Exploring Tuyên Quang: A Gastronomic Adventure

Most Vietnamese are familiar with the saying “Chè Thái, gái Tuyên”, praising the famous Thái Nguyên tea and the girls of Tuyên Quang. However, Tuyên Quang cuisine is equally enticing. Let's delve into it!

Discover Tuyên Quang Cuisine: What to Eat When You Visit

Buffalo Skin Salad

Buffalo skin, or buffalo meat in general, is a common dish in mountainous provinces. Tuyên Quang cuisine is also renowned for its delicious buffalo skin salad. After being thoroughly cleaned, the buffalo skin is roasted over a fire to remove the hair, then peeled to reveal the golden layer underneath. The skin is then boiled until clean and tender, ready to eat.

The tastiness of buffalo skin salad depends on the slicing process. Slicing the buffalo skin requires a sharp knife, a thick cutting board, and patience. The large piece of skin is cut into evenly thin slices. People from Tuyên Quang use various spices such as galangal, lemongrass, Sichuan pepper, coriander, garlic, and chili to make this dish. Moreover, they also use boiled sour bamboo shoot water instead of lime or vinegar as in other regions.

Savoring Buffalo Skin Salad: A Delightful Culinary Experience

Khau Mút Tea: A Treasure from Tuyên Quang's Highest Peak

Na Hang Corn Wine

Na Hang corn wine, fermented with Na Hang leaves, is a long-standing and renowned product of Na Hang district, contributing to the distinctive flavors of Tuyên Quang cuisine. The aromatic scent of the leaves and corn, combined with a subtly spicy taste, captivates visitors whenever they visit Na Hang. Over centuries, the people of Na Hang, with their experience in fermentation and distillation, have perfected the art of making corn wine with unique characteristics.

To produce fragrant and delicious wine, the first step is to synthesize a blend of herbs from 38 different plants that thrive in the cool, humid climate year-round, with an average air humidity of 85%. In addition to the aforementioned leaves, the quality of the corn grains is also crucial. The corn must be grown within the Na Hang district. After harvesting, the corn kernels are dried. Only when the moisture content of the kernels reaches about 15% are they ready for the distillation process.

Steamed Clamflower with Meat

Hoa Kè: A Signature Dish of the Tày Ethnic Group

Hoa Kè, a specialty dish of the Tày people in Hàm Yên, Chiêm Hóa, Na Hang, and Lâm Bình districts, has become a delightful treat through various cooking processes. With its refreshing, sweet taste following an initial bitterness, Hoa Kè is stuffed with meat and cooked in soup or stir-fried, each dish offering a unique flavor. For steamed Hoa Kè with meat, finely chopped meat is mixed with fresh onions, mushrooms, pepper, and spices before being evenly combined with eggs.

Hàm Yên Honey Mandarin

Hàm Yên honey mandarin is a long-standing famous fruit of Hàm Yên district, known for its distinctive flavor, absorbing essence from the land, wind, sun, and fresh water, resulting in a sweetness unlike mandarins from other regions. Visitors to this land will be mesmerized by the countless hills covered in mandarin trees, stretching to the horizon.

Honey mandarins are grown throughout Hàm Yên, but the most famous areas include Yên Thuận, Yên Phú, the town of Hàm Yên, and especially Phù Lưu. Favorable soil and climate conditions are crucial factors in creating the delicious flavor of honey mandarins. Many believe that the sweet taste of this fruit is thanks to the water from Phá Phúng mountain.

Compared to other mandarin varieties across the country, Hàm Yên honey mandarins have a sweet, fragrant taste. When ripe, they turn from green to shiny yellow, with plump, speckled fruits. The skin of Hàm Yên honey mandarins is relatively thin and slightly rough when ripe. They contain over 10% sugar content, abundant vitamin C, various organic acids, minerals, and essential oils.

Black Sesame Stuffed Glutinous Rice Cake from Na Hang

Visiting the highland districts of Na Hang and Lâm Bình, travelers cannot miss a very distinctive dish of Tuyên Quang cuisine: the black sesame stuffed glutinous rice cake of the Tày people. Tày women make black sesame stuffed glutinous rice cakes with great care and precision. They select glutinous rice grains, clean them thoroughly, and soak them in water for about 30 minutes. When the glutinous rice grains are evenly cooked, soft, they are placed in a clean mortar for pounding.

Pounding takes nearly an hour, and the rhythm of pounding the cake must be even. To obtain black sesame filling, the Tày people have to sow sesame in the fields from March to April every year and harvest and store them until July or August for year-round use. The sesame seeds are roasted over a low flame, constantly stirred until they are fully cooked, then ground into a fine powder.

In addition to black sesame, making delicious glutinous rice cakes also requires sugar cane juice. The Tày people do not mix black sesame with sugar syrup because it would not enhance the cake's aroma. The sugar cane is pressed for juice, then boiled until it thickens and becomes sticky before being used to make the cake. The Tày people often wrap black sesame stuffed glutinous rice cakes in banana leaves that have been softened over fire.

Gai Cake from Chiêm Hóa

From the fragrant, sweet gai leaves, combined with familiar and rustic ingredients, a famous cake has been created in Chiêm Hóa, listed among the outstanding dishes of Tuyên Quang cuisine. Nestled alongside the gentle Gam River, Chiêm Hóa is where a large area of gai trees is grown in the province. Almost every household grows gai trees.

When it comes to Tuyên Quang cuisine, one cannot miss the dish of river fish salad from the Lô River. The river fish live only in the swift-flowing water, making them robust with firm and crispy flesh. This fish was once considered a royal delicacy alongside crucian carp and snakehead fish due to its delicious flavor and high nutritional content. It belongs to the carp family, but its body is slender, and its flesh is pink-red.

River fish can be prepared in various ways, such as steaming or grilling, but the most delicious is undoubtedly the river fish salad served with 'chéo' sauce. Firstly, the fish meat is extracted and soaked in water made from fermented sour fruit. When served, it is accompanied by wild vegetables such as water mimosa, tamarind, rice paddy herb, Vietnamese balm, polygonum, sweet leaf, aster, basil, sesame leaves, mango, and green banana...

The dipping sauce for river fish salad is also crucial. It must be dipped in the authentic 'chéo' sauce to bring out the true flavor. After deboning the fish, the leftover parts and fish bones are finely chopped, roasted, fragrantly sautéed with onions, garlic, and other spices. These ingredients are cooked according to a traditional recipe to create a smooth and fragrant sauce, known as 'chéo'.

The wild vegetables are arranged with larger leaves on the outer side, smaller leaves placed inside, then wrapped into a funnel shape. Diners will place thinly sliced fish mixed with roasted rice powder inside the leaf funnel, pour the 'chéo' sauce over it, skillfully roll it tightly by hand to prevent the sauce from leaking out. Thus, a flavorful and heartfelt meal from Tuyên Quang is ready.

According to Mytour

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Reference: Travel Guide by Mytour