Tasty traditional delicacies for Tet holiday
|  | | Hands on: Anh Tuyet teaches a foreign couple how to make summer rolls, a traditional dish in Viet Nam. | | |  | | Feels like home: The small restaurant is an attractive destination for many domestic and foreign diners. — VNS Photos Duong Linh | | | | Anh Tuyet Restaurant Add: 22-25 Ma May, Ha Noi Price: VND1,600,000-2,000,000 (US$85-120) Tel: 04.38258705 Fax: 04. 39263589 Website: www.anhtuyet.com.vn Comment: Dishes are quiet expensive but it is chance for you to taste traditional dishes during Tet holidays. | |
Anh Tuyet, who is both the owner and namesake of her restaurant, takes pride in serving Tet meals in the proper fashion.
by Thu Giang & Duong Linh
No large restaurant sign and nowhere to park. From the outside, it appears to be a regular Hanoian house, disguising the fact that inside, a treasure of traditional delicacies are served.
The restaurant owner is Hanoian by birth. She says she is not a skilful cook but believes that cooking is one of the attributes of an ideal woman.
For that very reason, she opened a restaurant in her own name, Anh Tuyet, with the aim of preserving the cultural character of traditional delicacies and training budding chefs.
Tuyet is an expert at making the capital's traditional dishes including nem (spring roll), ca qua cuon thit (minced pork wrapped in fillet of snake-head fish), che kho (soft green-lentil cake) and gio luoi tai (paste of lean pork, ear and tongue).
Tuyet says Hanoians are connoisseurs of food. They have a refined manner and attitude towards eating. They try dishes for the taste rather than to fill them up so each meal consists of many different small dishes.
Hanoians usually eat traditional dishes on a seasonal basis. In the cold run up to Tet, braised black carp, gelatine and soup of dried pig skin are indispensable.
"Each dish is prepared in it's own special way and has a unique taste, created by fragrant spices," says Tuyet.
The ancestral offerings made during the Tet holiday are to commemorate the dead with the deepest respect so they should be carefully prepared.
Tuyet says Hanoians are naturally divided into two groups. The rich families always make a tray of six bowls and eight plates, while the remainder make a tray of four bowls and six plates.
A variety of soups are prepared such as pig's trotters stewed with bamboo shoots, meat-pie soup, dried pig skin soup, vermicelli and cassava soup, mushroom soup and chicken and lotus seed soup. Meanwhile, dishes including boiled chicken dipped in salt and lemon, cinnamon roasted pork, lean pork paste, square glutinous rice cake, pickled onions, salted duck eggs and kohlrabi or pine-apple fried with cuttle-fish or chicken organs are also served.
Tuyet began cooking when she was nine-years-old. She was taught the art of cooking by her grandmother who was very serious and a good cook. "My grandmother carefully coached me domestic skills of which cooking was seen as the most important thing."
When Tuyet grew up, she learned her trade working for Trang Tien Grocery. At a dinner party with friends in 1986, Tuyet treated them to a dish of honey roasted chicken. Her friends thought it was so delicious, they said she should open her own restaurant.
"It was at the time the country began its open-door policy – allowing people to develop private businesses. I decided to open a restaurant from my parents' house in Nguyen Huu Huan Street," says Tuyet.
In 2001, Tuyet took part in a cooking exhibition at the Horison Hotel and won first prize. Her career in cooking has developed since then. Many domestic and foreign clients have visited her restaurant. They not only want to taste her traditional dishes but also learn how to cook them.
"Clients from the US and Australia always go for the meat roll and honey roasted chicken, while Japanese visitors want to eat and learn how to make traditional dishes such as square glutinous rice cake and soups of dried pig skin and mushroom," says Tuyet.
Apart from serving delicious food, over the years Tuyet has taught many foreigners how to cook traditional dishes. Profits are not everything to her. She likes to help foreigners gain a comprehensive understanding of the Vietnamese people through traditional dishes.
"After I got married, I was coached by my mother-in-law in Ma May, which is regarded as one of the most ancient streets in the city.
Tuyet says in the past, the elderly always taught that a capable girl would recognise the best produce on a market stall at a glance. "In the basket of a capable and clever woman, material for cooking is seldom but to the point."
She says a good bowl of dried pig skin soup will give people the sweet taste of chicken broth combined with the scent of the dried prawns that are used to make it.
The dish of braised fish, which is on the everyday menu of families in Ha Noi, is prepared with much attention to detail by Tuyet. The fish is cooked with galingale, lemongrass and red pepper. It is added to with green-tea juice, coconut milk and chicken fat.
Tuyet says the year-end feast dishes are always put in slender-waisted bowls and apricot-printed plates, smaller than the usual everyday crockery. These are placed on a red wooden tray trimmed with gold.
"After the cooking is finished, the dishes are put on display on the tray and placed on the ancestral altar. Then incense is burned to invite the ancestors to enjoy the food," says Tuyet.
Tuyet says after the incense burns out, people start the feast, finishing with soft green-lentil cake or glutinous rice cooked with ginger and sugar for dessert.
"I regret that there are not many young people who can prepare a tray of traditional dishes for Tet in the correct way. It is a pity," says Tuyet.
"My secret of making desirable dishes is to put my heart and soul into my cooking. Each dish has its own taste. When you understand a dish clearly, I am sure you will love it and be able to make it too." — VNS