In the third lunar month, when the jujube trellis in front of the house is full of fruit, Hanoians have a sour soup with shrimp and crab eggs. At this time, shrimp and crabs are in season, carrying eggs. Every afternoon, crab and fish vendors scoop up bags of shiny dark gray shrimp eggs. Crab eggs are rarer and more expensive, bright yellow and clear. Vendors take thin bamboo sticks, split the eggs into tiny pieces, wrap them in young lotus leaves, and sell them to customers.
Green plums are delicious when cooked with crab eggs. You can replace the green plums with a few drops of fragrant early-season green rice lime. The sour soup is as clear as rainwater, without a trace of fat, cool and healthy. Now that Hanoi's old markets no longer sell crab eggs, the green plum crab egg soup, or green rice lime, has disappeared, making many older Hanoians still miss it.
From the 5th and 6th lunar months, the season of star fruit comes. Hot weather, dry throat, loss of appetite… when you see a bowl of star fruit soup, you pick up your chopsticks and eat quickly. For Hanoians, star fruit soup is the best, no other sour soup can compete.
The Hanoian dish of sour soup with lean meat and star fruit is simple. Slice the lean meat into dice (or thinly slice or mince), boil in cold water, skim off the foam. Add in a few peeled green star fruit, boil for a few more times, season with a little fish sauce, remove from heat and let cool. This is a delicious, refreshing and nutritious sour soup. Add a few pickled eggplants to the dish for a great taste (if you eat pickled eggplants, it won't be as tasty).
The sour plum can also be used to make crab soup, mussel soup, mussel soup, worm soup, snail soup, and fish soup (fish vinegar) which are very attractive to the people of the old town. In addition, it can also be used to make sour soup with the muom fruit, queo fruit, thanh tra fruit, tamarind, doc fruit, star fruit, chay fruit, and sour ears...
Fresh Hanoi star fruit is one of the fruits that is very delicious when combined with sour soup. Photo: Internet
But to be delicious, it must be the right style: For example, crab soup, fish vinegar cooked with grilled elephant ear; mussel soup, clam soup cooked with tamarind, and pomelo. That way, the soup will be clear and fresh in color; the best snail soup must be cooked with rice wine vinegar - giving the dish a strangely delicious and attractive flavor, making your mouth water just by smelling it. Or cook sour soup with some kind of seafood, with a few ounces of wild sour bamboo shoots, or a few slices of elephant ear, it will also be delicious, and "have something to pick at".
The fruit of the arrowroot tree is rare to make sour soup . If you want to eat it, you have to order a bunch of green fruit. Bring it home, roast it until it is burnt, peel off the skin, take the bright yellow flesh the color of young turmeric, put it in a box and put it in the freezer for later use. Fish soup and crab soup with arrowroot tree will lose all the fishy smell and the color of the broth will be quite beautiful.
The Hanoian crab soup with lemon juice is also unique. When the soup pot is just boiling, press the crab fat to one side, then squeeze a few lemons directly on the strainer into the pot of water. The soup is clear and not bitter as many people think. A small tip is not to squeeze the lemon too hard, squeeze out all the water, the lemon essential oil will not splash into the pot of soup and the soup will not be bitter.
In autumn or early winter, Hanoians have sour soups that are suitable for the cool, chilly weather. Such as pickled melon soup with shredded fish and shrimp, stewed snails, stewed eel, stewed frog with banana, grilled tofu, pork belly, sour rice, shrimp paste, garlic and chili.
Hanoi also has a dish of water spinach and tamarind leaves. In the summer, when the muom, quéo, sầu, and thanh tra fruits have not yet grown, Hanoi's sour soup has tamarind leaves. The water of boiled water spinach and tamarind leaves is more refreshing than that of tamarind (even if the tamarind is carefully peeled, it still has a slightly astringent taste). In the past, there were old women who carried a basket to sell tamarind leaves. Each bunch of tamarind leaves only had a few small leaves, enough to cook a pot of moderately sour soup. Tamarind leaves fall quickly and are difficult to save, so if you go around the market and don't sell them all, you just dump them all at the vegetable stall. The next morning, you carry another basket of fresh tamarind leaves to sell.
Boiled water spinach or sour soup is also very delicious. The old people used to chew betel with the skin of the chay. The core of the chay is cooked, the flesh is pinkish red, the seeds are dark red and beautiful, used to boil vegetables, make soup and when cooked, eat fresh. But dipping the water of boiled water spinach or sour soup in vinegar gives a mild sour taste, the light pink color of the water is very attractive. Pour the soup ladle into a bowl of rice and slurp it very deliciously.
There is also sour soup cooked with fermented rice. Although the broth is not as clear as that cooked with vinegar and wine, the aroma and sour taste are very mild. Especially, there is sour soup with catfish cooked with arrowheads in season. In this dish, the fish head (fish head) is left with its whiskers intact. When cooked, scoop it into a bowl, place the arrowhead in the middle of the bowl, along with ripe arrowheads, a few pieces of yellow arrowheads, the broth has a faint golden glow mixed with a few pieces of spring onions, and shiny green dill. When eaten with a glass of wine, it is so delicious that all the fatigue and hardship seem to disappear. The lean fish meat is removed and given to children to eat.
Pickled eggplant goes well with Hanoi sour soup. Photo from the internet.
Source: https://giadinh.suckhoedoisong.vn/canh-chua-cua-nguoi-ha-noi-rat-ngon-an-quanh-nam-nho-su-ket-hop-tung-loai-qua-trong-cac-mon-canh-172240526131709239.htm
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