Made from a famous fruit in Binh Duong, mangosteen chicken salad has long become a delicious specialty that diners must definitely enjoy if they have the opportunity to travel to this land.
Although not a new dish, recently, mangosteen chicken salad has suddenly caused a "fever" on many travel online forums and quickly created a culinary trend, attracting customers to "catch the trend".
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The time when mangosteen is in season is from April to the end of June. In addition to ripe mangosteen, people also harvest green mangosteen to serve customers who need to process dishes (Photo: Trang Nguyen).
In Binh Duong, Lai Thieu mangosteen is the best. Therefore, many tourists from neighboring provinces accept to travel a few dozen kilometers to come here to enjoy famous specialties.
Even many diners in the North who have not had the opportunity to set foot in the "capital" of mangosteen do not hesitate to spend from a few hundred thousand dong to a million dong to buy and enjoy this strange sweet and sour salad.
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If ripe mangosteen is sold for about 40.000-65.000 VND/kg, green mangosteen costs ten times more because this is the raw material for the famous chicken salad (Photo: Huynh Hong Dao).
Mr. Le Lam (in Ho Chi Minh City) said that after reading posts about mangosteen chicken salad, he decided to drive more than 30km, taking the whole family to Binh Duong to enjoy specialties of Lai Thieu region.
“If ordering homemade green mangosteen, it's both expensive and I don't know how to cook, so I decided to bring my wife and children to enjoy this dish. Although the distance is far, not to mention the traffic jam at the weekend, but when you taste the crispy, sweet and sour mangosteen chicken salad, it feels like all the hard work is worth it," Lam said.
Ms. Thanh Dao (from Binh Duong) couldn't help but be surprised when the familiar dish for many years suddenly caused a "fever", becoming a trend that many tourists responded.
At the weekend, the number of visitors from inside and outside the province to her garden restaurant doubled or tripled just to enjoy the famous mangosteen chicken salad.
Some acquaintances from far away even called "fire" asking her to order a few dozen pounds of green mangosteen to "catch the trend" of delicious dishes that have "stormed" the network in recent days.
“Green mangosteen has a lot of latex, the preliminary processing is quite laborious and time consuming. However, seeing friends and relatives far away looking forward to enjoying the specialties of my hometown, I bought green mangosteen, peeled and sliced, prepared additional ingredients and sauces, then vacuumed it and sent it to them by plane," she said.
According to Ms. Dao, to make a delicious mangosteen chicken salad, you must choose fruits with hard skin, slightly green, still young or light yellow but old enough. Chicken must also choose chicken or bamboo chicken, firm meat, yellow skin, natural sweetness.
Chicken after cleaning is boiled with a little fish sauce, pepper, seasoning seeds ... to make the meat more rich and fragrant. Chicken broth is used to cook porridge, add some straw mushrooms, and serve with delicious mangosteen salad.
The most important and elaborate step to prepare this dish is to peel the mangosteen. After harvesting, the fruit is soaked in dilute salt water to reduce the latex and make the peeling process easier.
People have to peel the mangosteen under a continuous running water to clean the yellow latex, then soak it in ice water to keep the color, increase the brittleness and reduce the acrid. Then, the mangosteen is cut into thin slices, shaped into a beautiful flower shape, and then mixed with vinegar and sugar or lemon to prevent darkening.
When making the salad, people take out the mangosteen to drain and mix it with their hands with shredded chicken, grated carrots, onions and laksa leaves, seasoning with spices such as salt, sugar, fried onions, and roasted peanuts.
To make the dish richer and more delicious, the people of Binh Duong also prepare sweet and sour fish sauce, which is special. Diners can dip it separately or mix it into the salad.
Diners who have enjoyed the mangosteen chicken salad commented that the dish has the sweet and tender taste of chicken mixed with the slightly sour and sweet taste of mangosteen, adding a little bit of roasted peanuts and the crunchy crunch of carrots. This salad also has a cool taste, helping to cool down effectively in the summer.
Phan Dau
