Chè

Chè (Vietnamese pronunciation: [cɛ̂]) is any traditional Vietnamese sweet beverage, dessert soup or pudding. Varieties of Chè are made with mung beans, black-eyed peas, kidney beans, tapioca, jelly (clear or grass), fruit (longan, mango, durian, lychee or jackfruit), and coconut cream. Other types are made with ingredients such as salt, aloe vera, seaweed, lotus seed, sesame seed, sugar palm seeds, taro, cassava and pandan leaf extract. Some varieties, such as chè trôi nước, may also include dumplings. Chè are often prepared with one of a number of varieties of beans, tubers, and/or glutinous rice, cooked in water and sweetened with sugar. In southern Vietnam, chè are often garnished with coconut creme.

Chè
Plastic containers of chè đậu trắng, a variety of chè made from black-eyed peas, in an Asian grocery store
TypeSoup or pudding
CourseDessert
Place of originVietnam
Region or stateSoutheast Asia
Similar dishesSago with coconut milk

The preparations are named with the addition of qualifying adjectives referring to a wide variety of distinct soups or puddings which may be served either hot or cold. Each variety of chè is designated by a descriptive word or phrase that follows the word chè, such as chè đậu đỏ (literally "red bean chè").

Chè may be made at home, but are also commonly sold in plastic cups at Vietnamese grocery stores.

In northern Vietnam, chè is also the word for the tea plant. Tea is also known as nước chè in the North or more commonly trà in both regions.

The Chinese category of sweet soups called tong sui are very similar to chè.

Varieties

There is a nearly endless variety of named dishes with the prefix chè, and thus it is impossible to produce a complete list. What follows is a list of the most typical traditional varieties of chè.

Beans and pulses
  • Chè ba màu (literally "three colours chè") - usually including green mung beans, white black-eyed peas, and red azuki beans, although people can cook with any ingredients making any three colours they like (compare with halo halo).
  • Chè đậu đen - made from black beans; one of the most popular varieties of chè, particularly for northern Vietnamese
  • Chè đậu đỏ - made from azuki beans, usually using whole beans, rarely using ground beans.
  • Chè đậu huyết - made from red beans.
  • Chè đậu ngự - made from Phaseolus lunatus (or moon beans) - specialty in Huế, an imperial dish
  • Chè đậu phụng (also called chè đậu phộng in southern Vietnam, or chè lạc in northern Vietnam) - made from peanuts
  • Chè đậu trắng - made from black-eyed peas. Oftentimes, this dessert is just referred to as chè đậu as it is one of the most common bean dessert for southern Vietnamese.
  • Chè đậu ván Huế - made from Dolichos lablab (hyacinth beans); a specialty in Huế
  • Chè đậu xanh - made from whole mung beans
    • Chè đậu xanh phổ tai - made from mung beans and phổ tai (a kind of kelp)
    • Chè đậu xanh đánh - made from ground mung beans
    • Chè đậu đãi - made from ground skinless mung beans (đãi means to remove the skin)
    • Chè đậu xanh nha đam - mung beans and pieces of fresh aloe vera
    • Chè hoa cau - a northern dish made from ground skinless mung beans with betel nut flower-shape (a similar dish called chè táo xọn, prepared in southern Vietnam, uses less mung beans)
A bowl of chè bắp

Rice, grains, tubers and cereals
  • Chè bánh lọt - made from bánh lọt - a cake from Huế (lọt means "to sift").
  • Chè bắp (the Southern dialect) or chè ngô (the Northern dialect) - made from corn and tapioca rice pudding
  • Chè bột sắn (or chè sắn bột) - made from cassava flour
  • Chè sắn lắt - made from sliced cassava
  • Chè cốm - made from young rice.
  • Chè lam - made from ground glutinous rice
  • Chè củ mài - made from Dioscorea persimilis
  • Chè củ súng - made from water lily bulbs
  • Chè củ từ (or chè khoai từ) - made from Dioscorea esculenta
  • Chè hột lựu (called by this name in southern Vietnam and by chè hạt lựu in northern Vietnam) - in this dish, rice paste are cut into pomegranate seed-shaped pieces.
  • Chè hột éo - basil seed drink
  • Chè khoai lang - made from sweet potato
  • Chè khoai môn - made from taro
  • Chè môn sáp vàng - made from a variety of taro grown in Huế
  • Chè kê - made from millet
  • Chè khoai tây - made from potato
  • Chè mè đen - made from black sesame seeds
  • Chè sen - made from thin vermicelli and jasmine flavoured syrup
  • Chè hạt sen - made from lotus seeds
    • Chè sen trần
    • Chè sen dừa - made from lotus seeds and coconut water
    • Chè củ sen - made from lotus tubers
  • Chè mã thầy (or chè củ năng) - made from water chestnuts
  • Cơm rượu - mildly alcoholic chè.

Jellies
  • Chè thạch or chè rau câu - made from agar agar
    • Chè thạch lựu - made from seaweed and other pomegranate seed-shaped tapioca pearls.
    • Chè thạch sen - made from seaweed and lotus seeds
  • Sương sâm - jelly with Tiliacora triandra extract
  • Sương sáo - Grass jelly
  • Chè thạch sen - thin, vermicelli-like jellies.
chè bánh xếp

Dumplings
  • Chè bột lọc from small cassava and rice flour dumplings
  • Chè con ong (literally "bee sweet soup"; so named because this dish is viscous and yellow, like honey) - made from glutinous rice, ginger root, honey, and molasses– this is a northern dish, usually cooked to offer to the ancestors at Tết.
  • Chè bánh xếp - green bean wrapped in a tapioca skin dumpling eaten in a coconut milk base with smaller pieces of tapioca. Translated to English, the dish is "folded cake dessert".
  • Chè trôi nước - balls made from mung bean paste in a shell made of glutinous rice flour; served in a thick clear or brown liquid made of water, sugar, and grated ginger root.

Fruits and plants
One version of the chè thưng

Mixed

Savory chè (chè mặn)
  • Chè lạp xường or chè lạp xưởng - made from Chinese sausage
  • Chè thịt quay - made from roast pork
  • Chè trứng đỏ - made from eggs and other ingredients
  • Chè trứng - served with boiled eggs, either hot or cold, in a sweet soup base or sweet tea

Foreign chè
  • Bubur Cha cha or Bocha - a Vietnamese interpretation of a popular sweet soup originating from Malaysia and Singapore, found in Hanoi.
  • Chè Thái - a sweet fruit soup, which is believed to be a version of Thailand's tub tim krob, but the Vietnamese version uses a variety of tropical fruits, while the Thai version uses strictly chestnuts.
  • Tàu hũ or Tào phớ - Douhua chè.

See also
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