Banh Khoai or Sweet potatoes and shrimp cake

The original ingredient for this cake in Viet Nam is made with sweet potatoes mix in a batter of wheat flour, rice flour, turmeric and egg, but l like to add taro, another type of root in this dish to add the crispness to the cake. The sweetest of  potatoes mix with the crunchiness and dryness of the taro give this fry cake an interesting texture. In Viet Nam, the shrimps that we use in this cake are in their shell, which gives the crispy texture when you bite on the cake, but for the westerner palate, shrimp’s shell has to be removed.

Ingredient make 15 cakes

1 sweet potato

½ lb  taro

¼ lb small size shrimp cleaned.

Batter

1 cup all purpose flour

½ cup rice flour

1 ½ cup water

1 tsp turmeric

1 egg

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

Mix all the ingredient of the batter , mix well until obtain a smooth batter.

Let it rest for about 30 min.

Cut the roots in julian.

Mix the root in the batter

Scoop about 1 tablespoon of the mixture to a heated oil. Arrange it into a roughly round shape.

Put a shrimp on the top of the cake.

Fry it for 5 min or until the cake turn brown and crispy.

Tip: This cake is better eaten hot, but you can make them in advance and reheat them in the oven on baking for 400F until it heat up and return to the crispy stade, about 5 min.