I am being treated for cancer in Ho Chi Minh City. The body is extremely tired and suffers many side effects after chemotherapy infusions. My wife read information in the newspaper stating that dragon tongue contains large amounts of phenolic and flavonoid active ingredients that help fight cancer cells in the body and support the prevention of cardiovascular disease. But finding and buying dragon tongue in the middle of the city is extremely difficult. So my wife called home.
Hearing the news, the villagers quickly broke off fresh green dragon tongue branches and brought them with my mother, packed them and sent them to the city with much love for the seriously ill.
Dragon tongue and squid received from home, cooked into a delicious sweet soup
My hometown, the southern region of Quang Ngai province, is very sunny this season. The sunshine makes the rice in the fields turn golden, urging farmers into the harvest season. The sun wilts the green vegetables in the garden. And the sunlight also makes the branches of dragon tongue vegetable surprisingly fresh and green. This vegetable has been present in my village for a long time. The villagers are diligent and work hard to grow vegetables and fruits to improve family meals. The land next to the fence is planted with dragon tongue, a typical plant in poor soil. No need to fertilize, the dragon tongue roots absorb nutrients from the soil and then transfer them to the stem, which branches out and becomes green.
Near dinner time, go to the garden and break off some dragon tongue branches, then peel off the lumps around the stem, wash and chop them into strips. This vegetable can be cooked in soup with meat, fish, squid or simply cooked with a little peanut oil. The vegetable is viscous, crunchy and has a characteristic mild sour taste that lingers in people's hearts...
Dragon tongue and squid received from home, cooked into a delicious sweet soup
Back to the dragon tongues my husband and I received from our loved ones back home. Vegetables are packed in foam boxes with some fresh squid caught in the waters near the shore. My wife carefully washed the squid and then took it out into a basket to drain. Dragon tongue is pre-processed before being put into the pot. Boil sliced purple onions with peanut oil until fragrant, then add squid and stir well with chopsticks. Then, add water to the pot with a little salt and a few slices of hot chili.
When the water boils on the stove, put the dragon blade in the pot and use a spatula to stir gently. As soon as the vegetables are cooked, add seasoning to taste, add chopped herbs to the pot with a little ground pepper and then remove from the stove.
The meal includes dragon tongue soup cooked with strangely delicious squid. Bite a piece of squid and slowly chew, the sweet taste mixed with salt from the sea seeps into every taste cell. The slimy vegetable "caresses" the lips and then drifts into the throat with a mild sour taste lingering on the tip of the tongue. That sweet, sour taste is like a country mother's message to her child who has gone far away to return home soon. How much love!
