The taste of noodle soup in Soc Trang is different from other places, because it is a harmonious combination of ingredients and the way of food preparation of local people. The essence of this dish is the broth – a soup made from a blend of fish sauce, lemongrass and wormwood noodles (a tuber similar to turmeric, but smaller and darker in color). The commonly used fish sauce are locally available ones such as: choke fish sauce, snakehead fish…; Particularly, Khmer people often cook with beef sauce… Also wormwood noodles, lemongrass are used to remove fishy smell and create a special fragrance for the broth. However, in order to be able to cook a pot of broth that is both delicious and fragrant, the kitchen often combines many types of fish sauce, including the Khmer’s specialty beef sauce and the local fish of the South in one cooking process. quite complicated. Fish sauce is processed separately, cooked and only filtered for clear water. Then, this broth is cooked with lemongrass and wormwood noodles for a period of time when the cook feels the flavor blend. Then, the cook adds coconut water to make the broth more sweet and clear. Using coconut water in soups is a familiar cooking method of the Kinh people in the Southwest region. As a result, the broth has its own flavor, aroma and clarity than vermicelli. The ingredients for the noodle soup are also processed quite elaborately, of which there are three main parts: boiled snakehead fish, meat removed, and bone removed; Boiled ground cloves with skin removed and roasted pork cut into pieces – a familiar dish of the Chinese. The crispy, greasy skin and the five flavors in the roast pork make the noodle soup more attractive. Besides, noodle soup is also served with a variety of vegetables such as bean sprouts, chives, grated morning glory, grated banana, herbs, laksa leaves to round out the flavor. When enjoying, diners can add a little lemon, chili, fish sauce for more flavor. It can be said that Soc Trang noodle soup is very easy to please gourmets. In Soc Trang, it is not difficult to find delicious noodle soup shops such as: Ca Dong, Cay Long, Thao – Phu Loi, Ms. Hanh, Mrs. Xim…

Like the hierarchy in a certain definition, fish sauce is a dish reserved for the class that still has many difficulties to survive. But I dimly realized that the fish house society still has its own rules and voices. The snakehead fish sauce is cooked with pork fat, sugar + monosodium glutamate + ground pepper, dipped with boiled okra or cucumber, or eaten with purple potato soup cooked with shrimp or minced meat only for the wealthy. The pot of braised fish sauce is even more remote because it is expensive when it comes to bacon, snakehead fish and silver shrimp, … I choose friends with a cup of fish sauce very early. My mother told me to buy a tamarind from her sister’s 5 Pieces, go back and eat with cold rice. Selling sour tamarind to Saigon with lots of zinc, needing to be tall, sister 5 is young but likes to eat betel nut. She’s so cute, she never takes money and keeps telling me to eat as much as I can. Mam ruoc is no longer lonely when choking fish comes to share joy and sorrow. My mother and I often sit and tear fish sauce and eat it raw with herbs, banana chips + star fruit and cold rice. Asking the elders in the West, I received the answer: the West knows how to make fish sauce from Indonesia and snakehead fish sauce is suggested by Khmer people. 2. Lost in the youth in Can Tho for 5 years and 11 months, I know Tay Do is very famous for hot pot with fish sauce, but I have never tried it, because the dish with a lot of money is only for receiving precious guests. Time has passed, it has also been windy and rainy and we know each other a lot, in my eyes, the South is the path of fish sauce and islet pot (hot pot), like a familiar saying from friends: If you don’t eat fish sauce, you are not a local West!. In my young years, I still don’t have a satisfactory answer when Chau Doc – An Giang and Ca Mau are always affectionately called “the kingdom or land of fish sauce”, but Can Tho is resounding with fish sauce hotpot. Asking the elders in the West, I received the answer: the West knows how to make fish sauce from Indonesia and snakehead fish sauce is suggested by Khmer people. Borrowing the method of making beef sauce from snakehead fish in the Ho Sea, Can Tho is the economic center of the Southern Continent, where “white rice with clear water” has created a method of fermenting fish with Vietnamese identity: using Listen to fermented roasted rice, instead of cold rice. The Khmer people are sincere and honest, but the cuisine is still entangled in the wild. Living in harmony between the two rainy and sunny seasons along the Mekong River, both the Khmer and the Southern people gradually perfect the rustic dishes from fish sauce. Khmer people in the West know how to apply more spices to make beef sauce wrapped in green banana leaves more fragrant. Snakehead fish in the pot of braised fish of the West is replaced with basa or howling fish for fatter. At that time, when I heard about the original way of fermenting beef sauce, I did not dare to eat it, not to mention the stories of weaving and adding charms from folk about the Khmer. Then I try to practice and feel very delicious! 