Vietnamese Pizza -Vietnamese Cooking

Vietnamese Pizza- Banh Trang Nuong

Vietnamese Pizza- Banh Trang Nuong

Vietnamese pizza! Yes, you read it right Vietnamese pizza? It is one of popular street foods in Vietnam, especially for the young generations. It is quite a modern snack and I like it, no, I should say I love it very much. Not just because the pizza is so delicious but also the creativity, adventure way of cooking and serving it.

On Saigon’s street, I loved watching vendors cooking, husband and wife working together. The wife cooked on a small charcoal grill while the husband looked after the charcoal, took the orders and payments. Using the tiny and movable grill stove with the love of cooking proves to earn enough to put food on the table. It brought back my childhood memory when my little hands helped my late grandparent to look after the fire in their home commercial kitchen. In old days, grandfather used the traditional method of selling food by plying from village to village. 

Well, back to Vietnamese pizza – how to cook? Unlike normal pizza which you normally use dough, you have to use a thin rice paper sheet, top with butter, quail eggs, dried pork, dried shrimp, spring onion, fried shallots, chilli sauce and tomato sauce. It is crispy, spicy, porky, savory and very delicious.

You can use gas barbeque on low flame if you love BBQ outdoor. I use gas stove with a small grill support on top (watch out, make sure not get rice paper burn!) and it turned out pretty good except without the charcoal smell. 

Here is the Vietnamese pizza recipe: 

Vietnamese Pizza Recipe- Banh Trang Nuong

(Chargrilled Rice Paper with Quail eggs, dried pork and dried prawns)

5 rice papers

Butter/oil

10 quail eggs or 5 small chicken eggs

5 spring onion, thinly sliced

½ cup pork floss or dried pork

½ cup dried shrimp (wash and drain well)

Fried shallot (optional)

Chilli flake (optional)

Chilli sauce/ Sriracha sauce

Tomato sauce

Heat the grill to low heat. Place one rice paper at a time. Add a bit of butter, two quail eggs, dried shrimps and pork floss in the center. Use the spoon to spread well all ingredients around and grill for one minute or until the eggs are cook though.

Sprinkle with spring onion, friend shallot and grill until the rice paper is crispy. Drizzle with chilli and tomato sauce.

Fold the rice paper. Serve hot and wrapped in a paper.

As a pizza, you can use any topping as you like, like cheese, bacon, salami, olive...be creative the way you like your pizza to be.

I used our homemade fish mince instead of pork floss as in the picture. Kids enjoy it very much, the hot one with the chilli sauce was for my youngest kid and the BBQ sauce was for my eldest who doesn’t like hot food.

Vietnamese Pizza- Banh Trang Nuong