There are a lot of oysters
in Do Son beach and Cat Ba Island. These are considered cold food by the
Vietnamese. It is therefore good to cook them with piper lolot which is
considered hot, in order to balance these elements.
Do Ngoc Cong isn’t a stranger to the Golden
Spoon Contest as the young chef took his favorite dish, made from Do Son
buffalo meat through to the final. Chef Cong wanted to convince the board of
judges so he brought more new dishes from Hai Phong to Ha Long to compete.
Meals like Do Son buffalo tongue and soup made from fresh oysters and piper
lolot.
Look at the menu of Chef Cong, Food artisan
Chiem Thanh Long, General director of Binh Quoi restaurants, reminded everyone
many times that they should try to find out the reason that piper lolot was
used a lot by people living along the Red River. It is not only eaten raw or
grilled but also used as an interesting spice.
When someone asked Chef Cong
that why he used piper lolot he just smiled and said that it was because the
theme of the contest was “Home taste in the times of reunification”. He brought whatever was famous in his
hometown to the contest. There are a lot of oysters in Do Son beach and Cat Ba
Island. These are considered cold food by the Vietnamese. It is therefore good
to cook them with piper lolot which is considered hot, in order to balance
these elements.
“Adding
a little bit of ginger, pepper and chili will create a delicious meal that is
good for your health. This year I wasn’t successful because I didn’t bring
enough medicinal ingredients to highlight the nutritional element. This is one
of the criteria of the Golden Spoon Contest. So I have spent more time studying
this.”
Oysters from the Northern Bay are fat and
have more flesh than those from Southern waters. Chef Cong removed the flesh
and put it on ice as he prepared the piper lolot. According to him, whichever
dishes he made he always poaches it with salted water then plunged them into
cold water to keep the green of the leaves.
This also softens the leaves so they are
not too crispy to roll with the other ingredients. This also prevents it
getting burned when grilling it. The disadvantage though, is of doing this way
is the piper lolot will lose its typical good aroma.
It is autumn now and it’s getting colder so
Chef Cong explained that a little bit of piper lolot should be added to seafood
to balance the elements and prevent any stomach problems. He said that he can
make 40 to 50 dishes with this leaf, such as cake, stir-fries with other
ingredients, stewed dishes or deep fried, which is also a very interesting
flavor.
“Soup
cooked with “Sá Sùng”, a kind of sea
worm (scientific Sipunculus nudus) is one of the best dishes that you can
imagine,” said Chef Cong, who also introduced about his new dish from his
hometown. The team was very professionally turned out.
Modern
Medicinal Dishes
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International candidates
There were three teams selected to go through to the semi-final in the North
from the preliminary round for the Red River region. First prize was awarded to
the Hai Dang Plaza team and two second prizes to the Saigon Ha Long team from
Quang Ninh province and Novotel Ha Long team from Quang Ninh
The interesting thing about this round was the attendance of the Thai
Chef Sonmuk Attaworn from Novotel Halong team
He said, “Using ingredients from Halong is
an advantage. The seafood there is extremely fresh and delicious. I didn’t cook
it too much and only added a little bit of spices to retain the original taste
of the food. It is the best way to cook this dish.”
This Chef has more than 20 year experience and
he has studied Vietnam cuisine for 14 years.
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Discussing with the judges as to why people
living along Red River Delta love piper lolot through up an interesting discussion.
Food expert Long Thanh Chiem said that arriving Hai Phong you will see that
people use the leaves to wrap pork cake. This is then fried before adding it
into rice noodle soup cooked with freshwater crabs; it is really delicious. If
you explore other foods, you will see local people have about seven dishes
using “con sam” (scientific name
Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) and all of them included piper lolot. If you look
further you will see almost hundred percent of all the soups in Hai contain
piper lolot. It is very interesting.
The researcher Suong Thi
Bui seems a little bit hesitant, because using piper lolot in most of the
dishes is still quite new to her. She said she needed to go home and check
Professor Do Tat Loi’s book to understand all the values of it before
continuing the discussion. She wanted to be sure that using piper lolot to
balance the elements of was correct, before commenting.
She said that in the Central regions like
Nha Trang, Binh Dinh and Quang Ngai people cooked sweet and sour soup with
coriander and piper lolot, instead of Floating enhydra as in the South.
Master Chef Dong Quang Long, head chef of
De Nhat Hotel, also said that he usually cooked many dishes with piper lolot; dishes
like stewed pork with banana or goat hotpot.
But Chef Long, creator of the famous dish
made of coconut root, said that although he cooked dishes with piper lolot
leaves, most of them are modified and
don’t have typical taste of any region. In the South creek premna leaves are
used more common than piper lolot and it has the same properties.
Another point shared by Mrs Bui Thi Suong
was that there are more medicinal gardens in the North more than in the South.
There are also more foods artisans working on researching the effects of food
which have medicinal values than in the South, where most of people prefer to
enjoy their food, without considering such things.
She said: ”I think that this dish could be
a traditional medicine that has been passed down from people’s ancestors in the
Red River Delta area. It is similar to the way people in Hanoi love to eat fried
eggs mixed with wormwood. Although it has a strange taste and is difficult to
eat for people outside the regions, it is a favorite dish to Hanoi people
because of the health benefits”
The discussion among the judges remained
unfinished. They decided to do more research on this subject and will give
their answers in the next contest in Lao Cai Province, the Vietnamese cuisine
map will be drawn.
However, before closing the discussion Chef
Long Thanh Chiem still said that upon returning to Saigon tomorrow he would buy
some piper lolot to make a stir-fried beef.
Followed by Tran Nguyen-
Phi Nguyen
The Gioi Tiep Thi magazine