3. The time I had a meal in Phnom Penh, it was so delicious with Prahok Kob. Mixed beef sauce with bacon + beef and dangerous chili, wrapped in green banana leaves and grilled on charcoal. Just raw cucumber, eggplant and vermicelli, mixed with fish sauce, I’m full, I don’t care about other dishes… That night, I also learned the national spirit of the Khmer people through the mouth-watering saying “No prahok, no salt”, deeply understood: without beef sauce, the meal cannot be delicious! Southeast Asian countries all have their own “country spirit”, which I have also tasted such as Ngapi – Burma, Kapi – Thailand, Trasi and Petis udang – Indonesia, Bagoong – Philippine, Belacan – Malaysia, Padaek – Laos, … In my eyes, Vietnam deserves to be the “Lord of fish”. The variety and abundance is so rich that I cannot count all the separate categories by region… 4. The rain is pouring heavily, eating fish sauce to realize the bold, honest, and innocent features of the old countryside. Processing is as easy as the identity and life of the fish, when the fish is choked with a little water, boil it to get the juice. If you want the fish sauce to be strong or light, depending on the amount of fresh coconut water you add to dilute the fish sauce. Bring to a boil again, I season to taste. Among the spices I’ve tried, for me, garlic and lemongrass are the best, so I minced them and put them in the hot pot to add extra fat. Looking at the plate of meat, everyone will be amazed, but those who like to eat fish have the same opinion: the best is to eat vegetables with fish sauce! When I cook hotpot, I think of my mother, because she foresaw my fortune: old age, no job to earn money, so I have to eat fish sauce to change day by day…

Where are the leaves and flowers – a wild plant that grows a lot in An Giang. Photo: Tourism Newspaper Prohoc sauce (prohok – boo hoc), according to my mother-in-law, the climate in the South has two seasons: rainy and sunny. In addition to the rice season, the fish season is also the main season of the Khmer farmers in the South. They catch fish in many forms such as slapping or fishing, spreading nets, fishing nets, etc. Where they can be caught, they can be dried there with large fish, while small fish are made into beef sauce. Every house makes two or three jars to eat all year round. Bo hoc sauce is almost considered as the main dish in the culinary life of the Khmer people as well as the Vietnamese people’s snakehead, choke, and roe sauces. Although their way of making prohoc fish sauce is similar to that in Cambodia, but through the stages to become bohoc sauce, it is necessary that there is no longer a musty smell, especially without maggots. Usually they use snakehead fish more than other types of fish, of course, snakehead fish to make fish sauce will be more delicious. Select suffocated snakehead fish, scrape the scales, scrape the blood on the spine, wash and soak in cold water for a day and a night (24g), then take it out and leave it in a basket to drain. Use a knife to gradually fish the fish, add a small pinch of salt and a little cold rice, mix well. Incubate in a sealed container, the next day take out the fish and place it in a thick basket, cover the basket with a piece of mocha, use a rock or heavy object to ballast the water with a fishy smell. Then, put the fish in a jar or glass glue, use your hands to receive the fish easily, cut the mo areca to fit the mouth of the jar or glue it on, use a bamboo brace to fasten it. Then proceed to cook salt water poured over the fish and then dried in the sun. About three months, the fish sauce can be eaten, but only used for making stewed, fried, seasoned soups, cooked vermicelli or cooked with potted rice noodles with shaved corn with straw mushrooms and snakehead fish or shrimp. If you want to eat it raw, you must leave it for a year or more, the longer you leave it, the more delicious it will be. Beef broth of Khmer people. Usually fish sauce is eaten raw with thinly sliced ​​​​fruit or paired with herbs of all kinds. In particular, when cooking vermicelli, fish meat is shredded, boned, put in a mortar with wormwood vermicelli, boiled, combed for water, then added fresh snakehead fish, pork, minced lemongrass into the pot of water. leo. Those who have never eaten prahoc sauce, when they heard the name mentioned, they were afraid. But if you happen to stand in the wind, someone is cooking fish sauce, the sense of smell can enjoy a faint aroma mixed between the pungent smell of brewed fish and the sweet aroma of fish sauce. That taste makes us drowsy, listening to the hungry stomach. Having a sip of spinach soup or a bowl of vermicelli, there was nothing happier