Thai Nguyen cuisine

GROUP NO.6

A GIFT FROM NATURE

NOVEMBER 05

HA CHAU CANARIUM

Banh chungBo Dau SOFT AND WHITE

Binh Long tofu

THE METICULOUSNESS CREATES GREAT TASTE

Hung Son rice noodles Thai Nguyen "silk yarn" LOCAL TRADITIONAL SPECIALITIES

Thai Nguyen cuisine Dinh Hoa sticky rice in bamboo

Uc Ky sticky rice sauce Rich sweet aroma, thick like honey, attractive dark yellow color.

UNFORGETTABLE RUSTIC TASTE

Nem chua Dai Tu Unique flavor

Tan Cuong tea THE

QUINTESSENTIAL BEAUTY

CONTENTS

01 BANH CHUNG BO DAU The meticulousness creates great taste

02 DINH HOA STICKY RICE IN BAMBOO Unforgettable rustic taste

03 HA CHAU CANARIUM A gift from nature

04 TAN CUONG TEA The quintessential beauty in Vietnamese culture

05 UC KY STICKY RICE SAUCE Rich sweet aroma, thick like honey, attractive dark yellow color

06 BINH LONG TOFU Soft and white

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CONTENTS

07 NEM CHUA DAI TU Unique flavor

08 HUNG SON RICE NOODLES Thai Nguyen "silk yarn"

09 THUA LAM SHRIMP SPRING ROLLS Sweet, crispy, arouse the most original taste.

10 BANH COOC MO The aromatic, fatty, and flexible taste hidden in each sticky grain

11 WORMWOOD CAKE Bitter, spicy taste from ancient times

12 BANH TRO Soft and cool, light taste, delicious with honey

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BANH CHUNG BO DAU

Banh Chung Bo Dau craft village is located in Co Lung commune, Phu Luong district, about 8km from Thai Nguyen city. Coming to Bo Dau, you can clearly feel the atmosphere of the Tet holiday coming very close. In each household, young and old, girls and boys are all assigned to make cakes to serve the needs of wrapping Banh Chung during Tet. Every house is busy packing cakes, each pot of Banh Chung is emitting a strong smoke, giving off a strong aroma, as if holding people's hearts to stay when passing by.

In order to have a famous delicious Banh Chung dish, the stage of choosing raw materials and preliminary processing of ingredients is also very important.

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Glutinous rice for wrapping cakes is bought in Dinh Hoa mountain area, the rice grains are round and pure white, after filtering through three times the water and then draining.

Beans for filling must be green beans with whole seeds, thin skin, bright yellow, flexible, with natural aroma.

Green beans are cleaned and cooked, then squeezed into small pieces, and put in the center of the cake. The filling is made of fresh, toned pork belly, marinated with Northern pepper and wrapped with green dong leaves, brought from Na Ri mountain, Cho Don district, Bac Kan province.

In particular, the water to boil Bo Dau's Banh Chung must be taken from the source spring on the rocky mountain behind Bo Dau village, which is considered by the people as "water from the magic well". This clear water has created a different and unique flavor of the cake compared to other provinces. Thanks to the "magic well" water given to them by God, when boiling the Banh Chung, they still retain their green color and have a greasy fragrance.

By Nguyen Van Nam

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19

Dinh Hoa rice cooked in bamboo

Dinh Hoa rice cooked in bamboo (Com Lam) is a simple dish but full of flavors of Thai Nguyen homeland, making it difficult for visitors to forget if they have an opportunity to enjoy.

Dinh Hoa is a land hidden deep in the hills and valleys of Thai Nguyen. This place is home to many ethnic minorities. When they go to the fields far away, they often bring rice and food to facilitate farming. Com Lam Dinh Hoa is a simple dish but full of thoughts of the Northwestern people. In order to have delicious Com Lam, the cook must have a good type of sticky rice, which is the kind of sticky

rice with yellow flowers grown in the fields, harvested every year around September, October, grit, soak in warm water. The tools to make are bamboo tubes, or young bamboo tubes, fresh so that when making it only burns on the outside and the fresh juice of the plant soaks into the rice. This type of bamboo or bamboo can only be cut from three to four tubes, each about 30 centimeters long. These are all simple ingredients, rice is available at home, bamboo tubes are taken directly in the forest, so it is very convenient to cook when going uphill.

