I had to go to Yang Tao and stayed at the Y Sol House homestay in the commune on the shore of Lak Lake. The homestay is relatively small, in the traditional stilt house style of the M'Nong people, cozy. The words "M'Nong cuisine" written along with the name of the homestay made me curious and kept asking about the special dishes of the M'Nong people, so H'Huyn - a girl in the Y Sol House family - decided to treat me to a special dish.
Ingredients in ash soup and chili seasoning
The homestay owner cooks ash soup with wood stove in the stilt house
H'Huyn explained that this dish rarely appears on normal days, simply because it is laborious and time-consuming to prepare. As the name of the dish suggests, the main ingredient to prepare ash soup is "ash water". To prepare ash water, ripe bananas are peeled; the peels are dried and burned to collect ash and mix it with water. Then, many layers of cloth are used to filter the water, removing the ash residue. The filtered water must be crystal clear to be successful, so this step takes a lot of time.
Hot bowl of ash soup with spices
Other ingredients of this dish include: bamboo shoots (fresh or sour); young squash (or green papaya + young papaya leaves or rare Lak lake seaweed; or a mixture of those) with meat, pork bones (or beef or buffalo bones) and some vegetables, leaves in the garden, taro leaves. You can add fish, shrimp and snails caught from Lak lake. The above ingredients are chopped into small pieces, poured with lye water and stewed until soft. When eating, add crushed chili for a delicious taste.
To stew ash soup, you can use a gas stove or an electric stove, but stewing on a wood stove is the best. After H'Huyn introduced me to the "process" of cooking, her mother personally lit a fire to stew ash soup in a small kitchen in the back corner of the stilt house, surrounded by jars and pots. The thin blue smoke from the kitchen rose in the corner and the aroma of the dish spread throughout the space, making me start to "get impatient".
Ash soup of the M'Nong people
Then it was time for H'Huyn to bring the food out to a large mat spread in the middle of the stilt house. The bowl of ash soup had a thick, steaming, fragrant broth. Wow! The stewed green pumpkin powder was both rich and fragrant, with the fatty taste of meat and pork bones, the bitter taste of fresh bamboo shoots and the spicy taste of crushed chili, making my sense of smell and taste stretch out in enjoyment.
Wherever the food goes, you can tell, especially the saltiness of this ash soup is very special. It is both lightly salty and has a gentle aroma - that is because of the saltiness from the ash of burnt banana peels, which the M'Nong people have used since ancient times, when salt was scarce. In the end, although the tray served had rice, vegetables, and Lak lake shrimp, they were all unsold, because I saved my stomach to eat ash soup like eating soup. After eating, I still sniffed because of the spiciness, because of the craving.
Source
Comment (0)