When mentioning Thai Nguyen, one immediately thinks of the famous Thai Nguyen tea, well-known to everyone. However, the land of Thai Nguyen is also renowned for other incredibly rustic and delicious dishes such as Banh Chung (sticky rice cake), Mang Dang (bitter bamboo shoots), Nem Chua (fermented pork roll), and more.
If you have the chance to travel to Thai Nguyen, a place rich in history and tradition, don’t forget to savor these delicious foods. Exploring the unique culinary culture of Thai Nguyen will certainly add more excitement to your trip. Join us at RuudNguyen.com to discover the tasty treats of this region.
Delicious Dishes in Thai Nguyen
Binh Long Tofu
Binh Long tofu, produced in Binh Long commune, Vo Nhai district, is famous for its delicious taste. However, the origin of this tofu-making craft did not actually start from this land itself. A unique feature of Binh Long tofu is the shape of its tofu skin.
Binh Long Tofu (Collected Photo)
The tofu skin of Binh Long tofu is large, neither too hard nor too soft. When eating, you will taste its rich creaminess and enjoy its gentle aroma. The tofu here is sold by weight, served hot and ready to eat.
Ginger Chicken Soup
Free-range chicken is chopped into pieces and marinated with crushed ginger, thinly sliced young ginger leaves, fermented rice, a bit of white wine, salt, and MSG. The marinated chicken is then sautéed in a cast-iron pan. Once cooked, add a bowl of water and some shiitake mushrooms, cover and boil for a few more minutes to complete the dish.
Ginger Chicken Soup (Collected Photo)
A bowl of aromatic ginger chicken soup, with its unique flavor, is easy to prepare and enjoy. This dish is a traditional and popular choice for entertaining guests among the Tay people.
Thua Lam Shrimp Rolls
This is a simple yet unique dish, rich in the flavors of the countryside. Every festive occasion, especially during Tet (Lunar New Year), the people of Thua Lam in Thai Nguyen province have a tradition of preparing shrimp rolls for ceremonial offerings. No one knows exactly when this dish originated, but it’s an essential part of village festivals (especially on the 6th day of Tet) and family celebrations.
Thua Lam Shrimp Rolls (Collected Photo)
The main ingredient is fresh small shrimp (symbolizing seafood), cleaned and skewered on toothpicks to prevent curling during frying. Other components include fried egg (symbolizing poultry), lean pork paste, and boiled pork fat cut into 5-6 cm strips.
Blanched onions are combined with the fried shrimp, pork paste, fried egg, boiled pork fat, then rolled together using green onion leaves, resembling a bundle of rice seedlings. Seasonings like fish sauce, chili, and pepper can be added to enhance the flavor.
Bamboo Cooked Rice (Com Lam)
Bamboo Cooked Rice is a simple yet charming dish of the ethnic minorities in Dinh Hoa. It has a unique allure due to the harmonious blend of water, fire, and young bamboo tubes.
Grilled Bamboo Cooked Rice with Sesame Salt, a common dish of the highland people (Collected Photo)
Bamboo Cooked Rice is a simple dish from the people of Dinh Hoa, rooted in the streams of the source and the rice terraces on the hillside, and the lush bamboo and nipa forests of the ATK land. It leaves a lasting impression on visitors who have the chance to enjoy it.
To make delicious Bamboo Cooked Rice, first, you need high-quality sticky rice, specifically the golden flower sticky rice grown on terraces, harvested around September or October. This type of rice, plump and round, is cleaned thoroughly and soaked in warm water.
The tool for cooking is a bamboo or fresh green bamboo tube, still moist so that only the outer part burns during cooking, allowing the sweet juice of the bamboo to infuse into the rice. Each bamboo plant provides only three to four tubes, each about 30 centimeters long…
Five-Color Sticky Rice
The Five-Color Sticky Rice of the Tay people in Dinh Hoa embodies a philosophy of life: the five colors of the sticky rice represent the five elements. Yellow symbolizes Earth, green represents Wood, red is Fire, white is Metal, and dark purple stands for Water. All matter in the universe is created and developed through the interaction and mutual influence of these five elements.
