When mentioning the Southwest region, people often remember the rustic delicacies with the cool, sweet, and rich flavors of the countryside typical of the river countryside...
Bac Lieu has many delicious dishes, but the most unique is the rau bop, a vegetable considered a "heavenly gift" of this land. It is called rau bop because its stem is hollow, and when tapped, it makes a pleasant "bop" sound. Every year after the dry season, the rains come and cause the water in the fields to rise, which is when the rau bop grass begins to grow abundantly in the fields. The people in the garden prepare many rustic but surprisingly delicious dishes from this vegetable, but the most authentic is rau bop eaten raw with fried tilapia, grilled snakehead fish or grilled catfish with ginger fish sauce.
Or the young bamboo shoots after peeling off the skin can be used as raw vegetables, mixed in salads, stir-fried, cooked in soup, dipped in hot pot, made into pickles... all of which are delicious. The famous specialty of Bac Lieu also includes stir-fried bamboo shoots with shrimp. When the shrimp is just golden brown, add the bamboo shoots and stir well, season, and sprinkle with pepper. Just like that, you have a fragrant dish of bamboo shoots, just looking at it makes you crave it.
Another specialty is the famous water fern plant in Cai Nuoc district - a large water fern growing area of Ca Mau . Water fern is pulled out by hand or cut close to the root with a sharp knife. When the plant is pulled out, all the roots are cut off and the long leaves are chopped off, keeping the stem close to the root, then pre-processed to remove all the old leaves, keeping the young core. Water fern can be processed into many delicious dishes such as pickles, salads, stir-fried with shrimp or cooked in soup, hot pot is also very delicious.
Water chives are also a type of wild vegetable that grows in the fields, canals, and swamps of the alum soil of Dong Thap Muoi, and are abundant during the flood season. Water chives have soft stems and short taproots that cling to the mud, so they are easy to pull out. In places where water chives grow, the water is very clear, so the harvester must follow the path and avoid making the water cloudy, making it difficult to see the chives to pull out. People in Dong Thap call water chives a gift from heaven because the plant grows wild, without fertilizer or care.
If you come to Can Tho, you will always remember the unique dish of wild shrimp and water mimosa flower salad, which is rarely prepared in such a perfect way. The main ingredients of this dish include shrimp and water mimosa flower, which are quickly stir-fried over a fire until cooked. When eating, you will feel the characteristic aroma of water mimosa, the salty and crunchy taste of shrimp.
Fish dishes of the West also bring tourists unforgettable rich, rustic flavors. For example, braised dolphin is made from a rare type of catfish that lives in the freshwater of the Mekong Delta. When diving underwater or brought ashore, the fish often makes an "eng ec" sound like a pig's cry, so the locals call it dolphin.
It would be a mistake to visit the West without trying the Linh fish and Dien Dien flower hotpot. A full hotpot will include Linh fish, coriander, typical Western vegetables, water spinach, So Dua flower, Nhut... Linh fish is only as small as a little finger but has soft bones, fatty and rich taste, is the soul of the hotpot. Enjoy delicious Western dishes to feel the Western flavor full of humanity, rustic and strangely charming.
Source: https://daidoanket.vn/dan-da-am-thuc-mien-tay-10301005.html
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