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By Nguyen Van Nam

People will light a bonfire, wait for it to be full, and then arrange bamboo tubes on it. When putting the lamellar tube, which has been filled with rice and sealed with bamboo leaves, it is baked on the stove. When the rice is cooked, it is also the time when the cork shell changes from a green color to a warm yellow color, a bit burnt. Just peel off the outer cork tube and it can be used.

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Ha Chau Canarium Almond

Unforgettable sweet taste

By Hoang Thi Thu Tra

When the harsh sun of summer gives way to the heavy rains of July and early autumn, it is also the time when the black canarium season returns to the people of Ha Chau and Phu Binh. The canarium has long been attached to the earth, to the people here with a unique flavor that is not easily mixed with the canarium of anywhere. The fleshy, acrid, aromatic flavor not only goes into the cuisine but also imprints in everyone's memory. The dishes made from this very rustic, idyllic fruit are so delicious and attractive that whenever people mention black canariums, people will immediately think of a famous specialty of the rich and fertile Ha Chau land lying by the beloved Cau River.

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Canarium Almond has grown in Ha Chau for hundreds of years. Up to now, many of those ancient canarium trees are still standing and radiating luxuriant shade. It is a woody plant, flowering in February, fruit ripening in the seventh lunar month every year (it can last until the end of September because the canarium is not ripe at the same time). It is diamond-shaped, when ripe, it is black, and the kernel inside is white.

Canarium is not picky about soil, but perhaps the fertile soil along the Cau River has created a fatty taste, aroma, and thick, tight flesh for Ha Chau canariums, making it a specialty that traders all over the region look for buying and take out of this land to make rustic but delicious meals of so many families. Through canariums, we can make a lot of delicious dishes that are equally sophisticated such as braised canariums, sticky rice canariums, canariums with meat, fish, salad canariums, and especially lava canariums which have become famous specialties. Eat only once and remember forever! Another autumn, another canarium season has arrived. Come to Ha Chau, beautiful countryside by the winding Cau River, in this canarium season! The special delicious dishes from black canaries and the gentle, kind, and warm personality of the villagers here will surely leave you with an unforgettable aftertaste.

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Tan Cuong tea The quintessential beauty in Vietnamese culture

For thousands of generations, Thai Nguyen tea has appeared in the life of Vietnamese people and has become a cultural feature, a culinary specialty of the whole nation. Tea goes into the daily routine of every person in any class or region. Thai Nguyen tea has been a famous specialty for many generations, especially Tan Cuong tea, which is always appreciated for its delicious and stable tea quality throughout the year. With low hill topography and beautiful tea hills, the Tan Cuong tea specialty area attracts many eco-tourists and tourists.

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In Tan Cuong tea specialty area, tea trees have accompanied farmers for more than 100 years. But not everyone knows that this tea variety is brought from elsewhere. This place has fresh soil and climate conditions, suitable for the development of tea trees, along with the labor-loving hands of local people, which have turned Tan Cuong into a famous tea-growing area known to tourists.

Tan Cuong tea is praised by tea lovers for its distinctive taste, light aroma of young nuggets, beige color of water, characteristic preacrid taste, characteristic after-sweet taste, no longer bitter taste compared to many other teas. In particular, the daily irrigation water is taken with natural water from Nui Coc Lake, which enhances the delicious and rich taste of Tan Cuong tea. In addition to the natural element, Tan Cuong tea is also the crystallization of wisdom and experience passed down from generation to generation. To produce specialty tea buds with such a characteristic flavor is not an easy task. Tea makers in Tan Cuong have to go through many elaborate and meticulous stages from fertilizing, collecting tea, making tea, rubbing tea… and complying with VietGap standards (using organic fertilizers and biological pesticides. study) so that tea plants can be developed in the best way and produce delicious and famous tea like today.

By Hoang Thi Thu Tra

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UC KY STICKY RICE SAUCE A famous specialty of Thai Nguyen

Uc Ky sticky rice sauce in Uc Ky commune (Phu Binh) - a famous specialty of Thai Nguyen. This is a specialty made from glutinous rice seeds with castor oil, an important ingredient that makes the difference between Uc Ky sticky rice sauce and other soy products in other regions.

About Thai Nguyen soy sauce craft village: The profession of making soy sauce in Uc Ky commune is not known exactly when, only known for a long time, each family has at least 1 jar of soy sauce to eat during the year and as a gift for guests to visit. Over time, making sticky rice has become a traditional profession of local people and a specialty cuisine that is gradually reaching out to markets inside and outside the province.

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Ingredients: Sticky rice sauce here is made from 3 main ingredients: sticky rice, soybeans and white salt.

