Boiled chicken seems simple, but it is not easy to be delicious and beautiful. The chicken on the offering tray must be golden brown, the skin must not crack during the boiling process and most importantly, when eaten, the meat must still be fragrant and chewy, dipped in salt, pepper, lemon and lemon leaves.
Fried spring rolls with sweet and sour fish sauce are known to friends around the world and are also an indispensable dish during Tet. To have delicious fried spring rolls, the ingredients for the filling must be balanced and fried in hot oil over low heat to have a crispy crust.
The drizzling, slightly chilly weather will make the meat jelly more appealing. If you are not too fussy, just simmer pork, chicken or pig's feet with wood ear mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms overnight and let the cold weather solidify the dish for another day, you will have a transparent meat jelly to eat with pickled cabbage.
Red brings luck and prosperity, so xoi gac is the chosen sticky rice dish to bring good luck for the new year. To take advantage of the sweet and rich broth from boiled chicken and chicken giblets, the ancients created a dish of vermicelli soup with chicken giblets to offer to the ancestors, which also balances the whole meal with lots of meat and sticky rice.
Banh chung is a simple dish, but it carries many meanings and stories about tradition. In modern life, you can easily buy banh chung at supermarkets and markets. However, there are still many families and clans who wrap and boil them themselves so that everyone can meet and share joys and sorrows after a busy year.Pickled onions are used to eat with banh chung. They have a bit of a pungent, spicy, sour smell that helps add flavor to the banh chung.
Mixed stir-fry dishes often have meatballs, beans, flower-shaped carrots, shiitake mushrooms, hearts, kidneys... delicious dishes, attractive colors with spongy, chewy meatballs adding uniqueness to the Tet tray.
Bamboo shoot soup is usually cooked with pork leg meat and dried bamboo shoots. It is a dish that shows the thoughtfulness of a housewife the most. When I was a child, the kitchen utensils in the house were simple, to have a delicious bamboo shoot soup, my mother had to prepare it a week in advance. The bamboo shoots were soaked in water, stewed many times, each time the water was changed to remove the bitterness of the bamboo shoots, stir-fried again and then put into the pot of pork leg stew. The bamboo shoots had to be as delicious as a piece of lean meat to be a true housewife of my mother.
Article & Photos: Ngoc Tran - Food Stylist: Me Carot
