Are there any dishes or
cooking techniques from a chef that especially surprised you
I have studied much about Vietnamese
cuisine, and have also been lucky enough to taste a wealth of delicious dishes
from throughout the country. Wherever I went, the food I tried was always
unique; Vietnamese food is diverse and creative. I went from one surprise to
another as I experienced how chefs combine made their delicious and nutritious
dishes.
For example everyone knows that the magenta
plant is a natural ingredient used to dye foods red or purple, but if we steam
the leaves with ash from rice, then it makes cobalt blue. Ethnic people in the
northwest have used this to make sticky rice with five colors. This absolutely
surprised me when I saw Lao Cai River Restaurant’s chefs make this dish.
There’s also the misconception that there isn’t anything new in “Quang” noodle,
so why do people like it and keep trying it? But when it was displayed in the
contest it was displayed so beautifully in a deep white plate with honey yellow
noodles and the fresh red color of the shrimp next to the green vegetables
accented by a piece of grilled rice paper that stood like chocolate from a
European dish. And by adding onion, peanuts and green chili grown in the
central region then we can have a perfect painting.
Many
foreigners come to Vietnam and admit that Vietnamese dishes are delicious, but
have not yet been widely promoted except for pho and spring rolls. What do you
think about this?
Most certainly pho and spring rolls are not
the only delicious Vietnamese dishes. To me, Chinese cuisine is the leading
cuisine in Asia and second is Thai, but I believe that Vietnamese cuisine comes
next, even before Japanese of Korean. We cannot ignore the nutrition of our
dishes on top of the delicious flavor.
Vietnamese food isn’t cooked with much oil,
and does not use much deep frying unlike food from China, our cuisine is not as
spicy as Thai food, and it there is more to it than the raw foods of Japan. We
cook in accordance with the five elements of yin and yang theory: salty; sweet;
bitter and sour; hot and cold. That is why Vietnamese food is very tasty,
pleasant and does not cause any heat in the body or allergies from raw food,
but there are a lot of vegetables, fiber and vitamins.
Moreover, cooking Vietnamese dishes is also very simple, quick and neat. The
way our grandparents eat and drink traced back a thousand years has become a
model in the world. Everyone looks for a balanced menu; moderate, tasty and
healthy.
There are so many advantages, but why
Vietnamese cuisine is not yet well-known along with other Asian cuisines? I
think maybe it's because we do not really know how to integrate.
For instance, if placed on a table is a
bowl of miso soup, a bowl of tom yum soup and a bowl of sour catfish soup then
it is obvious that foreign diners will eat the miso soup and tom yum first
because it is served individually. Traditionally Vietnamese food is served
family style. Moreover, the fish is normally cooked whole, and foreigners
generally don’t know how to eat it. If we can serve the soup in small bowls and
cut the fish into serving sized pieces, then I believe that they will enjoy our
food much more. Once you taste this indicative flavor of Vietnam, you’ll
realize there’s more to our food than just pho and spring rolls.
Followed by H.Oanh
Tuoi Tre Newspaper