Dai Hoang village, better known as Vu Dai village, in the northern Ha Nam Province 50 kilometers southeast of Hanoi, has become renowned for its traditional dish -- braised fish in earthenware pots.
The dish’s history is not known but people from the central and southern regions and overseas Vietnamese pay VND500,000 and more each depending on weight to buy this specialty and take it back home with them.
Eighty-year-old Thi, an expert in cooking braised fish, says only black tram fish (a kind of carp) and anabas are ideal for the dish which only uses the fish’s body, not head or tail.
The fish used to make it must be those fed natural food and be mature, weighing three to five kilograms, so that their flesh becomes suitable. It is mixed with other ingredients like ground pepper, salt, ginger, and alpinia until those ingredients are absorbed by the flesh.
The earthenware pots, made by Thanh Hoa and Nghe An potters and washed in boiling water, are covered with a layer of hand-ground alpinia before a pig bone, ginger, and the fish are put in.
Juice from ground freshwater crab is poured into the pot so that it soaks into the fish, making it tastier and more fatty before the pot is covered by a another layer of hand-ground alpinia.
Finally, lemon juice, fish sauce, and boiled syrup are added.
The dish can only be cooked over wood- or rice husk-fueled fire which needs to be at boiling temperature for 14-16 hours.
The key aspects are mixing the ingredients and having the fire just right. Experienced cooks can tell from the smell how intense the fire should be, Thi says.
The dish, which is never kept using chemical preservatives, can only be stored for up to 10 days in normal weather and up to a month in a refrigerator.
Thi’s family made 200 pots a day during Tet in February for customers around the country. Thi raises a ton of fish in his garden and feeds them snail and grass and has hundreds of pots to make the dish.
Tran Luan, another local cook, says his family only starts cooking after getting an order, and makes the dish to customers’ tastes. There is demand all year long but the peak season is during chilly weather.
Luan has even set up a website, www.amthuccotruyen.com, to market the village’s traditional products, including the braised fish.
Source: TT
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