than that. Happier if you can eat a piece of raw fish sauce sandwiched with the fruit, the sour and sour taste of the fish sauce mixed with the sweet and fragrant taste of the fish sauce, the warm and spicy taste of minced lemongrass, dissolved in a sip of wine cooked with rice, is nothing better. It’s like listening to the wine pushing the fish sauce and slowly drifting into the throat, slowly ripening… gradually…, falling into the stomach. Please bear with me, I don’t know what language to use to describe all that “delicious” pleasure! Where is the dried gourd salad with choke fish . Photo: Tourism Newspaper At home, my wife gently washes each bunch of young leaves, each tiny bunch of tiny aluminum flakes, drains before mixing the salad with cucumber, thinly sliced ​​tomatoes, and purple onions. Similar to the way to mix durian salad of the Vietnamese people in Sam mountain (Chau Doc, An Giang), it is mixed with dried snakehead fish, shredded grilled snakehead fish or with shrimp, tiger, boiled bacon cut into pieces and eaten together. coriander leaves. But, with the Khmer it is a little different. After washing vegetables, tomatoes are grated into thin circles; thinly sliced ​​purple onion; cilantro, chopped coriander only; chili, minced garlic. After that, my wife started to process the mixed water and put the cooked tamarind in a bowl to make boiling water, stirring to dissolve the tamarind rice. Then she began to process the mixed water, using cooked tamarind in a bowl or cup, boiling water in, stirring with chopsticks until the sour substance was diluted in the water. Prahoc sauce is also put in a bowl, add boiling water, and crumble until the meat is broken. Then, comb the water to decant the fish baits and bones. Crush garlic, chili, add a little granulated sugar and then add two kinds of tamarind juice, fish sauce, stir well, sweet and sour seasoning. When the shrimp or tiger is cooked, take it out, take out the cooked meat and cut it into thin pieces. Put both in a bowl of vegetables, add the mixed water, mix well with the leaves and flowers, then start enjoying. Unlike at home, where I sit to eat on a chair around the table, Khmer people eat on a plank, all the dishes are arranged in the heart of the board. Everyone in the family, along with my father’s two brothers and my (mother’s) brother, my wife sat cross-legged around the tray of rice. My father is the oldest person in the family, holding a cup and chopsticks to invite: “Each oot kho nia hop bai” (the whole family eats rice). I took each chopsticks of salad into my mouth, chewed slowly, the sweet and sour taste of cucumber, tomato, the spicy taste of garlic, chili, laksa leaves, coriander mixed with the sweetness of shrimp meat, the fat of pork belly. shine in the district with the sweet and bitter taste of sorrow. All of these are imbued with the sweet aroma of beef sauce, creating a delicious taste. Sorrow salad is no longer a favorite dish for men to sip with kh Kha wine, there is nothing better than telling stories in gatherings. My father-in-law holds a bottle of wine that is fermented with home-cooked glutinous rice that my uncle and I bring in according to the Khmer custom in the days of Sene Dolta (anniversary ceremony). He poured out a small glass, clear drops of wine slowly sparkling, showing a very high alcohol concentration. Picking up the glass, he said: “Onh Chon ate every ounce of happiness” (inviting everyone to drink wine). He brought a glass of wine to his lips, gulped it down, then wheezed, said: “Sê Chchanh” (good wine) and then poured a pass for each person. When I came to my circle, I refused because the wine was too strong, but my uncle said: “Num salinh top brother chon” (Ba Thuong Ba just invited). Hearing that, I couldn’t refuse and reached out to accept the wine glass. Before drinking, I picked up a chopsticks of salad, put it in my mouth, chewed it slowly, enjoying the sweet aroma, then swallowed, then gulped down the glass with my breath, the spicy alcohol on the surface of my tongue and then “swallowed” the salad pieces for them. drifting slowly, slowly, heating up as if they were ripening, softening and disintegrating. Enjoying this delicious dish, I realized that, no matter how sad, but when chewing a piece of melancholy salad, the sorrow is also broken and blended into the delicious taste that gradually drifts down to the stomach, leaving only a sweet, bitter aftertaste on the tip of the tongue that we always feel like eating more! Chau Doc (An Giang), where is known as the “kingdom” of fish sauce. Photo: Huynh LamTGTT On that day, when the cool winds swayed the surface of the Hau River, the first rain of the April season watered the fields and awakened the young shrimps that were still sleeping in spring in the shells clinging to the field or in frogs and crab burrows. , eels, snakes… At that time, the uncles started a self-reliant life. This is also the time when Khmer farmers are busy for the rice sowing season. The