Vietnamese New Year Food – TOP Traditional Food For New Year Days

October 28, 2019 GoAsiaDayTrip 0 Comments

Vietnamese people consider that on Tet holiday, everything should be prepared well, early, and newly. Therefore, about 2 weeks before Tet, families start preparing their home and shopping. They usually clean and decorate the house with flowers, shopping for food … carefully to welcome Tet. In addition, all unnecessary items or the ones which are believed to bring bad luck will be discarded as well. One of the most important activities in the New Year is preparing traditional food to worship the ancestors, invite the guests, and eat in the first 3 New Year days.

1. Banh Chung – Sticky Rice Cake (Or Chung Cake):

The first and also the best traditional Vietnamese New Year food I want to introduce in this article is sticky rice cake or Chung Cake. Chung Cake is the spirit of the Vietnamese New Year days, expressing the essence of the heaven and the earth through the skillful hands of humans. On Tet, it is indispensable that the ancestor altar in the North has a pair of green Chung Cake. Nowadays, due to the social development, it is hard to find out a family who packs and boils Chung Cake by themselves, but people who buy Chung Cake for Tet will definitely choose the cakes made from the best ingredients. It should be made from the most fragrant glutinous rice for better “longevity”. The stuffing of Chung Cake usually contains pork, masticated green bean, dried onion, and pepper. The cakes need to be wrapped tightly and carefully, boiled for about 14 hours, taken out, soaked in water and squeezed using a heavy plank. Therefore, when Chung Cake is cut, it will be limber but not flabby, just fleshy and fragrant.

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2. Dua Hanh – Pickled Onions:

Pickled onions are often used as a side dish coming along with Chung Cake or fatty dishes (frozen meat, Chinese braised meat, boiled meat) for reducing the greasiness. The sweetness, sourness, slight spiciness of pickled onions will help to improve the flavor of the dishes as well as to help the body digest food easier.

First of all, you need to look for old onions with firm bulbs, only use the bulbs. Then, soak the onions in water mixed with borax and ash in 2 days and 2 nights. Next, take out the onions, cut off the roots, peel them (keep just about 5cm), then put them into a large jar, and cover them with salt, putting a thin layer of chopped cane above, then seal them with the layers of bamboo grates. After 2 weeks, you can get the onion bulbs out, soak them in sugar and vinegar, leaving them 3 days for being edible.

3. Gio Nac, Gio Thu – Meat Pie, Pork Head Ham:

For Vietnamese people, the New Year feast from past to present must contains meat pie – one of the most delicious and indispensable Vietnamese New Year dish.

Meat pie (Gio) made from finely milled meat in a stone mortar, wrapped in banana leaves into the tube shape, then boiled, or better, steamed. Meat pie is white, presented on the plate. It must to be well-cut in order to look “neat”, nice, and easy to pick up. Gio is usually made of pork. There is also Gio Bo (beef pie) made from finely milled beef.

Meat pie made from the meat of a pig’s head is called pork head ham (Gio Thu). For making pork head ham, pig’s ears and head meat are not milled but diced, mixed with wood ear (black mushroom), fish sauce, pepper, and stir fried (fried in a pan, and stir them well on low heat). Then, wrap the pies in fresh banana leaves, tie it carefully, and boil or steam them. When the meat pies are well-cooked, take them out and then press them using 4 bamboo sticks, tie them well, and hang them above the stove.

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4. Thit Dong – Frozen Meat:

Frozen meat is a particular dish in the winter-spring period of the Northern Vietnam. In the cold weather, frozen meat becomes tastier. This dish is made from meat mixed, sometimes from chicken, plus an array of pork skin. All ingredients are well-simmered. After the ingredients are cooked, the meat pot will be taken out from the heat, covered, frozen thanks to the essence of the land, the sky, the cold wind, and the dew to become a wonderful dish. On the surface of the frozen meat pot, we can see a layer of fat in white as snow mixed with the smooth yellow as a peaceful lake. A piece of frozen meat served with a pickled onion make the true Northern Tet.