Five-Color Sticky Rice (Collected Photo)
To prepare delicious and fragrant sticky rice, artisans must strictly adhere to the process, from selecting the leaves for dyeing to the cooking of the rice. The primary ingredient for the sticky rice is Dinh Hoa’s sticky rice, known for its clarity, plump grains, and being the most delicious and famous variety in the region.
Four types of forest leaves used for dyeing the colors green, red, purple, and yellow are meticulously selected, ensuring they are neither too young nor too old. These leaves are then washed and boiled with spring water.
Once the colored water is ready, the sticky rice is soaked in it for about 10 hours, then drained. The drained rice is then cooked in a traditional bamboo steamer known as Mo Lung – Tay Lung, typically used by the locals. The oval-shaped steamer, made from the trunk of a palm or aromatic wood, is hollowed out and has two ends – the top with a lid and the bottom lined with a bamboo mat. Each steamer holds over 1kg of rice.
Nham
A famous culinary specialty of Ha Chau, Phu Binh, often made during the ripe fruit season (around late July to early August on the lunar calendar), Nham is made from 14 simple ingredients and spices, such as black carp, chay fish or white scad, young banana root, sesame, peanuts, pork belly, sour starfruit, ginger leaves, fig leaves, neem leaves, dill leaves, coconut flesh, bean paste, and vinegar…
A complete dish of Nham typically includes a variety of ingredients, among which the indispensable fruit is finely chopped. Nham is usually of two types: raw fish Nham and grilled fish Nham. For raw fish Nham, the fish is thinly sliced, while for grilled fish Nham, the fish is grilled over charcoal. Mixed with sesame, peanuts, starfruit leaves, neem leaves, etc., you get a complete Nham dish full of rustic flavors.
Bitter Bamboo Shoots of Ngan Me
Thanks to suitable conditions, Thai Nguyen has bamboo shoots available all year round. However, the most popular is the Bitter Bamboo Shoots of Ngan Me. These shoots, just emerging from the ground, offer a memorable flavor for anyone who has the opportunity to enjoy them.
Bitter Bamboo Shoots of Ngan Me are only sold for one month a year (Collected Photo)
The Bitter Bamboo Shoots of Ngan Me are at their crispest and most delicious during the spring season. These bamboo shoots can be boiled and dipped in salt, cooked with stream snails, or pickled in vinegar, all of which are delightful. If you don’t like the bitter taste of the bamboo shoots, you can soak them in saltwater for 1-2 hours or split them in half and blanch them quickly.
Cooc Mo Cake
Cooc Mo Cake (Collected Photo)
Cooc mo is a traditional cake of the Tay ethnic people in Thai Nguyen. Achieving the perfect combination of chewiness, aroma, and visual appeal in cooc mo cakes requires not only selecting quality ingredients and wrapping leaves but also meticulous and skillful preparation.
The cake is made from fragrant sticky rice, each grain plump and uniform. The water used in the cake-making process must be clear and sweet from natural springs. The dong leaves used for wrapping are both green and glossy.
After being boiled, cooc mo cakes have a light green color. Unwrapping a leaf reveals the irresistible aroma of sticky rice mingled with the scent of the leaves. Biting into a cooc mo cake, one immediately tastes the chewy and aromatic sticky rice and the rich flavor of red peanut filling.
Although the cake has no filling, its taste of the countryside is unmistakable and rich, combining chewy, creamy, and aromatic flavors. Cooc mo can be enjoyed plain or dipped in sugarcane honey for an even more delightful experience.
Stuffed Bamboo Shoots
The delicious dish of stuffed bamboo shoots is also easy to prepare. Minced pork shoulder is mixed with shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, spring onions, salt, MSG, and pepper, then stuffed into pre-boiled bamboo shoots and steamed for about 30 minutes until cooked.