lush green carpets grow with the water. The shrimps are also growing up. By the middle of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the rice begins to ripen and the fields are golden, and people are anxious for the harvest. The fields are drained and the water flows down the canals and canals. This is the season of catching shrimp. Children, adults, women, young people, anyone can participate. People use bamboo slats, walk in the deep corners of the fields or use fine nets to drag along the canals. But the most common is to use scrubbing to place the free place to drain the water flowing down the canals to catch shrimp. Shrimp is an inexpensive source of wild food, but rich in protein, calcium, and easy to prepare. Can be boiled with rice paper, raw vegetables; fried dough; warehouse; roasted… but the best is to make fish sauce. The Khmer shrimp paste, called bo-ot, is different from the type of shrimp paste we usually use. The method is also simple, but must be carefully selected, remove moss, snail shells, dead leaves, grass, garbage, etc. Most importantly, remove the ones on the head with luminous substance by putting the shrimp in the ball. dark for easy viewing. If chosen incorrectly, when making fish sauce, it is easy to be poisoned. After choosing, wash, and use 1kg of shrimp with a high concentration of base wine, 50gr of granulated salt, marinate, cover for about 30 minutes, drain water, mix in a cup of cold rice, 100g of white granulated sugar, Get the cloves into the glue. About three days later, add chopped ginger, garlic, and crushed chili, mix well into the glue. Try eating a piece of ginger, if it tastes sour, the fish sauce has been eaten. Bo-ot fish sauce is very delicious, sour, sweet, aromatic, spicy… stimulating the digestive system, it is difficult for any kind of shrimp paste to be compared with its unique flavor. Shrimp sauce is served with raw vegetables of all kinds along with fresh vermicelli, rice paper and pineapple, acrid banana, sour fruit, thin slices when the family has an anniversary, party… But it is also used as food in daily meals. family day. When eating sandwich with grilled catfish, beef sauce gives me its wonderful taste, so I can’t help but “work hard” to bring my wife back to visit her family whenever I have the opportunity. And every time, besides visiting the health of my wife’s parents, and then gathering around the family tray of rice, I often enjoy the unique taste of beef sauce and beef sauce in a meal full of love. feel dear!

Amok is a famous traditional Cambodian dish and is a symbol when it comes to the culinary quintessence of the golden pagoda country. Amok steamed fish combines many ingredients such as fish, palm sugar, coconut water, and soaked fish sauce to create a unique flavor for the dish. The main ingredient used to make this Cambodian specialty is snakehead fish or catfish, but the most delicious is still fruit fish because these fish have a lot of meat, less bones, and fish are not broken. Besides, the dish also includes other ingredients such as khong, coconut milk, eggs, palm sugar, prohock fish sauce and a few leaves (or leaves) to create color or flavor for the dish. Especially to cook this dish must have all the ingredients because without any kind of flavor, there is a lack of originality. The way to make the Amok steamed fish dish is also quite sophisticated and complex. The first is mango, beef sauce, sugar and eggs, beaten into a mixture, turmeric powder, cooked for a viscous consistency, attractive colors. Clean fish, remove the intestines and wrap the whole piece of fish into this mixture, add a few leaves and wrap it with banana leaves and steam. Before serving, people will add a scoop of coconut milk and a few slices of chili to make Amok steamed fish more fragrant. A fragrance mixed with coconut milk, chili, fish sauce, extremely attractive sugar smell makes you want to eat immediately. Peeling off the banana leaves emits a smoky and scent smell. Try a bite, anyone will be fascinated by both the taste and the taste. It is a little taste of fish, the aroma of banana leaves, the pulp of eggs and a little fat of coconut milk, the sweet sweetness of palm sugar is extremely strange. The golden color of turmeric and other cooking ingredients gives the Amok steamed fish a very beautiful color. This dish is better when eaten while still hot and must be eaten with glutinous rice and a glass of palm leaf wine that is really “extreme”. Amok steamed fish is a typical Cambodian dish not only appearing in daily meals but also in luxury restaurants. When enjoying this dish you must also slowly, slowly eat each piece so that the delicious flavors gradually dissolve in your mouth. That way, one can fully feel the quintessential, wonderful combination of two seemingly unrelated ingredients: fish and coconut. Photo: IT. Invite readers to watch the video “Fluttering the price of 1 million only a few dishes, not both rice and sticky rice”. Source: VTV TSTC.