The world's most unique hot pot dish.

The U Minh Ha forest was lush green after the rain, and the smoke from someone's kitchen wafted with an intoxicating aroma. My traveling companion blurted out, "It's better to tease each other than to tease each other about fish sauce hotpot. If you truly love each other, then come to U Minh."

Người Lao Động•30/10/2021

Indeed, the aroma of U Minh fish sauce hotpot is enticing even from afar, especially in the drizzling rain of the forest region; few can resist sitting next to a bubbling pot of fish sauce hotpot. Before even touching the chopsticks, the senses are overwhelmed by the unique flavor of the local fish sauce, along with the myriad colors of more than 30 types of wild vegetables and wildflowers.

U Minh fish sauce hotpot is a treasure trove of specialties, ranging from common to rare, so much so that simply listing the ingredients would require an entire page to remember. As for the recipe, it's elaborate, meticulously crafted down to every single spice.

U Minh fish sauce hotpot is a rustic yet elaborate dish.

To make the broth for this hot pot, you absolutely must choose the distinctive butterfly fish sauce from the U Minh Ha region; only then will the broth be fragrant. Unlike other types of hot pot, the broth for this fish sauce hot pot only requires fish sauce that has been cooked until the flesh is soft, strained to remove small bones, and seasoned with spices.

Choose MSG, sugar, or use the trick of replacing sugar with cow's milk to make the broth fragrant, rich, and thick. Of course, don't forget a little finely chopped lemongrass and crushed galangal to add to the broth to remove the fishy smell and make the broth even more fragrant and clear.

Almost all kinds of seafood from the countryside and orchards are included in the fermented fish hot pot dish.

Equally important is the preparation of the ingredients for the hot pot. Almost all kinds of seafood from the countryside and forests are included in this dish. Freshwater eels, snakehead fish, or tilapia are cleaned, cut into pieces, and either added to the hot pot or arranged on plates for dipping. In addition, crab meat and snails are also included to enhance the flavor for diners to choose from.

As for the accompanying vegetables, they fully embody the rustic flavors of the fertile U Minh forest, such as: chayote shoots, water spinach, mustard greens, bitter herbs, purslane, watercress, sawtooth coriander, culantro, longan, banana blossom, water hyacinth, water chestnut, water lily, water spinach, water hyacinth, and water lettuce…

Vegetables for hot pot dipping embody the flavors of the countryside.

It can be said that U Minh fish sauce hotpot is the dish that best represents the unique characteristics of Ca Mau cuisine , as if gathering all the rustic specialties of the entire U Minh Ha region into one. Elsewhere, to make a hotpot similar to U Minh fish sauce hotpot, one would probably have to travel far and wide to find all the necessary ingredients.

Calling U Minh fish sauce hotpot the most unique hotpot in the world is no exaggeration.