As members of the ‘African team’ which posts stories about life in Angola, Dong Paulo, 38, from Hung Ha, Thai Binh in Vietnam, and Pham Bao are beloved by locals because of their honesty , simplicity and kindness.

In addition to farming and helping local people in remote areas in Angola cultivate and raise animals, Dong Paulo and Pham Bao also post videos showing how to prepare Vietnamese dishes, such as stir-fry chicken with lemongrass, braised chicken with turmeric, black bean sweet soup, cassava steamed sticky rice, and braised pork.

They hope that dishes with high nutrients can help locals get more energy to work, and hope that Vietnamese traditional dishes can be introduced to Africans.

Most recently, in a video posted on their YouTube channel with 880,000 followers, they demonstrated their skills to prepare a familiar Vietnamese dish – sweet potato cocoons, or ‘khoai lang ken’.

Sweet potato cocoons are a type of cake made from sweet potatoes with flour and condensed milk. They look like cocoons of a silkworm. The outer layer of the cake is very crispy while its filling is soft and sweet.

“As there is a lot of sweet potato at the farm, I use it as material to make a very delicious dish for Vietnamese,” he said.

There are two varieties of sweet potato at the farm – red and white. Both are fragrant and sweet, so there is no need to add sugar when processing the potatoes. 

“I think I won’t add sugar to the dish. But people can dip fried potato in sugar to make it sweeter,” he said.

As there are many workers at the farm, Bao had to use several kilograms of sweet potatoes. He cleaned the potatoes, peeled them, and soaked them in water to keep from browning.

After the preliminary treatment, the potatoes were steamed in a large pot. 

When the potatoes were cooked, Bao used a spoon to mash them and added flour and shaped them into long, slender balls. 

After creating potato cocoons, he fried potatoes in a pan full of vegetable oil.

“The dish needs to be eaten when it is still hot to get the best taste,” he said.

In the video, Africans were seen standing around Bao and showed their excitement. They liked the fragrance from the dish, and uttered only one word ‘Chapepa’, which means ‘great’ in Portugese.

Thao Trinh