exotic.
Chua Vinh Nghiem
John St, Cabramatta
I LOVE banh tet! Mum's made it in the past but because of it's extreme labour of love we mostly just buy it now – sliced and fried lightly gives it another dimension =)
I'm so glad you do Angie, I have such wonderful memories of them… my step mother still makes them to give to her friends.. now that's true love!