The scent of chive soup and nostalgia for the home kitchen

While spring onions are often cut short and mixed or sprinkled to add flavor to some dishes, chives alone can also create rich and concentrated soups. Chive soup evokes familiar flavors, from peaceful everyday country meals to busy, hurried harvest meals.

It is not wrong to say that "anyone can make chive soup". But to have a pot of chive soup with "beautiful smell and standard taste", no one in my family can make it, except my mother. My mother often says that you guys are like your father, flattering me and praising me, but a few handfuls of chives, some minced meat, some fried onions, and normal spices are enough to have a pot of soup that brings coolness on hot days that make you want to... melt your fat.

Watching Mom "make" the pot of chive soup, it didn't seem complicated, just a little bit of care. Mom fried a handful of thinly sliced shallots, then added half a cup of minced meat and stir-fried it. When the meat was slightly firm, she added seasoning. Mom emphasized: Remember to stir-fry it briefly! If you stir-fry it too much, the meat will be numb, it won't be able to breathe, won't be able to absorb the delicious, pungent aroma of the chives.

Mom is so clever! If the pot of soup needs two bowls to be a full meal, then Mom measures the amount of water and pours it into the pot. I understand, if you pour too little water, you will not eat enough, and if the meal is "disappointing", the meal will be a failure. If you pour too much water, the pot of soup will just be... water floating, the water will be watery, the thing will be solid, it will be bland, wasting the ingredients and the cook's effort. When the pot of water just starts to boil lightly, pour in the chives immediately. Remove the pot of soup from the stove and place it on the tray exactly when the chives are cooked.

The chives are so delicate that they are too fragile. Just a few seconds later, the leaves will turn green and bruise from being boiled too much. My father said that before pouring the soup into the bowl, just looking at the green color of the chives leaves, he knew the soup was more successful than expected. In his excitement, he even "philosophized" that it was like when the rice has become cooked, you can smell the aroma of rice, smelling a very light, pungent aroma means the chives have become soup.

And then you know what? The soup hasn’t even been served yet, but the aroma has already spread far and wide. The whole family voluntarily comes to the table to eat. If it’s not the inviting aroma of chive soup, then what is it?

Later, living far away from home, in the nostalgia for the countryside kitchen, the image of my mother and the scent of chive soup occupy a significant "proportion". I call it the scent of memories. I also often remember what my mother said while cooking soup: "Chives are easy to grow, and easy to cook soup. But the leaves are soft, sticky, and tangled together. So when serving or picking up, be gentle and slow, don't let it... get tangled like chive soup, it will lose its beauty". Perhaps this is how my mother taught me to eat and live gently and modestly from this simple soup.

Chive soup with a little minced meat is a cool, refreshing green soup that occupies a corner of my childhood. Even though it is far away, every time I cook a pot of chive soup, I imagine the kitchen with the flickering fire and my dear mother beside me. That simple dish creates a beautiful memory, as beautiful as the image of the green chive leaves fluttering in the corner of the yard in the countryside, where small butterflies often flutter.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/mui-huong-canh-he-va-noi-nho-bep-que-18525091321503631.htm