Stuffed Bamboo Shoots (Collected Photo)
Wild Vegetables
Bo Khai is a type of wild vegetable that grows on mountainous rocks. This vegetable can be stir-fried alone or with chicken eggs, minced meat, beef, etc., and is considered a specialty of Thai Nguyen. People usually use the young leaves and tips of Bo Khai for cooking. The vegetable has a distinctive aroma, so it’s often crushed to reduce the smell before cooking.
However, the delicious and sweet taste of these wild vegetables often makes people crave them despite their strong smell. The forests of Dinh Hoa, Phu Luong, Dong Hy, and Vo Nhai all have wild sweet leaf bushes (locally known as rau sang). The wild sweet leaf, when used in soups, imparts a fragrant, cool, and rich flavor.
Tro Cake
Tro Cake, also known as gio cake or nang cake, is a rustic type of cake commonly made by the Kinh, Tay, and San Chay people. It’s called Tro Cake because the water used to soak the rice and cook the cake is clear water settled from the ash (tro) of various types of woo
Gio Cake often eaten with sugarcane syrup (Collected Photo)
It’s called a Yin cake because of its Yin-nourishing properties, as it’s made entirely from Yin ingredients (all plant-based with minerals like calcium, potassium, etc.).
Bo Dau Square Sticky Rice Cake
Bo Dau Square Sticky Rice Cake is made from the special sticky rice of the Dinh Hoa mountainous region, a midland district in Thai Nguyen province. This sticky rice is particularly sticky and aromatic.
The rice is carefully selected to remove any impurities, including black-tipped grains and non-sticky rice grains, then thoroughly washed, soaked in water for a few hours to swell, drained, mixed with a bit of salt, and prepared for wrapping.
Bo Dau Square Sticky Rice Cake is a specialty you should not miss (Photo: luhanhvietnam.com.vn)
The leaves used for wrapping the cake are thick, lush green, broad-leafed sticky rice leaves. Sourced from Na Ri and Cho Don forests in Bac Kan, the leaves are thoroughly washed on both sides, drained, wiped dry with a clean cloth, trimmed of their stems and tips, and neatly arranged next to the rice bowl. The binding strings must be split from Giang bamboo.
The green beans used for the filling are local beans with even-sized grains, thin skins, and yellow insides. The beans are halved, soaked in water, and cleaned of their skins, then mixed with a bit of salt. The pork used for the cake is high-quality pork belly from free-range pigs, cut into large pieces, and marinated with salt and pepper.
Ha Chau Black Jamun
The black jamun tree has been cultivated in Ha Chau for hundreds of years. To this day, many ancient jamun trees still stand, providing dense and cool shade. Black jamun is a hardwood tree that flowers in February, with fruits ripening around July in the lunar calendar every year. However, the jamun season can extend until the end of September since the fruits don’t ripen simultaneously; some trees mature earlier, while others later.
Black Jamun Fruit (Collected Photo)
The black jamun fruit is diamond-shaped, turning black when ripe, with a golden pulp and a translucent white seed inside. Even more intricate, it can be used to prepare various dishes such as jamun sticky rice, jamun cooked with meat or fish, jamun salad, and especially the famous dish ‘nham trám’, a unique delicacy that leaves a lasting impression after just one taste.
Dai Tu Fermented Pork Roll
Unlike other fermented pork rolls that can be eaten immediately after unwrapping, Dai Tu Fermented Pork Roll requires an additional step of grilling over charcoal or pan-frying before consumption. Made with ingredients such as lean pork from the ham, garlic, alcohol, black pepper, roasted rice powder, and guava leaves, each roll is carefully wrapped in banana leaves and can last for several days.
To ensure quality, only the meat from the two hams of a pig is used. The meat is washed, finely minced, thinly sliced across the grain, and then mixed with finely chopped garlic, ground pepper, white wine, and fragrant roasted rice powder.
