Familiar yet strange like hotpot

The cuisine of the coastal region of Phan Thiet (Binh Thuan) makes many people linger because of its diversity, richness and salty, fresh flavors. There are fish cake noodles, banh can, rice paper with shrimp paste, banh quai vac… Have you tried hotpot, a dish that carries the soul of the sea and is very familiar to the people of this land?

The main ingredients of hotpot are fish that are abundant in the Phan Thiet sea: opaque, smooth, and mai fish... All are fresh fish caught from the sea, so the meat is firm, has no fishy smell, and has a rich sweet taste.

Famous hot pot dish in Mui Ne

Clean the fish, fillet it and slice it into thin slices, then blanch it in lemon juice until it is half-cooked and marinate it with spices. When eating, just drop it into the boiling hot pot for a few seconds and then take it out to enjoy. In addition to fish, this dish also has many familiar yet strange ingredients such as pork belly, shrimp, fried eggs, mango, cucumber, star fruit, lettuce, herbs...

Familiar because you can see them everywhere; strangely, cucumber, green mango, sour star fruit, herbs are eaten with hot pot. When asked, I learned that it is called hot pot but there are 2 ways to eat it. One is to put fish, eggs, shrimp, meat into the hot pot and then scoop it into a bowl to eat with rice noodles like the usual way of eating hot pot. The second way is very much in the style of the people of this country, they like to roll everything and dip it in it.

Fish, meat, shrimp… after being blanched in hot pot water until just cooked are taken out and rolled with rice paper and the above vegetables plus a little boiled vermicelli if desired. At this time, we cannot fail to mention the dipping sauce made from pure anchovy fish sauce mixed with garlic, chili, tamarind and roasted peanuts. The thick dipping sauce, with the fatty aroma of peanuts, the salty taste of fish sauce, the sour and spicy taste of chili, tamarind is not only very suitable to eat with rolls, fish, shrimp but also makes the hot pot broth richer if you add a little more.

On the windy beach, the salty taste of the sea blows through the rustling coconut trees, sipping a bowl of hot pot, slowly enjoying the sweetness of fish and vegetables, inhaling the fragrant smell of the dipping sauce will be an unforgettable culinary experience.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/du-lich/quen-ma-la-nhu-lau-tha-2018122721251659.htm