A challenge – sugarcane granita, jelly, cream.

When I arrived in Hanoi last year I was beaten. Exhausted by some recent hard travelling and more broken than I realised from the unpleasantness that came before. Life was clouded with uncertainty and nothing felt new. Everything was a challenge. As much fun as you can have visiting a city it is a totally different experience to actually live there and making that necessary nest for yourself is tough even under the best of circumstances.

A makeshift nước mía đá stand on Yen Phu street, Hanoi.

I’ve now spent almost 6 months in Hanoi I’ve settled (both in and down) and am feeling that boredom that comes along with feeling comfortable. I’m looking ahead while still trying to live in the present, perfection in theory but a little more difficult to put into practice. So when Fouad decided that he would set me a Hanoi challenge, wrenching me out of comfortable diffidence I accepted happily.

The Challenge: create something interesting made out of sugar cane juice.

Actually, I lie. This was a side bar to the original challenge which I declined to participate it. It wasn’t that it was a bad challenge I just didn’t feel I could fulfill it adequately. Why? I’m going to tell you an embarrassing secret now.

I’ve been in Hanoi for almost 6 months, and I have yet to eat a filled banh mi. I know, SHUT UP! I know!! There is always tomorrow, right?

Procurement.
As soon as the weather heats up torturous looking sugar cane presses start appearing on street corners city-wide. Peeled sugar cane stalks are sent through the presses time and again to relieve them of their juice. The resulting pale green liquid served over ice, called nước mía đá, is pure refreshment. It isn’t as sweet as you’d expect, being pure sugar juice, has pleasant vegetal notes and an interesting nuttiness.

Last weekend Pmum and I went on a little adventure. It started with pho cuon, continued with Vietnamese coffees and the planned finish was at the best ice cream/second hand clothes shop I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting where I intended to purchase some nước mía. To my dismay the ice cream and sugar cane press had disappeared and the waist-high clothes piles had been replaced with racks. Boring! If this is the price of modernity then I’m not interested.

Instead I bought two iceless sugar cane juices from this tea stall, poured into plastic bags for takeaway. I waited, took some photos and ignored the shirtless men drinking tea and smoking bongs. Total cost: 12 000 vnd (~70c AU).

The dish.

I decided against cooking anything with the juice, fearing that all vitality would be lost. I considered savoury, but the ingredients required were a continent out of reach, so sweet it would be. Unfortunately my first idea melted in to a puddle that tasted of failure and broken hearts, then came an epiphany.

Despite what I wrote here, I do drink more alcohol here than when I was in Sydney, and when I go out my order is often a mojito. Towards the end of the night I’m sure they substitute rum for locally produced rice spirits, but ever present is a stirring stalk of sugar cane. I think Fouad would fail me if I just made a drink, plus, how boring is that!

So I took a mojito and tweaked it into a dessert: Sugarcane and rum granita, lime and sugarcane jelly, lime cream.

This granita is fairly alcoholic, but the subtle super-fresh sugar cane flavour shines through. Paired with the lime scented cream, sour and sweet cubes of jelly and mint leaves this dessert has everything: refreshment, interest and alcohol while managing to bypass cloying. My favourite part is where the cream gets frozen by the granita, instant ice-cream.

So, Fouad, what do you think?

Sugarcane granita

500ml sugarcane juice
1/4 cup white rum
sugar syrup to taste (the more sugar syrup the softer this will freeze. Err on the side of a bit more if you want to keep this for more than a few days)
juice of 2 limes.

Mix all ingredients together and freeze. Just before serving, fork the ice-block to produce light flakes of frozen goodness.

Lime jelly
This recipe makes much more jelly than is necessary, and because it uses agar agar it sets very firmly. Halve or quarter the recipe if you don’t love jelly.

250ml water
50ml lime juice
3T sugar
1/2 packet agar agar.

Heat the water, sugar and agar agar powder in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar and bring to the boil. Once boiled, remove from heat and cool as much as you can before starts to set. Stir in the lime juice (I do this because I want to heat the lime juice as little as possible to ensure it retains its sharpness and freshness). Pour into a container and set in the fridge.

Do the same thing for the sugarcane jelly, but use 100ml water and 200ml sugarcane juice.

Lime cream
I had planned to make this recipe, but forgot that the under-par cream (UHT, erk) available here doesn’t whip. So, I added two yolks, and cooked it to form a crazy anglaise, omitting the lime juice.

Julienne mint leaves to serve. Assemble as per photos, eat immediately!

The view from my roof top where I take these food photos. Stormy skies.