Steamed fish sauce - A delicious dish with a strong Southern flavor

Fish sauce is a product of the river region, especially during the flood season. The South has many rivers, lakes, canals, and streams... There are as many types of fish as there are types of fish. No one knows since when, but people in the river region have only heard from each other that since the land reclamation and settlement, their ancestors have made a living by fishing. They caught a lot of fish and could not eat it all while it was still fresh, so the women and mothers thought of ways to dry it or make fish sauce to have a dish that could be preserved for a longer time.

And since then, fish sauce has become one of the traditional dishes bearing the mark of the Southern people. Fish sauce can be processed into many dishes, such as: raw fish sauce, fried fish sauce, pure fish sauce, braised fish sauce, fish sauce hotpot, fish sauce with pork belly, minced fish sauce with meat and duck eggs... Among them, fish sauce with meat or fish sauce with duck eggs is both easy to make and easy to eat, anyone can prepare it as long as they have the ingredients.

Fish sauce stewed with meat cooked on a red hot stove is really attractive.

If stewed with meat, the chef often chooses snakehead fish sauce, but if stewed with duck eggs, they choose snakehead fish sauce, linh fish sauce, buffalo tongue fish sauce... because these types of sauce have a special aroma. Stewed fish sauce with meat is quite simple, this dish is often eaten with many types of wild vegetables, such as: water lily, young choai shoots, coconut leaves, water chives... with a little banana flower, a few chili peppers and you can enjoy it. A meal with a few grilled snakehead fish, a plate of stewed fish sauce with pork belly on the stove, the smoke billowing and the aroma, plus a plate of wild vegetables... Just looking at it makes you crave it!

A traditional dish of the Southern people, fish sauce stewed with meat and duck eggs is easy to make. A delicious fish sauce stewed with duck eggs is a combination of the fish sauce maker and the chef's cooking skills. Fish sauce stewed with meat and duck eggs has a distinctive aroma, just a whiff of it makes you want to run to a bowl of hot rice to eat with it.

Braised fish sauce with duck eggs is one of the delicious dishes with a strong Southern flavor.

The most important ingredient of the dish of stewed duck meat and eggs is good fish sauce. Besides, the other ingredients needed are: Pork belly, duck eggs, green onions and spices. Pork belly has both fat and lean meat, adding it to the fish sauce will increase the fat content.

Nowadays, many chefs use a fish sauce grinder instead of chopping by hand like mothers and grandmothers did in the past. Therefore, to have a delicious bowl of fish sauce, mothers and grandmothers had to spend a lot of time and effort. Perhaps that is why, on days when there was fish sauce, the meal suddenly tasted better than usual, and every child kept asking for more rice.

After preparing the ingredients, the mixture of fish sauce, minced meat, duck eggs is mixed with spices, put into a large bowl or cup and steamed. After about 30 minutes, the fish sauce begins to give off a fragrant aroma spreading throughout the kitchen, then the chef will spread a layer of egg yolk to create color. Continue steaming for a few more minutes but do not cover the lid, because that will lose the red color of the egg yolk.

The dish of braised duck eggs and meat by chef Thuy An, residing in Rach Gia ward, is very popular with diners.

Eating steamed fish sauce does not require much effort, just a bowl of steamed fish sauce, a bowl of hot rice and a cucumber is enough. If you want it to be more attractive, people will add some side dishes such as green banana, pineapple, long beans...

Pick up a piece of green banana, a piece of fish sauce and slowly put it in your mouth. The rich, fatty taste of the fish sauce, the meat, the eggs, the fatty green banana, and the spicy chili slices blend together in an extremely appealing way.

The rustic fish sauce of the Southern people has gradually appeared on the family dinner tables of many other localities. On the other hand, this rustic dish has remained popular over the years, and is served in many rural restaurants in the city.

But for many people born and raised in the river delta, the bowl of fish sauce from their hometown still has a special flavor that no restaurant can replace.

That dish has followed the children of the South throughout their growing up process, no matter where they go, they still remember it longingly. Because, in their memory, there is still the image of their grandmothers and mothers sitting and meticulously chopping the fish sauce very finely, to steam it so that when eating, children will not choke on the bones.

Article and photos: THUY TIEN

Source: https://baoangiang.com.vn/mam-chung-mon-ngon-dam-chat-nam-bo-a425132.html