Remember the old banana bean vermicelli noodles

Hanoi has many dishes of noodles, vermicelli, pho… with delicate and unique flavors. Particularly, there are many different ways to prepare snail noodles. Banana bean snail vermicelli is a simple and delicious dish, suitable for any season and not too fussy to make. Personally, I always remember my mother’s banana and bean noodle soup.
My mother often cooks vermicelli with banana and beans on cool days. Housewives and housewives who are smart in Ha Thanh choose a bunch of fat West Lake snails, their mouths are full. Snails are soaked in water to wash rice overnight to release all the slime and mud. If I need to cook immediately, my mother told me to put chili and a little salt in the snail.

Illustration Green bananas are peeled by my mother, cut into bite-sized pieces, all of them. The bacon is just cut into pieces and marinated with some main noodles, spices, chopped dried onions. The bean covers are cut into square pieces, fried until golden brown. In the past, to cook banana pea snails, people often used toasted golden roasted turmeric soaked apricot beans. When eating, the piece of beans still has a slight smell of coal smoke, so it has a very unique flavor. But now, the baked beans in the market have gradually disappeared. The pot of broth is boiled from the bones of the pipe that has boiled on the stove. Green onions, perilla, guise leaves, and the smell of Chinese boats I have also washed and chopped. When the ingredients were almost ready, my mother told me to wash the snails and put them in a pot of boiling water with a little salt. When the snails are cooked, the mother quickly pours them into the basket and then drains cold water. Snail juice is gently decanted into a bowl after settling. My two brothers huddled together to help my mother. In just a moment, the snail meat was cooked in a bowl and my mother told me to wash it again with water mixed with diluted vinegar and then marinate with some main noodles, delicious fish sauce, turmeric powder, and cooking oil. Put the pot on the stove, my mother fried the dried onions very fragrant and then put the snails into the stir-fry. With snails, she only lightly sautéed them and when she came out, she didn’t forget to pick up a bit of shrimp paste to enhance the taste. Remove the snails into the bowl, my mother continued to stir-fry the pork belly with only a little bit of fire, then put the bananas in and stir-fry together to really absorb the salt and fish sauce. At this time, my mother put a plate of golden fried beans and sautéed them with bananas and meat, then poured the broth into the pot, simmering. There are many ways to prepare the broth for the banana bean vermicelli, but my mother often chooses to “fight” together the simmered bone broth and boiled snail water in the pot after stirring the other ingredients. Add a bowl of natural or batch vinegar to the pot of broth to get a mild sour taste and then simmer. When the banana is ripe, we will have a thick pot of banana bean broth, all the ingredients blend together with a harmonious taste. The pot of bananas and beans is boiling and fragrant in the kitchen. I divide the vermicelli into each bowl, put the fried snails on top with green onions and herbs so that my mother can fill the broth with bananas, beans, and meat on top. The bowl of white vermicelli is mixed with a thick broth with pieces of banana, fresh yellow beans with a little green onion on top, which is eye-catching. The banana bean snail noodle dish is finished, the whole family gathers together to enjoy. Everyone scoffed with the fatty leopard flavor of meat, the flesh of bananas, the crunchy sweetness of snails, the mild sourness of the broth served with raw vegetables, adding a bit of hot chili pepper to the tip of the tongue. Raw vegetables served with this vermicelli dish cannot lack lettuce, coriander, herbs, perilla, a little banana flower and thinly sliced ​​banana stem. Later, I had the opportunity to go to many places, enjoy some other local dishes. But… for some reason, I always remember the taste of my mother’s idyllic banana bean noodle soup cooked in the small kitchen, remembering the moments spent with my parents and brother in the old days.