However, only the sauce made with sticky rice with castor oil is the best.

How to make sticky rice sauce:

By Nguyen Thi Hai Hang

The process of making sticky rice sauce is also very elaborate, first, the tenderloin glutinous rice is cooked into rice so that it is evenly cooked and does not dry out, then spread it out to dry, stir it for 3 days, and then cover it with sage leaves. Incubate, until the rice is moldy, the areca flower is yellow.

For soybeans, roast them until fragrant, then grind them, put them in a jar and soak them in salt water for 12 to 15 days, until they taste sweet, let the mold incubate for about 30 days.

During this time, it is necessary to take care of the sticky rice sauce carefully by using a clean bamboo stick to stir it

2-3 times a day to let the beans and mold mix together and use a plastic bag to seal the mouth of the jar to keep thearoma , not contaminated by mosquitoes. Different from products in other localities, Australian sticky rice has a rich sweet aroma, thick like honey and has an attractive dark yellow color

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BINH LONG TOFU

C

oming to the majestic historical land of Vo Nhai - Thai Nguyen, visitors will find out about the delicious and soft Binh Long tofu.

Binh Long tofu are produced in Binh Long commune, located in the Vo Nhai district. It's an area is famous for making delicious tofu. However, the origin of the tofu profession does not come from this land itself. It came about when building a new economy, and people of Hung Yen came here and brought tofu creation with them.

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Making tofu also requires very skillful, meticulous and skilled stages to create something that is pleasing to both taste and sight. However, Binh Long tofu village has its own secret for making beans that is difficult for outsiders to know.

The main ingredient to make tofu is soybeans. The beans are grown in Binh Long are round and golden. The first stages of making tofu, is the stage of boiling filtered bean water and making sour water.

The sour water is then added to the tofu water, which must be in the perfect ratio, if there is too much, the tofu will be hard and if it is not enough, it will be acidic, and the beans will be mushy and crushed. Different from every locality, tofu is pressed in a long mold and cut into small covers. Binh Long beans are pressed in a large mold, and each bean cover is about 1kg.

This tofu dish can be processed in many different ways, but to feel and retain the most basic taste of Binh Long tofu, we just need to enjoy white tofu with shrimp paste.

It is delicious and easy to enjoy, the piece of tofu is soft and delicious, and it melts in the mouth. It is so wonderful that you could eat it forever.

Binh Long tofu is famous near and far, producing hundreds of kilograms every day while never having a surplus. People can eat Binh Long tofu every day without ever getting tired out it. Today, Binh Long is advocating to expand the tofu production cooperative to further develop this delicious tofu brand.

By Nguyen Thi Hai Hang Thai Nguyen cuisine 14

NEM CHUA DAI TU

ONE OF THAI NGUYEN'S MOST A TTRAC TIVE SPECIALTIES

By Tran Thao Nguyen Thai Nguyen cuisine 15

INGREDIENTS Ingredients to make this dish include: Pork, garlic, wine, pepper, hearing and guava leaves. Especially the meat made from Dai Tu spring rolls must be lean butt meat because this is the most delicious part of the pig.

HOW TO MAKE After the meat is washed and carefully filtered, sliced thinly across the grain, then mixed with minced garlic, ground pepper, white wine, and roasted rice with aromatic herbs and incubated for 4 hours. When wrapping spring rolls, first the outer layer is a layer. layer of banana leaves, followed by guava leaves, and then put the meat mixture in the package. The innermost layer of leaves is used with guava leaves until the taste is fleshy and acrid, very fragrant and strange. The fresh green banana peel looks very pleasing to the eye. Note that spring rolls are packaged just right, don't need to be too tight to quickly ferment and at the same time can be used for a long time. After wrapping, spring rolls must be left for 3-4 days for the fermented meat to blend well with the new spices to be able to eat.

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Hung Son rice noodles

Hung Son rice noodles with bold Thai Nguyen countryside

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Ingredients and how to make Hung Son rice noodles: Hung Son people make noodles with a special type of rice, which is the specialty Bao Thai rice of Dinh Hoa.

The rice is picked up, washed thoroughly, soaked for 8 hours and then ground into powder. The flexible, comparable dough is filtered and filtered many times, then incubated overnight, the next morning, the cake is coated. People peel the cake, put it in the mold, dry it and cut it into regular noodles. The special thing about this noodle is that it does not use borax or any other chemicals. Therefore, the noodles have a completely natural whiteness, giving rise to the aroma of rice, when eating the sweetness of the hilly rice, it remains in the head, bringing an unforgettable feeling.

