Leaf Salad - A "cooling" salad dish with more than 30 types of leaves, customers can roll it until their hands are tired, a specialty in Kon Tum

When mentioning Kon Tum specialties, people often immediately remember familiar names such as bamboo shoot sticky rice, red vermicelli, bamboo tube rice, dishes made from wild game meat such as wild boar, sun-dried beef, deer meat, porcupine... or Serepok river fish, grilled stream fish,...

However, in this land there is also an equally attractive dish, loved by many diners and almost only enjoyed when traveling here. That is leaf salad.

Leaf salad is available in many provinces in the Central Highlands, but the most popular and favorite is still Kon Tum leaf salad (Photo: Ai Nhi Pham)

Kon Tum leaf salad was also voted as one of the 10 Vietnamese dishes that achieved the culinary quintessence of Asia (Photo: Yen Vy leaf salad)

As the name suggests, this dish consists of mainly leaves with about 30 different types, divided into 3 main groups. First, simple leaves that are easy to find and grow in the home garden such as mustard greens, perilla, mint, ginseng, Vietnamese balm, fig leaves, Vietnamese coriander leaves, green onions, pennywort, fish mint, basil...

Second, the familiar but still quite strange leaves on the Vietnamese dinner table such as guava leaves, mango leaves, star gooseberry, ivy... Finally, there are the wild leaves of the Central Highlands, which are usually only known to locals such as myrtle leaves, red clematis, bear bile, garcinia leaves, lovage, passionflower, wild tamarind, xam xuong, choi moi,...

Ms. Huong - owner of a restaurant on Tran Cao Van street, Kon Tum city said that leaf salad can be eaten all year round but the amount of leaves used to make this salad varies by season, depending on the weather and climate.

“During the rainy season, when the trees in the forest are lush, the leaf salad is also the most diverse, sometimes with up to 50-60 types of leaves. But in the dry season, the number of leaves used to make the salad is only about 30 types, but still ensures the characteristic and delicious flavor of the dish,” she said.

The salad is served on a large tray, with a variety of leaves decorating the sides. Notably, this dish does not use rice paper but uses the leaves themselves to wrap everything (Photo: Viet Dong Duong, Khanh Nguyen Tran)

To harvest these leaves, the locals often have to go into the forest to pick them early in the morning. That way, the leaves will be young and delicious, ensuring the perfect flavor for this refreshing, anti-nausea dish.

However, only those who are healthy and experienced can go through the forest, into the bushes that are full of insects and snakes to pick leaves. Not to mention, they have to distinguish different types of leaves, know which leaves are edible to avoid picking poisonous plants, which are dangerous for people to eat.

In addition to the main ingredients of leaves, this salad is also served with pork belly, dried shrimp and pork skin. Pork belly must be selected with both lean and fat, boiled and then thinly sliced. The shrimp are cut off the head, cleaned and then fried until golden brown. The pork skin is also boiled, sliced into long thin strips like nem chao, then mixed with rice powder and some accompanying spices.

Kon Tom people also prepare a plate of coarse salt, black pepper, and green chili to stimulate the taste buds, helping diners fully enjoy the famous leaf salad (Photo: Thuy Tran)

Besides, one of the most attractive elements of this salad is the dipping sauce. Instead of using sweet and sour fish sauce or soy sauce like other traditional salads, the authentic leaf salad must be dipped in a mixture made from fermented sticky rice, incubated with dried shrimp and pork belly. Then, people put that mixture on a hot pan with fried shallots, add yeast, chili paste, spices and cook on a low heat, stirring constantly.

According to locals, because the salad requires a meticulous preparation and processing process, it requires delicacy when enjoying it to fully appreciate its unique flavor. Diners cannot eat in a hurry but must follow the order to be able to roll a delicious salad.

When eating, diners roll slowly, one leaf at a time. First, people use a large leaf like a perilla leaf, a fig leaf, etc., to roll it into a funnel shape, then add 5-7 other types of leaves of their choice, place a slice of boiled meat, pork skin, shrimp on top, then pour the dipping sauce on top, add a little green chili or green pepper, then put it in the mouth to enjoy.

A salad dish is considered to be well-rounded when it ensures the full rich flavor of meat, shrimp, the spicy taste of pepper, chili, the salty taste of salt, the sour and fatty taste of the dipping sauce... All blend together, creating a delicious, refreshing flavor, helping diners cool down and relieve boredom (Photo: Do Trang, @reviewkontum)

Because leaf salad is mainly made from leaves, it helps to cool down and relieve indigestion effectively, so diners humorously call it a "cooling" dish, most popular in the summer (Photo: Andy Tang)

If you have the opportunity to travel to Kon Tum, visitors can easily find and enjoy leaf salad at many restaurants and eateries in the city, especially on Tran Cao Van street.

Each serving of leaf salad is full, for about 3-4 people to enjoy, with prices ranging from 100,000 - 150,000 VND.

Phan Dau

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