Bat Trang squid bamboo shoot soup is a delicious dish to help “welcome good and avoid evil” and very suitable in the worshiping tray of Mr.
Bat Trang ancient village is not only a place to store the long-standing quintessence of traditional ceramics but also has a unique and proud cuisine. The old Bat Trang people, the Hanoians now, in the tray of each house, it is indispensable to have a bowl of squid ink bamboo shoot soup rich in the soul of the countryside. This is a delicious Tet dish that converges “golden forest, silver sea” on the S-shaped strip of land.
Bat Trang squid bamboo shoot soup is chosen to “discharge bad luck”, pray for good luck in the Tet tray of Vietnamese people.
Country soup on New Year’s Day comes from the land of ceramics
There has never been a village that owns such a warm, delicious and warm country soup full of the taste of the forest and the sea. The soup with two main ingredients, dried bamboo shoots and dried squid, makes a delicious dish in the tray of the famous Bat Trang people throughout the region.
Dried bamboo shoots are cooked and stewed with many other ingredients such as pork legs, beef, pork ribs, but not many people know about cooking with squid, especially dried squid. How can those tough dried squid be cooked into a delicious and flavorful soup?
Bat Trang squid bamboo shoot soup has the aroma and rustic taste of dried bamboo shoots that drink forest dew but large and salty, rich taste of dried sea squid. Squid bamboo shoot soup must be cooked with dried squid to be “right post”. As for the squid, no matter how fresh it is, even if it’s caught in the sea, it has already turned into a different flavor.
Squid bamboo shoot soup is a delicious dish in the Tet tray of the Bat Trang people.
It is not known what improvisation brought this soup to the Bat Trang people, but squid bamboo shoot soup has become an indispensable delicacy in Tet holidays and important days. Above all, squid bamboo shoot soup is extremely suitable to appear in the tray of offerings to Mr. Cong Ong Tao on December 23 and the afternoon meal of the 30th New Year.
It is often said to eat squid at the end of the month to “discharge bad luck”, remove all bad things, and let the new month start over. Therefore, in addition to appearing in rice trays on important occasions or in restaurants, bamboo shoot soup is also chosen by people as a delicious dish to make rice offerings to Mr.
Capital using ingredients that are not easy to handle, to have a delicious bowl of squid bamboo shoot soup with Bat Trang flavor will require ingenuity, even long-term experience. Not every weekday meal has squid ink soup, because cooking this soup is complicated and time-consuming and takes a lot of ingenuity.
How is Bat Trang squid bamboo shoot soup cooked?
The type of dried bamboo shoots used to cook squid bamboo shoots soup is not bamboo shoots, nor bamboo shoots, but high quality sweet and bright yellow bamboo shoots, soaked in water long enough for the bamboo shoots to bloom evenly, and when stripped, the bamboo shoots are delicious. , not fibrous.
Dried bamboo shoots are used to cook squid bamboo shoot soup partly because they are less toxic than other bamboo shoots, the rest is that they combine with dried squid for a better taste. This is also the experience drawn from the homeland of this soup.
If you do not have time to strip the dried bamboo shoots, you can buy ready-made ones.
Stripping bamboo shoots is a “tough” stage, sometimes having to prepare a whole week in advance. The house that cooks a lot of trays sometimes has to strip the bamboo shoots a month in advance. The old bamboo shoots are removed, the dried bamboo shoots are used with a sharp knife or a needle to strip the fibers evenly. After stripping bamboo shoots, the small fibers are neat and clean.
After the bamboo shoots are finished, they are boiled to 3 or 4 water, in general, by the time the water is clear, the bad smell due to the oxidation of dried bamboo shoots is no longer present. Preliminary processing of bamboo shoots, marinated with delicious traditional fish sauce, a little salt, leave to soak up the spices. Fry the purple onion with fat and then stir-fry the bamboo shoots to hunt again.
Bamboo shoots need such meticulousness, dried squid needs even more dedication to put into it. New type of dried squid, enough sun, will keep the sweetness. The “genuine” dried ink must meet the requirements of having a thick body, a white powdery coating that smells like natural sea ink, a beard that is not black, and the ink itself does not have a bad smell or blackness.
The squid beard will be removed before cooking the soup.
When cooking squid bamboo shoot soup, only the body of the squid is taken. Then, remove the apricot and beard, soak it in water mixed with ginger wine to remove the natural fishy smell of the squid. Although many restaurants still make use of the squid beard, but for Tet, you should use the squid body.
Dried squid does not need to use a needle to strip, you can use your hands to shred it. However, before that, the dried squid was lightly grilled for aroma, using a pestle to beat the squid body to make it more loose, the meat fibers were clearly visible, and it was easy to strip later. Many people are more careful and use ginger juice to clean it again to make it fragrant.
The dried squid fiber is torn very small to make Bat Trang squid bamboo shoot soup more delicious.
Shredded dried squid is also fried with onion fat until fragrant. The clever and subtle thing when cooking squid bamboo shoot soup is that the squid is cleverly shredded so that the dried bamboo shoots and the ink after tearing do not differ much. When eating, you can still feel the sweetness of the squid fiber.
Bat Trang squid bamboo shoot soup is a delicious dish on Tet holiday that is elaborately prepared
That’s how sophisticated squid ink bamboo shoot soup is, each ingredient is processed separately and then mixed together to create the final delicious taste. The broth for squid bamboo shoot soup is cooked from bone broth, chicken broth and the sweetness from shrimp. Shrimps are put in from the beginning with bones to stew for fresh water, skimming until the broth is clear.
Dotted in the bowl of squid bamboo shoot soup, there is also a little bit of steamed pork tenderloin, sliced or stripped of tiny fibers like bamboo shoots with squid. Also bring fragrant stir-fry with purple onion and fat. Finally, add all the prepared ingredients to the broth. When scooped out into a bowl, the finished product of squid ink bamboo shoot soup shows the golden color of bamboo shoots, fragrant with the sea flavor of dried squid, crunchy enough, and distinctly sweet taste. Lightly place on top of a few branches of fresh coriander leaves, it is the correct Bat Trang squid bamboo shoot soup.
In addition to squid bamboo shoot soup, fried kohlrabi with dried squid is also a specialty of the Bat Trang people in the Tet tray.
In addition to squid bamboo shoot soup, which is an effective “unlucky” dish in the Tet tray, the people of Bat Trang also have a specialty of fried kohlrabi with dried squid! This delicious dish is also often appeared in the tray of offerings to Mr. Cong Ong Tao or the dinner tray of the 30th New Year, like a pair of squid bamboo shoot soup.
Photo: Internet (vinlove.net)