Delicious flower cuisine

Cotton buds. Photo: NGUYEN HUNG

From these flowers, many delicious dishes are created by the people, with very unique, delicate and rich flavors. "When the water rises, the water mimosa flowers bloom" - a line in the song "Hon que" composed by musician Thanh Son reminds that when the water mimosa flowers bloom, it also signals the flood season. Water mimosa is remembered by everyone as a special flower of the river region that anyone who has eaten it will never forget. Every year, the flood season comes from August to October, it is easy to see them blooming on the roads and vast fields of water.

Ms. Ngoc Huyen, 37 years old, living in Phu Tan commune, said: “When blooming, the yellow color of the wild flowers is very beautiful and easy to attract people, so every time I go to pick them, I have to look at them for a while. The wild flowers are very fragrant, delicious, crunchy, and slightly bitter. They are used to make sour salad of wild flowers, stir-fried wild flowers with shrimp, mixed salad... all delicious. But the most delicious dish is sour soup of wild flowers with linh fish, which has the typical flavor of dishes from the river region.” For many years, wild flowers have had high economic value, and at the same time created income for people when the flood season comes.

Not only does the water mimosa flower bloom during the flood season, the lotus flower also grows vigorously in flooded fields. The lotus flower has a soft stem, so when processed, the shell must be removed and washed... The lotus flower is suitable for making hot pot dishes and sour soup. In addition, the lotus flower can be used as a raw vegetable or mixed with shrimp and meat salad, pickled in vinegar to make pickles... When the lotus flower is mixed with the water mimosa flower, both become an attractive specialty dish of the people of the Southwest region.

Nowadays, the cotton flower is also used as an ingredient to prepare many unique dishes, with a very distinctive flavor. This type of flower has a slightly bitter but strange taste, can be eaten with fish sauce hotpot or used to cook sour soup with perch, snakehead fish, very attractive. This type of flower usually only blooms from October to December, can be used as an ornamental plant and has high nutritional value. In season, people often pick fresh flowers early in the morning, remove the stems, then wash and process them into sour soup with perch, snakehead fish, linh fish or make sour hotpot with some other vegetables...

“Because the So Dua tree is easy to grow, people in the countryside or those with vacant land often plant a few trees to decorate their front yard, and then conveniently pick the flowers to eat. In the past, people in the countryside often boiled So Dua flowers, dipped them in fish sauce or boiled them with other vegetables to cool down in the hot summer. It is a favorite dish of many people, but nowadays So Dua trees are not grown much, so very few young people know about it,” said Thanh Hung, 58 years old, living in My Duc commune.

In addition to the typical seasonal flowers, we cannot fail to mention the year-round varieties such as bananas. Banana flowers are often used to make salads, sour soups, or as a side dish, all of which are delicious. Dishes made from banana stems are very rustic, familiar, and diverse. Nowadays, banana stems also bring a lot of profit to gardeners. With nearly 20 hectares of gardening land, Mr. Nguyen Huu Phuoc, 53 years old, living in O Lam commune, intercrops nearly 100 banana trees, bringing a good income to his family.

There are many other types of flowers that are used as ingredients to make delicious dishes on the dining table, which shows that many types of flowers are not only beautiful but also contribute to enriching Vietnamese cuisine .

NGUYEN HUNG

Source: https://baoangiang.com.vn/am-thuc-tu-hoa-ngon-a463852.html