Dai Tu Fermented Pork Roll (Photo: quehuongonline.vn)
Once the ingredients for the fermented pork roll are prepared, each roll is carefully wrapped with banana and guava leaves. The innermost layer usually uses guava leaves for their appropriate astringent and rich flavor, while the outer layer is made of fresh banana leaves, ensuring the rolls are wrapped moderately, not too tightly, and are airtight to facilitate fermentation and prolong shelf life.
Banana leaves are used to shape the rolls and give them a fresh, shiny, and appealing green color. The rolls are ready to eat after 3-4 days. When eating Dai Tu Fermented Pork Roll, people often wrap it with fig leaves, dill leaves, etc. Depending on preference, it can be dipped in fish sauce mixed with chili and garlic or chili sauce, enhancing the delicious flavor of the dish.
Thai Nguyen Specialties as Gifts
Tan Cuong Tea
Quality Thai Nguyen Tea (Thai Nguyen Tea) is characterized by dry, curly, intact, and minimally broken tea buds, presenting an aesthetically pleasing appearance. Specifically, good Thai Nguyen tea has a natural green color, few long tea leaves, and many short leaves, as the short leaves are from the best tea buds. In contrast, lower quality tea usually has a dull yellow or brown color, and the leaves are often crumbled or broken.
Tan Cuong Tea Specialty, Thai Nguyen (Photo: pasgo.vn)
The special Thai Nguyen tea, when brewed, exudes a delicate aroma reminiscent of young rice grains, with a light bitterness and a lingering sweetness in the throat. In Thai Nguyen, many districts cultivate tea, each offering a unique flavor of tea buds. However, for the finest taste, Tan Cuong tea buds stand out. Tan Cuong tea produces a light greenish-yellow color, a moderate bitterness, a deep distinctive sweetness, and a natural young rice fragrance.
Dinh Hoa Bao Thai Rice
For generations, the farmers in the revolutionary base areas (ATK) have been closely connected with the cultivation of dwarf Bao Thai rice. Thanks to the unique climatic and soil conditions favorable for the “dwarf Bao Thai” rice variety, Dinh Hoa Bao Thai rice has become a specialty, a gift of nature to this former revolutionary base area.
Bao Thai Rice (Collected Photo)
Products made from this rice variety, such as noodles, rice crackers, pho noodles, and steamed rice rolls, also possess distinct and exceptional flavors.
Viet Cuong Glass Noodles
The art of making glass noodles in Viet Cuong hamlet, Hoa Thuong commune, Dong Hy district (Thai Nguyen) dates back to an unknown time, but Viet Cuong glass noodles have become a brand that is popular not only in the Thai Nguyen market but also among traders traveling to the northern and southern regions.
The people of Viet Cuong make glass noodles similar to other regions, but their noodles are known for their rich flavor and chewiness, maintaining their texture even after being cooked for a long time. This unique characteristic has made Viet Cuong mung bean glass noodles a specialty of Thai Nguyen, chosen by visitors as a gift when they come to this land.
Uc Ky Fermented Soybean Paste
The exact origin of the soybean paste-making craft in Uc Ky commune is unknown, but for a long time, every household has known how to make soybean paste, and each has at least one jar of soybean paste for yearly consumption and as a gift for guests.
Over time, the craft of making fermented soybean paste has become a traditional occupation of the locals and a unique culinary specialty that is gradually reaching markets both within and outside the province.
Uc Ky Fermented Soybean Paste is best when made from Thau Dau glutinous rice (Collected Photo)
The soybean paste jar, prepared according to this traditional recipe, reveals a thick, dark yellow, viscous paste with a deep aroma of glutinous rice and soybeans. The flavor is a harmonious blend of light bitterness and lingering sweetness.
This soy sauce can be used directly as a dipping sauce for various dishes or in cooking braised or steamed dishes, making them very appealing. For a long time, soybean paste has been a familiar condiment in the daily meals of the people in Uc Ky in particular and many families in the northern provinces in general.
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