By Tran Thao Nguyen

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18

A MOST ORIGINAL FLAVOR STIMULATION

Shrimp spring rolls are a familiar dish that is

THUA LAM SHRIMP SPRING ROLLS

always present in the tray for guests, especially on New Year's Day. Crispy spring rolls, sweet shrimp mixed with rich meat make the dish more interesting. And now let's take a closer look at this dishShrimp spring rolls are a product made with 100% natural ingredients as the name suggests, that is, the whole shrimp meat is preserved.

Therefore, it has a more delicious shrimp flavor, making it a special appetizer that should be tried. Shrimp spring rolls are special

because

the

whole

shrimp

is

preserved - not chopped, not mixed in the spring rolls. Enjoy more delicious when biting into the shrimp still feel the crispness

By Nguyen Trung Hieu

and sweetness of the shrimp, delicious and attractive. The outer shell is especially eyecatching because of its golden and crispy color.

DU MỤC | 24

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To prepare this dish, you will need the following ingredients: whole black tiger shrimp, 100g finely pounded shrimp, one egg, 3 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, and rice paper rolls.

About seasoning: 1 tablespoon soy sauce; 1 teaspoon chili sauce; 1 teaspoon minced garlic; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 teaspoon sugar; ½ tablespoon rice vinegar; ¼ teaspoon sesame oil;

Prepare a small bowl, add soy sauce, chili sauce, Pure lemon juice, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, minced garlic, salt and pepper and mix well to make shrimp sauce. Peel the shrimp, remove the head and keep the tail. Slit the back to draw the black thread and then pat dry the shrimp body with a paper towel. Drop the shrimp into the marinade mixture you've prepared, then remove the shrimp, arrange around a plate,

and let stand for 15 minutes.

Mix finely pounded shrimp with a little salt and ground pepper.

Then scoop 1 teaspoon of shrimp into the palm of your hand, spread evenly and then place the whole shrimp on so that the tail is exposed. Holding hands for shrimp meat to embrace the whole shrimp.

Cut the rice paper rolls in half diagonally. Then fold the diagonal edge, put the shrimp in the middle,

roll it up and then use the egg yolk to rub the end edge to stick. Heat a pan with enough oil to cover the shrimp when frying. Wait until the oil is hot, then drop the shrimp into the pan and fry on medium heat until golden, then remove to a plate lined with grease proof paper. When you're done, you can garnish with some vegetables to make it look better.

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It's still shrimp spring rolls, but doing it this way, you will clearly feel the sweetness mixed in the mild sourness of the strange shrimp meat wrapped in a very crispy crust. Beautiful dishes can be delicious dishes for guests or simply increase the attractiveness of familiar meals. You can serve with chili sauce or spicy mayonnaise for extra deliciousness.

Not only delicious with white rice, but also great with vermicelli noodles.

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Thai Nguyen Cooc Mo Cake

By Nguyen Trung Hieu

If you have the opportunity to go to the land of Vo Nhai, Dinh Hoa of Thai Nguyen, do not forget to enjoy the cake of cooc mo. Cooc mo sounds strange, but in the Tay language, it means ox horn, simply a cake with a pointed shape like a cow's horn. It's so simple, but once you try it, you will surely remember it forever by the rich and fragrant taste of sticky rice and red peanut kernels.

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Cooc Mo is a traditional cake of the Tay and Nung ethnic groups in Thai Nguyen. It is an indispensable gift for young children on special holidays such as celebrating the full month of the month,...

To get the Cooc mo that is both flexible, fragrant, and beautiful, the stage of choosing raw materials is very important. Leaves wrapping the cake: One must choose the green and smooth leaves, not torn, deep. Leaves are taken, washed, and dried in water. The process of splitting and making cake wrapping wire is also carried out very meticulously. Lat is made from a tree or a fat tree split so that it is small, soft, and chewy so that when wrapping it, it does not tear the leaves of the cake.

Especially the rice for making cakes must be fragrant upland sticky rice, each grain is stretchy.

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After wrapping, the cake will be strung into pairs or small bunches, put in a pot to boil for about two hours, then the cake is cooked. When ripe, the cake has the light green color of dong leaves, the plastic taste, and the pure aroma of the highland fields.

Although the cake does not have a filling, the more you chew it, the more you can feel the aromatic, fatty, and flexible taste hidden in each sticky grain.

