Fall in love with sour soup with linh fish

While the Central region was in the midst of a storm, I was thinking about the steaming pot of sour soup with linh fish when my brother, who had just returned from Ca Mau , added a photo to Facebook. The linh fish were small and had silvery white scales, so they were so radiant. This is the wild water mimosa flower, a flower that is a companion to the floating canals and rivers, regardless of the sun or rain, it is always bustling with a bright yellow color. Without flowers, the lotus buds still evoke in my mind a soulful purple color.

Then the evenly pink banana stalks, the young green water spinach stalks, split to curl, just looking at it makes you feel… crispy. Those are the ingredients that make up the enchanting pot of sour soup that I once enjoyed on a trip to the West.

Ingredients for sour soup with linh fish

In the West this season, you can stop at any restaurant on the street and order a pot of sour fish soup. But I like that pot of soup "placed in the middle" of the space of the flood season: The looming scarves on the sampans, flocks of birds fluttering across the sky, the restaurant by the river with endless water coconut trees soaking in the muddy alluvium, the gentle water lilies in the hands of the girls...

Young linh fish from upstream flood in, "stepping" into the sour soup, the sweetness comes from the inside out. You have to bite into it to fully appreciate the sweetness in each piece of fresh white fish meat, in each young bone, in the fish bile that has not yet had time to be bitter... The very honest pungent taste of the wild sesban flower, the sweet and crunchy taste of the lotus shoot, the old astringent taste of the banana flower, the rustic aroma of the young water spinach always blend and spread when eaten.

To be honest, my Central tongue likes sour soup with the salty taste of salt, the sour taste of star fruit, of giang leaves... I thought that a pot of sour soup from the Central region like that had become a habit in my culinary taste, at least mine. Turns out it wasn't! The pot of sour soup with linh fish from the West convinced my prejudiced tongue right from the first sip. It was so sweet that it startled me. But "composing myself", seeing the sweetness of sugar adjusted by the sour taste of tamarind made me "calm down". And I realized that: The sourness of tamarind and the sweetness of sugar "combine". So after the first sip, linh fish and dien dien convinced me. To put it in a "battlefield" way, I was knocked out by the pot of sour soup from the West.

My brother, a "fan" of writer Son Nam, said: To cook linh fish soup, you must know how to get the sour taste from tamarind properly. That means you must choose tamarind that is still rough, boil it, peel it, mash the tamarind flesh, and then pour it into the pot of soup. If you leave the tamarind whole and throw it into the pot, the sourness will turn into astringency.

I really like the bowl of amber-colored fish sauce with chili placed next to the pot of soup. That is the "landing place" of the linh fish. Wow! The linh fish is taken out of the hot pot of soup and then lowered into the bowl of fish sauce with chili, so flavorful. The linh fish has... built a monkey bridge, making the nostalgia spread to my sister Ben Tre Con Phung. I texted a happy message: Ship the linh fish sour soup to Quang Ngai.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/huong-vi-que-huong-phai-long-canh-chua-ca-linh-185231129193505732.htm