Young dracontomelon fruit saves summer

Water spinach brings a miraculous sour and cooling taste that everyone is mesmerized by. Hot sun makes the body sluggish, seeing meat and fish is "shocking to the neck", so the highlight of the May meal is a bowl of water spinach soup with water spinach. Water spinach is a "national" vegetable in the summer, grown in ponds and rivers, with crispy flesh and bright green leaves.

Boiling water spinach so that the plate of vegetables is lush green, not black or reddish-brown due to overheating, eating it crispy, seems to be a daily task. After the vegetables are cooked, take them out and then beat the dracontomelon to avoid the sour and astringent substances in the dracontomelon will destroy the chlorophyll of the vegetables, causing water spinach to turn dark.

Peel the ambarella to remove the astringence, then use a knife to cut a circular line. Boil vegetable water, then add ambarella, cook together for a few minutes until ambarella is cooked. Then, use a broth to mash ambarella, thanks to the cutting, the ambarella seeds are quickly removed. When the ambarella meat dissolves in the water, the color of the water spinach soup gradually changes from dark green to pale yellow, with ambarella meat pieces hanging.

Add a little seasoning or seasoning powder to make it flavorful, and you have a very effective cooling soup. When entering the tray, everyone scoops a bowl of ambarella soup to sip until the neck is smooth, both quenching thirst and dispelling the feeling of loss of appetite. Many families also add ice to the soup bowl to increase coolness.

Therefore, summer meals do not need anything elaborate, a large plate of crispy green boiled water spinach, a large bowl of crocodile soup - reminiscent of the "ocean soup" image of the collective kitchen in the old days - add a plate of boiled or crispy fried tofu eat with water spinach or a plate of stir-fried shrimp with star fruit, and you are satisfied.

I remember in Hung Yen when the dracontomelon season had just begun, young dracontomelon fruits with very soft seeds were cooked into soup with spring rolls. It was simply boiling water, adding young dracontomelon, using a spoon to beat dracontomelon until dissolved and then removing the seeds, then adding large pieces of spring rolls the size of a finger, ripe spring rolls floating up looking like white ducks, then adding chopped scallions, seasoning to taste, and that's it.

That bowl of young dracontomelon soup cooked with spring rolls is simple but very beautiful. The sour taste of the soup combined with the crispy sweetness of the spring rolls creates a very timeless flavor, only available during young dracontomelon. In other places, people use tenderloin to cook with dracontomelon, instead of spring rolls. But the bowl of spring roll soup is more beautiful because of the lightness of the spring rolls, standing prominently next to fresh green scallion pieces.

Speaking of the image of white ducks swimming in the bowl of soup above, I remember that dracontomelon and duck are also a perfect pair. Duck stewed with dracontomelon is a simple delicious dish but also very popular in the summer. The light sweetness of the duck meat combined with the sourness of dracontomelon, how can it make people "unconscious"?

Sấu is so suitable for ducks that people cannot cook ducks with any other sour things, although besides sấu, there are also tamarind, dọc fruit, star fruit, cơm mẻ... Well, let's just consider them as a pair of taste buds, like cá mè canh must be cooked with dọc, and bung dishes must use cơm mẻ.

Ambarella also makes a famous drink of Hanoi, ambarella juice. The ambarella fruit is just sour, peeled, and then gently cut in a snail-shaped motion with a betel nut knife. Her skillful fingers make a sharp knife line, turning the ambarella fruit into a round strip, embracing the ambarella seeds without missing any flesh.

Soak dracontomelon in cold water mixed with a little alum to make dracontomelon white and not dark. Then put a pot of water on the stove, heat until hot, add dracontomelon and stir gently, then pour it out immediately before it is cooked soft. Blanch sugar (ratio 1-1 for dracontomelon) with a little fine salt, crushed old ginger and a little water to rinse thoroughly. Wait for the sugar to cool, then put dracontomelon in and steep in the sugar water overnight to use.

When drinking, scoop the ambarella in a glass cup, add water and ice, and she has a delicious refreshing drink to treat guests. Therefore, every ambarella season, Hanoians soak a few large jars of ambarella to use all year round or give each other as a fragrant gift.