Showing off a Vietnamese meal in France, the wife received millions of likes

The meal includes Malabar spinach soup, fried chicken wings with fish sauce, tofu with tomato sauce, eggplant and homemade roasted peanuts - Photo: NVCC

Malabar spinach soup with dried shrimp, bamboo shoot bone soup, stir-fried chayote shoots with garlic, chicken fried with lemongrass and chili, boiled meat with shrimp paste... are delicious Vietnamese dishes cooked by Ms. Do Thuy Linh, who is living in Toulouse city, for her family in France. These special meals received millions of likes from netizens because they were so delicious and pleasing to the eye.

Talking to Tuoi Tre Online , Ms. Linh said that these are meals that cost less than 10 euros and are cooked for a family of 2-3 people. When she was living in Vietnam, she loved cooking and took care of every meal every day. When she moved to France to live with her husband, she still kept the habit of cooking Vietnamese meals with the rich flavors of her homeland.

Cooking Vietnamese food does not happen every day because Linh's husband was born and raised in France, so he still needs to cook Western dishes in between. However, the family eats Vietnamese food about 3-4 times a week.

"Living away from home, I don't need delicacies or anything fancy. Just seeing rice, soup, and vegetables makes me crave them," said Linh.

A meal with rich Vietnamese flavors: bamboo shoot bone soup, fried eggs with basil leaves, stir-fried chayote shoots with garlic, chicken fried with lemongrass and chili, sweet apricots and cherry tomatoes - Photo: NVCC

According to Linh, it is very difficult to find ingredients to cook Vietnamese food abroad. At home, she can just stop by a roadside market and buy enough ingredients to cook a simple meal. In France, supermarkets do not have enough spices, so Linh has to stock up on cooking spices and typical Vietnamese ingredients at home.

The daughter-in-law living far away from home said that Vietnamese vegetables are very rare in Western markets, and Asian markets are far away. "One day, I was surfing Facebook and saw a bowl of sour fish soup, and I really wanted it. At that time, my family lacked Vietnamese coriander, so the soup would not be complete. I thought about driving 30-40 minutes to buy it, so I had to endure the craving.

From then on, I decided to grow some simple spices at home, then wash them, store them in the freezer, and carefully preserve them in the refrigerator to eat all week," she said.

The meal includes stir-fried water spinach, fried dried shrimp, boiled meat with shrimp paste, pickled eggplant, and grapefruit - Photo: NVCC

Every time she goes to the market and comes home to cook, she wraps the vegetables in a dry towel to keep them from getting mushy, then stores them in the vegetable compartment. Herbs can be washed, chopped, and stored in the freezer, and just added when cooking.

She also changed the dishes to suit the ingredients in France. Sometimes, the jar of home-grown fermented rice had not yet matured and she craved fake dog meat, so she used unsweetened yogurt instead. Another day, Linh craved banh khuc but it was impossible to have khuc leaves all year round, so she replaced it with kale, which also had a delicious flavor.

The meal includes fried eggs with mugwort, pork belly with galangal and mac mat leaves, home-grown green beans, minced meat soup with sour star fruit, and pineapple - Photo: NVCC

"In France, people prefer chicken breast to chicken thighs, so chicken breast is also more expensive. Meanwhile, I like to eat thighs, so I save a lot of money on buying chicken. I also buy old chicken to cook pho and braise meat, it's chewy, delicious and very cheap. I often watch promotions at the supermarket to plan what to buy cheap to stock up on for later use," she said.

The French love Vietnamese food.

Linh shared that the French are very interested in Vietnamese food, especially fried spring rolls and grilled pork vermicelli. Linh often invites French friends and relatives to her house to enjoy Vietnamese food.

Once, she organized a birthday party for her husband's father with many French guests. A couple of his friends drove several hundred kilometers to attend. During the meal, the guest kept saying to Linh's father: "We came of course to attend your birthday, but the most important thing is that we know that coming here we will definitely get to eat delicious Vietnamese food."

Owner of delicious Vietnamese meals in France - Photo: NVCC

Every time Linh's husband gets to eat something delicious, he teases his wife: "Luckily, I married a wife who cooks for me."

In France for 5 years, every year for Tet she wrapped Chung cake. Before that in Vietnam, she had never wrapped Chung cake. When she started and maintained this tradition in France to ease her homesickness, Linh was very happy and proud. Her family's Tet meal was also full of Vietnamese dishes such as sticky rice with gac fruit, fried spring rolls, bamboo shoot soup, kohlrabi salad, and ham like the traditional Tet meals that people often make.

She also wrapped banh chung in France - Photo: NVCC

"Through these Vietnamese meals, I want to interact and discuss with everyone about the dishes and food prices where I live.

No matter where I go, Vietnamese food is always the most special to Vietnamese people. Home-cooked meals are always very special to me. That is where the cook's affection for family members is expressed through each dish. Each person who grows up with family meals probably has a little taste of happiness," she said.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/khoe-mam-com-viet-tai-phap-nguoi-vo-nhan-duoc-trieu-like-20240629203925582.htm