Discover the Top 6 Most Delicious Traditional Dishes from the Far North of Our Country

During this season, when eels are caught from the river and there's a jar of wild sour bamboo shoots at home, nothing beats it. If you visit the Northwest, you'll be treated to stir-fried eel with sour bamboo shoots. Clean the eel, remove the guts, and cut the upper part of the body into 2 sections. Then fry in hot oil until the eel meat is firm. Next, add fresh sour bamboo shoots along with salt, MSG, mac khen seeds, and doi seeds, stir evenly, add a little water, cover and simmer to let the meat absorb the seasoning.

When the eel is cooked, add chopped basil leaves, stir evenly, and finally, enjoy. When eating stir-fried eel with sour bamboo shoots, you'll feel the sweetness of the eel meat, the reduced sourness along with the aroma of doi seeds, and mac khen seeds. The dish will be even better when cooked in a cast iron pan and a wood-fired stove.

It's truly exciting and heartwarming to have white rice with stir-fried eel and sour bamboo shoots, isn't it? I'm sure many of you are already imagining this dish. This dish is a specialty of Lai Chau province, folks.

When traveling to the Northwest, if you get to taste this dish, consider yourself lucky. Nowadays, many families don't rear many cattle, so buffalo and beef for hanging are quite scarce. What's even more special is that buffalo and beef are hung over the hearth naturally, not dried in an oven, so they retain their flavor and have the aroma of wood smoke.

This is a highly enjoyable dish for gentlemen to savor with alcohol. To make delicious Buffalo and Beef Hung on the Hearth, firstly, you need to choose fresh cuts of meat. If you're fortunate enough to buy just after butchering, there's no need to wash the meat; you can proceed with the preparation right away. Depending on the region, there are different ingredients and marinades, but the basic marinade consists of white wine, black pepper, doi seeds, salt, finely crushed ginger, and cloves. The meat should be cut into large pieces, about three fingers wide and as long as a forearm. Marinate all the ingredients for about 5 to 7 hours until the meat absorbs the flavors, then skewer each piece of meat onto a steel ring.

All of it is hung over the hearth using a long wooden or iron bar. The meat hangs for about two days; when it firms up and the outer surface dries, it's ready to eat. The buffalo and beef pieces are grilled buried in hearth ashes with plenty of coal. Then, they're taken out, pounded, shredded, and served with a dipping sauce made with wild pepper and fresh chili. When shredded into small, tender pieces with a red hue, you know it's true highland hung meat. To ensure the meat is delicious and fragrant, mountainous people often burn wood, sugarcane husks, or pineapple leaves.

To truly appreciate the essence of Buffalo and Beef Hung on the Hearth, visit the highlands of Ha Giang, the cradle of our nation.

Grilled Eel in Bamboo Tubes is a dish imbued with ethnic flavors. This dish is perfect for trips to the northwest mountains, where there are streams and forests ideal for experiencing this dish. Clean the eel, remove the bones, and cut into segments about 2 finger-widths long, then marinate with salt, grilled doi seeds, mac khen seeds, chopped coriander, mint leaves, all mixed evenly. When the meat has absorbed the seasoning, put the eel into noni tubes about 30 cm long, finally sealing the end of the tube with dong leaves or banana leaves.

This dish will have the aroma of the bamboo tubes, the spicy flavor of doi seeds, mac khen seeds, and most importantly, the sweet essence of the eel preserved while grilling. Enjoying Grilled Eel in Bamboo Tubes with a sip of corn wine is truly wonderful. You'll be treated to this dish by the people of Cao Bang and Lai Chau when you visit.

The lean meat and pork heart are reserved for making Chinese sausage. Clean the lean meat and slice thinly, marinate with salt, wine, wild pepper, cloves, cinnamon, then stuff into the pork heart. This step requires careful patience as the pork heart can break or tear during stuffing. Then tie the stuffed Chinese sausage into short sections like bamboo skewers hanging over the stove. It takes about 3 to 4 weeks to be ready to eat. Cooking Chinese sausage is quite easy, just boil it or pan-fry it in small slices and enjoy.

Chinese sausage is eaten with steamed white rice and sipped with corn wine leaves. This is a specialty dish of the Northwest region. In many places, you can also enjoy this dish, but the flavor and color won't be as delightful. Visit ethnic people in the Rocky Plateau of Meo Vac, Dong Van, Yen Minh in Ha Giang province to experience how to make and enjoy this dish.

Another incredibly enticing dish from the forests of the Northwest is pork hanging over the hearth. Ethnic people raise pigs from the beginning of the year so that by the Lunar New Year, there is pork to eat. Pork belly is the chosen meat to hang over the hearth, large pieces the size of elongated palms marinated with salt, white wine, wild pepper, and cloves overnight to absorb the flavors. The meat hangs for about a month before it's ready to eat. The meat is washed to remove soot and dust from the hearth smoke, then briefly boiled. Thinly sliced and stir-fried with garlic leaves.

The delicious pork hanging over the hearth is when the lean meat on the plate is a vibrant red, even though pork belly has a lot of fat, it's not greasy. This dish is exceptionally tasty when eaten with white rice in winter. Being served pork hanging over the hearth is being treated as an honored guest. You'll find this dish in the hearths of ethnic people in Ha Giang province during the winter.

Beef Hotpot is an absolute specialty that must be found in highland markets. All parts of the cow are cleaned and cut into large pieces the size of matchboxes. Then they are put into a large pot or pan to boil with ginger, lemongrass, black pepper, cloves, galangal, kaffir lime leaves until the meat is tender.

Beef Hotpot costs 25 to 30 thousand dong per bowl. At the market, when Mong men and women have bought enough food for their families, they go to the beef hotpot restaurant and drink until drunk before returning home. This is one of the unique features of the people in this area. You can visit the markets in Meo Vac, Dong Van, Quan Ba, Ha Giang province to enjoy it. However, for those who are new to it, they may not be accustomed to the distinctive flavor of the dish, with the scent of sweat, a hint of the smell of the cow's innards creating a unique taste that cannot be found anywhere else.