Depending on the taste of each person, the cake can be dipped with sesame salt or sweet people can eat Cooc mo with honey or sugar is also very delicious.

The specialty of Cooc Mo cake is sold all year round at the markets of the Tay and Nung people. The most famous of which is Dong Quang Trade Center or Thai market. Like banh Chung, this cake can be kept for a few days. Therefore, visitors can buy them as gifts at the end of the travel journey. Despite its reputation, this Thai Nguyen specialty is not expensive.

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WORMWOOD CAKE

The Wormwood Cake made by the Tay people has a long history. On every special holiday, people often make this cake to worship their ancestors. Wormwood cake is passed down from generation to generation. Nowadays, it has become the pride of the Tay people living in Thai Nguyen.

Wormwood is known for its miraculous healing properties.

Because of such uses, the people here have made the famous Thai Nguyen wormwood cake for centuries. Under the delicate hands of the Tay people, wormwood cakes with characteristic green color are born, which are eye-catching and attractive.

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Making wormwood cakes is not difficult, but it requires a lot of effort. Not just any type of rice can make cakes. If you want the cake to be fragrant and flexible, you must choose the best glutinous rice and not mix it with plain rice. The sugar for the filling must also be dark palm sugar (a type of sugar cooked from sugarcane juice, the size of a hand) sweet, and without grit. To create a great wormwood cake, one must choose fresh young leaves, wash them thoroughly, put them in a pot to cook,

and then squeeze out the water.The rice cake is soaked from the night before, washed, carefully mixed with wormwood leaves, and then made into sticky rice. When steaming, you have to add water one more time, so until the cake is pounded, it will remain flexible.

When the sticky rice is cooked, it must be pounded while it is still hot to make the cake soft and smooth. The stage of pounding the cake is toughest, so it requires men. They have to pound continuously and evenly.

After the sticky rice is pounded, the women quickly scoop out the tray to mold the cake. The hot cakes are spread with a layer of fat to keep their shine, flexibility, aroma, etc. and to ensure they do not stick together. The next step is a bit simpler, but it also very important to make the filling. The dark palm sugar is shaved and mixed with millet, which has been roasted, seasoned and pounded.

This are the secrets for creating a unique flavor for each family's cake.

Wormwood cake is a vegetarian cake, although it is made from glutinous rice. It is easy to eat, cool, and definitely not boring.

The cake has the aroma and flexibility of glutinous rice, the taste of wormwood leaves, the sweetness of sugar, and the aroma of millet mixed together. The piece of cake has the freshness of the hills and the wildness of the leaves of the forest. In addition, wormwood cake also has the ability to cure a number of diseases because the leaves of wormwood have a bitter, spicy taste. The warmth has the effect of regulating blood and gas, protects from the cold, aids in safe pregnancy, and prevents hemostasis, among others.

If you have the opportunity to set foot in Thai Nguyen, try this delicious, unforgettable wormwood cake. Wormwood cake is not only a specialty, but also an important part of the culture of the Tay people, because it has been handed down for generations.

By Au Thi Van Anh Thai Nguyen cuisine 26

BANH TRO Banh Tro, also known as Banh Nang, Banh U Tro, is a unique dish of the Tay people in Thai Nguyen. Banh Tro in here has its own flavor that cannot be mixed with other Banh Tro because it is wrapped from the best sticky rice, and "Chit" leaves.

This type of cake used to appear in the ancestors worshiping ceremony of the Vietnamese people on the Doan Ngo Festival on the 5th day of the 5th Lunar month. Currently, this cake is made and sold everyday in Thai Nguyen.

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The name banh tro (or gio), banh nang comes from the most essential ingredient that makes the cake characteristic, which is ash water made from coal ash obtained after burning some herbs and medicinal herbs.

Cakes are usually wrapped in a long round shape or a high dome like a fist. The process of making ash cakes goes through a lot of sophisticated stages, requiring the person making the cake to be careful and meticulous. Satisfactory ash cakes are cakes that when peeled off, the sticky rice is no longer in the form of granules but becomes a clear, smooth, and firm dough like a jelly block, without the strong smell of lime ash. The cake is soft and has a cool, light taste, from light brown to dark brown depending on the type of ash water used.

The cake is a cool food, very good anti-sickness.

When enjoying the cake is usually dotted with white granulated sugar, honey but the most popular and delicious is dipped with concentrated molasses with the taste of minced ginger.

By Au Thi Van Anh Thai Nguyen cuisine 28