The shoots of bamboo shoots about a hand are picked, cleaned, and processed into a variety of delicious dishes thanks to their sweet taste and not being as bitter as other types of bamboo shoots.
In the 7th and 8th lunar months, after the wet forest rains, it is time for all kinds of bamboo shoots to sprout new buds from the ground, there are many types such as bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots… and even mangosteen. Le tree belongs to the bamboo family, has a flexible stem without thorns, grows in bushes in the forests of the Southeast and the Central Highlands. Among the types of bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots are preferred thanks to their ease of processing, dense body, sweet taste, characteristic aroma, and no bitter taste.
Dong Hao (real name is Tran Van Hien), born in 1997, in Binh Phuoc, owner of the YouTube channel Ẩm Thực Đồng Hao, uploads videos about the process of picking bamboo shoots in Hon Quan forest and making simple delicious dishes for his family.
Dong Hao said that bamboo shoots have been associated with the lives of local residents for many generations. In the past, villagers still faced many difficulties and sometimes lacked food, but thanks to wild vegetables and bamboo shoots, they still maintain good health. He feels lucky to be in a place with a fresh natural environment, being able to get food from the trees around the house.
In the countryside of Dong Hao, le trees grow on the side of the road, along with the fields, or in the deep forest. “Picking bamboo shoots is the main job of many households when it comes to the bamboo shoot season. From the dawn, the rooster crows in the sky, it’s also the time when people have finished preparing meals to bring to the forest to pick bamboo shoots. When he returned home, everyone had a basket full of bamboo shoots,” he said.
On this occasion, Dong Hao also went to the forest to pick bamboo shoots like everyone else, because the le tree had a low canopy, he had to stoop to pick new shoots that popped up from the ground about a hand long. According to experience, these shoots will be dense, fresh, and have the sweetest taste, better quality than those that have grown tall or grown in the armpit of the le tree.
The bamboo shoots are soft, so he used his hands to break them without a knife. After picking bamboo shoots, Dong Hao separates the pods, breaks off the fibrous segments, keeps the young segments, then washes and briefly boils them with boiling water before processing them into dishes such as braised meat with bamboo shoots, stir-fried bamboo shoots. meat, bamboo shoots soaked in chili sauce…
A simple meal in the countryside of Hon Quan.
According to his personal experience, bamboo shoots are not as bitter as other types of bamboo shoots, only need to be boiled once to be used. With the stewed meat with bamboo shoots, Dong Hao chooses low-fat pork thighs, chopped and seasoned with stock, sugar and fish sauce before cooking. To add more flavor, he fried the onions until golden brown, then put the meat in the pot, then added ground pepper. The bamboo shoots are left with the stalks, submerged in the gravy to absorb the flavor, cooked until the water is slightly thickened and the meat is soft, and the bamboo shoots are also soaked in sweet and salty spices.
In some other localities, in addition to processing simple dishes in daily meals, bamboo shoots are also considered a specialty with the way of rolling rice paper to dry with dew. Bamboo shoots are boiled and then cut into quarters, wrapped with boiled pork and raw vegetables, dipped with shrimp paste mixed with garlic and chili, bamboo shoots are fragrant, juicy, and very harmonious with other ingredients in the rice paper.
Photo, video: Ẩm Thực Đồng Hao