Hai Phong is famous for many delicious dishes, such as crab cakes, fish vermicelli, spicy banh mi… But apart from the well-known street food, Hai Phong has another specialty, delicious but harder to buy because also depends on the season. That is braised sardines.
Rather, braised sardines are a specialty of Kien Thuy, Hai Phong. From a rustic dish associated with home meals, Hai Phong’s braised sardines are entering the market, becoming a specialty dish such as braised fish in Vu Dai village.
There are 2 crops of sardines each year, one spring season, which is about February to March, one autumn crop, from August to September. At this time, when buying sardines, you can get a whole bowl of fat. greasy yellow. This is of course also the best time to prepare dishes from sardines.
If you want to have a good catch, the people of Kien Thuy always have to wake up early in the morning or come back late in the afternoon, visit the wharf and marina to choose fresh fish and delicious fish because this is the time when the fisherman and fisherman want to have a good time. The fisherman has just returned from fishing. The selected fish will be sardines that have reached maturity, are uniform in size, thick and firm. After that, people will bring it home and wash it, prepare it so that the fish no longer has a fishy smell, remove the intestines and can be seasoned.
Depending on the taste of each family, there will be different ways of preparing sardines. However, no matter how different or different there are, the traditional sardines are always seasoned with no less than… 16 flavors. In particular, there are extremely typical flavors of Hai Phong such as sour taste from vegetarian, sweet taste from sugarcane, spicy taste from ginger and chili, creating a pot of braised fish with perfect taste.
In addition to being picky when marinating spices, it is equally important to arrange fish so that when the warehouse is not broken or crushed. Therefore, people use fresh galangal, with whole young roots and then thinly sliced, paired with fish so that the fish stock will not be broken. Sugarcane needs to choose a yellow tree, enough sweetness, then split it long and thin, then line it at the bottom of the pot. Green bananas are not too young, so the fish has a moderate acrid taste.
After marinating for about 30 minutes, put the fish in the pot and then put it on the stove to store. In the process of stocking fish, it is also necessary to have your own secrets to make the fish delicious and prepared. A delicious pot of braised fish is to ensure that the bones that have been simmered must still be firm without being crushed.
The fish must be golden in color. It is the same demanding product, so sardines need to be stored for 8-10 hours in an earthen pot with moderate heat. With that, sardines bring rice when eaten, fat and fragrant.
It takes a lot of work, but when the pot of sardines is finished, people find it worth it. At that time, just a bowl of hot rice, put on it a piece of boneless sardines, it was delicious and mouth-watering. When eating sardines with enough salty, sweet, spicy, slightly acrid, fatty aroma that melts in the cavity, the delicious food is not as good as the folk gifts of the people in the sea.
Considered one of the most famous specialties in Hai Phong, braised sardines have been, are and have always been loved and made anyone who enjoys them immediately fall in love. Today, braised sardines have become familiar on every rice tray of families here. In particular, on holidays and Tet, braised sardines are also considered a very practical gift for many people as well as for tourists when they have the opportunity to set foot here.
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