Copper perch soup is a rustic highlight in the colorful picture of the cuisine of the Longan region. A bowl of hot perch soup, steaming up in the air, in the cold of winter always reminds people of the homeland for children living abroad.
When arriving in Hung Yen, what makes it easy for visitors to recognize is the presence of restaurants selling perch soup whose flavor has a special appeal, such as inviting diners to come and enjoy. . In the taste of rural cuisine in the Northern Delta, dishes from perch are always easy to eat and have a strange appeal. “Nhat per, second, and tam trach” is a saying that the ancients used to appreciate the nutritional value of the field perch next to crabs, snails, shrimps, and roaches.
Perch soup is a simple, rustic dish, made from very simple ingredients that are products of the countryside such as perch, vegetables, rice... That's the taste of fried fish with fried onions, rich broth, the smell of dill, scallions, and then in every season, sometimes add spinach in the hot season, sometimes add celery or chrysanthemum in the cold season.
To cook a delicious bowl of soup, you need to choose the plump yellow perch with sharp fins. The fish is marinated to absorb the spices, then put on the charcoal grill for aroma and cooked, so that the outer shell has just tightened, the fish inside is just cooked, then remove from the grid and stir-fry. Pieces of perch eat more sweet when marinated, need to add fresh turmeric to create a golden color for the soup bowl, turmeric also helps to remove fishy and firm pieces of fish. The head and backbone of the fish are simmered to get a clear and sweet broth.
Rice paper to make fish soup made from delicious rice, not too sticky or too dry. Rice flour must not be soaked, grind a few times until it is smooth with rain or filtered water. Scoop the powdered water up, it feels smooth to the touch, cool to the touch, looks like a pure white silk. The rice paper must be fully cooked, thin, can be sliced large or small, dried or dried, depending on the customer's request. The same fish, the same vegetables, the same amount of spices, but without the rice paper, the perch soup has not been a specialty. These white bread strands are not easy to find in big cities, nor are they found in restaurants and hotels, only in rural markets, and are as cheap as a popular food.
Consisting of only a few simple ingredients that are easy to find, but with a harmonious combination, copper perch soup becomes a cultural beauty in the cuisine of Hung Yen people. All the flavors mixed together are enough to awaken the taste buds of diners, so that no one can refuse to sit at the table, order a bowl of fish soup and listen to the everyday stories of everyone in the restaurant. Then suddenly realized that life around me was simple and peaceful, far from the hustle and bustle in the city.
The sweet aroma from the broth, the fish meat, the rice cake, the coolness of the spices, creates an unusually frugal taste. Imagine a bowl of hot soup with the white color of rice paper, the bright yellow color of fried fish, the tiny amount of fish roe, the cool green of dill, or vegetables and celery, all mixed in a bowl of clear golden broth. Looks like a painting, very attractive.
