As one of the largest tourist areas in Vietnam, the Mekong Delta is blessed with rich nature and certainly abundant ingredients to create top specialties in the culinary treasure trove of Vietnam. What makes this area different from the tourist destinations in the Northwest, areas surrounding Hanoi, or the Central Highlands is the Mekong floating season. During this time, the Mekong River region is flooded with loads of aquatic products and thanks to this typical natural phenomenon, this area has several famous Mekong floating season dishes.
When it comes to the floating season of Mekong, everyone immediately thinks of Linh fish. This is the kind of fish that comes from the upstream of the Mekong.
At the beginning of the floating season, the Linh fish are still small, so people call them the young Linh fish. They are still not fully developed, therefore, the bones are softer, and the belly has more fat, which makes them very suitable to be braised with coconut water or pepper. For fish of bigger size, they are cooked with wild vegetables or used to make sesbania sour soup, fried dishes, and braised dishes.
The dish of ling fish dipped in Sesbania vinegar is highly recommended for tourists. The fish does not need to be scaled, just put it in a bamboo basket and lightly rub it, then remove the intestines and marinate with a little salt, sugar, MSG, pepper, and minced garlic. The vinegar must be homemade vinegar with a special sour taste. the best Linh fish dishes often come from riverside leaf huts of the locals.
A vivid scene of the Mekong Delta during flood season is the bright yellow color of canals and riverbanks; this is the color of the Sesbania flowers. There are many ways to prepare Sesbania flowers. You can stir-fry them with garlic put them in s pot of sour Linh fish soup or use them to make stir-fried shrimp, fish noodles, etc.
Besides the familiar dishes of Sesbania flower hot pot or Sesbania flower sour soup, Sesbania flower pancake is one of the strange dishes in the Mekong during the floating season not to be missed.
Banh xeo (Vietnamese pancake) with sesbania flower is a combination of many harmonious flavors including the sour and spicy of the dipping sauce, the sweetness of the shrimp and meat, the crispiness of the crust, the sesbania flower and the buttery taste of the onion fat. The cake is eaten with vegetables from the home garden such as Polyscias fruticosa shoots, mango shoots, cashew shoots, apricot leaves, etc.
Water lily is attractive because of its crunchiness and mild taste. If you eat it directly, you will feel the freshness in your throat along with a little sweetness and a little buttery taste. Along with the Sesbania flower, the water lily is also a factor that gives a good taste to hot pots. Just dip it in when the water is boiling, the water lily will soften but still retain its crunchiness, along with the aroma that spreads in each ingredient, all giving the dish a perfect combination of taste, smell, and look.
Water lily is used to make many delicious dishes and the most famous is braised water lily with fish sauce. Braised fish sauce water lily is a wonderful combination of regional vegetables that grow in muddy lowlands and various types of Linh fish sauce.
The rising water season is also the season of the wild celery. Each bunch of delicious wild celery is placed in a large bowl, filled with clean water, and soaked for about an hour to make it easier to wash. When eating, people put them on a large plate and cut off the roots to make them more appealing. Then they roll them and dip them in braised fish sauce, braised meat sauce, etc.
The field crabs are usually used as a side dish after meals. Crab bodies are often used to cook soup, hot pot, or vermicelli noodles while the crab claws are big, sturdy, and firm, and the meat can be prepared by steaming with lemongrass, boiling, or roasting with salt.
Vole meat is very popular because it is a clean food source as the main food of this species is agricultural products and young grass. The vole can be used to make different dishes such as voles cooked in sour soup, braised voles, grilled voles with chao, stir-fried voles with way leaves, custard apple leaves, lemongrass, chile and grilled voles in a pot.
The voles are cleaned and marinated with spices, then put in a pot and roasted until golden brown. The meat is then added with fat and seasoning and served with cucumber and laksa leaves dipped in salt and chili.
Although it is a rustic dish, grilled snakehead fish is a dish that cannot be ignored in the top Mekong dishes in the floating season.
In addition to the famous snakehead fish sour soup, this ingredient can be grilled in a rustic style with a strong countryside flavor. After the fish is cleaned, it will be skewered on a bamboo stick, stuck in the ground, covered with straw, and burned. The dish is best served with rice paper rolls, accompanied by herbs, green bananas, cucumbers, star fruit, and dipped in tamarind fish sauce.
This fish is about the size of 3-4 fingers, very delicious, and can be cooked in many dishes. The most typical are grilled, fried, braised with fish sauce, cooked with water lily soup, or braised with young gourds. In the Mekong Delta, almost every restaurant has this dish because it is the signature of the region.
Delicious snake dishes such as crispy fried, green bean porridge, stir-fried with lemongrass and chili, grilled, stewed with lemongrass, salad, and hot pot... are also unforgettable specialties. The most famous is perhaps the dried snake dish.
Usually, dried snakes are enjoyed by tourists on the spot by grilling over a charcoal fire. The fire is moderate, the heat will cook the meat both inside and out, releasing a naturally sweet aroma.
Besides snakes, eel is also a famous reptile dish in the Mekong Delta during the floating season. According to Oriental medicine, eel meat has the effect of nourishing blood, treating malnutrition, improving health, etc.
The eel will be used to make many delicious dishes such as grilled eel, stir-fried eel with lemongrass and chili, eel in sour soup, eel in porridge,... and especially eel with coriander. The hot eel is served with rice vermicelli or hot rice.
The fat, firm snails are soaked in rice water overnight to remove mud and rinsed with water. Then they will be marinated with ground pepper, raw pepper, fish sauce, MSG, and sugar for about 10 minutes to absorb the spices, then grill on a charcoal stove for about 3-5 minutes. The sweetness of snail meat blended with the sour, spicy lemon fish sauce and especially the special flavor of pepper will make the special dish of the Mekong flood season irresistible.
When traveling to the Mekong Delta, visitors must definitely try all these Mekong specialties in the floating season.
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