Pork fat on a stormy day | QUANG NAM ONLINE NEWSPAPER

I don't know since when, in my subconscious, crispy pork rinds have become a "remembered dish, a beloved dish" that is not easy to replace, no matter how many delicious dishes there are, they still cannot compare to the rustic dish that my mother cooked long ago.

From the far corner of the sky, clouds rolled in, covering the entire city. Rain! Torrential rain. On early summer days, thunderstorms often came suddenly and were very heavy. Every time the weather turned stormy like this, I felt a craving for the dish my mother used to cook in the countryside - fried pork rinds.

Not fussy, each piece of fatty pork rind, with the fragrant flavor of garlic, the spicy flavor of chili, blends together, crispy in the mouth, like erasing the cold of a rainy afternoon in the mountains, warming the hearts of those far from home every time they miss home.

I don’t know if in the years when I was a child, other regions had pork fat like in the countryside, mountainous area of my Quang region. I only know that whenever the weather turns stormy, pork fat is indispensable in the kitchen. After buying pork fat, wash it with salt water, then blanch it in boiling water until it becomes firm, take it out and rinse it with cold water to clean it, drain it, and dice it.

Next, add all the sliced pork fat into the pan, keep the heat at medium and stir well to release the fat slowly, stir until the fat is golden brown and firm, then remove. Let the remaining fat in the pan cool completely and then put it in a jar to preserve, use to braise fish, de-compress instead of cooking oil.

The pieces of pork fat are sometimes fried until golden brown and only a little bit left, so you can eat them right away or save them for later. Just fill a bowl with hot rice, add some pork fat on top, and pour some sweet and spicy fish sauce. Take a big bite of rice, close your eyes and enjoy the sweetness of the rice mixed with the salty, fragrant, fatty, crispy taste of the pork fat. You can eat it for many meals without getting bored.

Sometimes my sisters and I still secretly eat pork rinds because we crave them. Pork rinds can also become ingredients for many different delicious dishes such as braised pork rinds with fish, fried pork rinds with salt and chili, fried pork rinds with pickles, braised pork rinds with tomatoes, fried pork rinds with green onions.

Peaceful countryside. Photo: Vu Cong Dien — Peaceful countryside. Photo: VU CONG DIEN

There were times when my father went to the ditch to catch a lot of snakehead fish and perch. My mother cleaned the fish, marinated them well, then opened the jar of pickled cabbage and scooped them out into a bowl. My hometown had suitable land for growing cabbage, so my mother planted a whole garden of cabbage to harvest both the roots and leaves to make pickles to improve the family's meals. My mother carefully stored the jars of pickles in a dry place, with lids to keep out the outside dust. After about a week, when the lid was opened, the pickles would smell sour.

Because of her “good hand”, the pickled melons always turn golden brown, crispy, and pleasantly sweet and sour. Mom arranges a thick layer of pickled melons at the bottom of the pot, then puts the fish in and doesn’t forget to add a few spoons of pork rinds before putting it on the stove to braise.

The fish was simmering on the wood stove, the aroma spreading throughout the small kitchen. Mom kept simmering the fish until the bones were tender, the water had evaporated, and the pot was dry. Anyone who saw Mom stewing fish with pork rinds would exclaim, “Whose house is cooking this delicious dish? It’s so luxurious!”

Pork fat has "innocently" entered the life of my hometown people, it is a rustic flavor that anyone who has ever been attached to it will surely not forget. This afternoon it was raining, I called home and said that even though it was not as delicious as my mother's, I definitely had to make my favorite dish. And then after a while of struggling in the kitchen, the finished pork fat smelled so fragrant, I kept sniffing and hurriedly enjoyed it to ease my homesickness without paying attention to the other dishes.

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