🇻🇳 How to Make Banh Xeo

Craving Banh Xeo? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Banh Xeo at home, in about 35 min, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• Batter: 1 cup rice flour, 2 tbsp cornstarch, 1 tsp turmeric, ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup coconut milk + 1 cup cold water
• 1 spring onion, sliced
• 150g pork belly, thinly sliced
• 12 prawns, peeled
• 2 big handfuls bean sprouts
• oil for frying
• To serve: lettuce, mint, perilla and nuoc cham

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Whisk the batter and let it rest 30 min. It should be thinner than pancake batter — closer to single cream. Thin batter is the only route to a lacy, crisp crepe.
2. Get a non-stick or well-seasoned pan properly hot with a good slick of oil. An under-heated pan gives you a pale, floppy banh xeo and there is no recovering from it.
3. Fry a few slices of pork and some prawns in the pan first, until just cooked and lightly browned.
4. Stir the batter again (turmeric settles fast), pour in a thin ladleful, and immediately swirl the pan to spread it as wide as it will go.
5. Add a handful of bean sprouts to one half, cover the pan, and cook 2 min so the sprouts steam while the base crisps underneath.
6. Uncover and keep frying, drizzling a little more oil around the rim, until the edges are deep gold and lift away audibly crisp — another 2–3 min. Patience at this stage is the whole difference between a crepe and a great one.
7. Fold it in half like an omelette and serve at once. Eat it by tearing off pieces, wrapping them in lettuce with herbs, and dunking in nuoc cham.