Mai Chau Cuisine
Mai Chau cuisine is always the ideal choice for those who love traditional Thai cuisine. With its rich cultural identity and diversity of local dishes, Mai Chau cuisine has attracted the attention of many tourists around the world. Let’s explore with Ula Travel immediately top 10 outstanding dishes of Mai Chau cuisine.
Read more: Mai Chau- 1 of the Most Famous Destinations in the North
1. Upland sticky rice in Mai Chau cuisine
Upland sticky rice, a symbol of Mai Chau cuisine, is carefully prepared from plump and shiny rice grains, seductive with a characteristic aroma. This dish is not only the pride of the Mai Chau people but also a must-see destination for tourists.
Upland sticky rice
Upland sticky rice is a popular rice replacement dish in the Mai Chau cuisine. When visiting Mai Chau, visitors should not miss the opportunity to enjoy sticky rice cooked by Thai housewives to fully understand the delicious taste. Thai upland sticky rice is grown on terraced fields, bringing a special flavor. Cooking delicious sticky rice requires many elaborate steps.
Before cooking, sticky rice is soaked overnight to soften. After that, the rice is washed and poured into wooden baskets placed on the stove to dry. Steam slowly cooks each grain of rice.
When the sticky rice is cooked, the aroma of rice spreads throughout the space. Rice grains are round and shiny, mesmerizing the eye. Sticky rice is often enjoyed with grilled dishes such as hill chicken, stream fish, or banh mi. However, the best taste is still when combined with rich sesame salt, recreating the typical flavor of the Northwest mountains and forests.
2. Young wild bees stir-fried with sour bamboo shoots in Mai Chau cuisine
Two specialties of Mai Chau cuisine that cannot be ignored are young wild bees and sour bamboo shoots. The combination of these two specialties creates a very unique dish of young wild bee and bamboo shoots.
At the end of summer, Mai Chau people often bring young wild bees stir-fried with sour bamboo shoots. The rich aroma of young bees and the crunchy, spicy, and sour taste of wild bamboo shoots are extremely stimulating to the taste buds.
Young wild bees stir-fried with sour bamboo shoots
Visitors can easily enjoy the fatty taste of pupae, the sour taste of bamboo shoots, and the spicy taste of chili thanks to easy preparation. In particular, this meal is very beneficial for health, helping the eater have smooth skin and a youthful appearance. Visitors can come to Mai Chau in the summer to enjoy this unique dish and enjoy it at local households.
3. Pa Pinh Top grilled stream fish in Mai Chau cuisine
Pa Pinh Top grilled stream fish is also a specialty dish of Mai Chau cuisine that you should not miss during your trip to Hoa Binh, Northwest. Most of the streams in Mai Chau converge on the dreamy and majestic Da River. The types of river and stream fish in Mai Chau are very diverse because the fresh natural environment is favorable for the growth of plants and animals.
Pa Pinh Top grilled stream fish
To make the specialty Pa Pinh Top grilled stream fish, the fish selected must be fresh, not too big or too small. The fish is cleaned and marinated with some typical local spices, then taken on a skewer and clamped onto 2 bamboo sticks.
Once grilled, it must be grilled over charcoal to get the right taste. Turn the fish over until it is golden brown and fragrant, then add salt and wrap it in a banana leaf to take away. When eaten, fish has the aroma of bamboo and banana leaves, typical of rural dishes, which is very attractive.
4. Mac Khen grilled hill chicken in Mai Chau cuisine
Mac Khen grilled hill chicken is one of the famous dishes of Mai Chau cuisine known to many people. Why is the grilled chicken dish so famous? The main reason is that the ingredients that create this special dish cannot be found anywhere outside the Northwest.
Hill chicken combined with Mac Khen seeds, also known as “wild pepper,” has a strong Northwest flavor with the sweetness of Hill chicken, the spicy, numbing taste of Mac Khen, and the enchanting aroma of grilled meat.
Mac Khen grilled hill chicken
The chicken is fragrant, with the smell of Mac Khen and herbs. The chicken is cooked with steam and heat, and the juices from the chicken keep spinning around in the package, not escaping. Grilled chicken is left whole, so whoever eats it can tear it up and pick it up to eat it with the right taste. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty with this grilled chicken dish; just pick it up and eat it; it’s the most rustic and authentic.
5. Buffalo meat with Lom leaves in Mai Chau cuisine
Buffalo meat with lom leaves
Buffalo meat with Lom leaves is an extremely different dish of Mai Chau cuisine. Lom leaves grow wild a lot in mountainous areas. Lom leaves belong to the vine family with a very characteristic white latex, so you can easily identify them if you are gradually familiar with the terrain and nature of the Northwest.
In terms of flavor, Lom leaves have a very interesting, mild, and sour taste. It is for this reason that, when combined with some other foods, Lom leaves create a very special feeling.
Normally, Lom leaves are often used by Northwest people to cook soup or stir-fry with all kinds of meat, most notably buffalo meat. You should enjoy buffalo meat with lom leaves while it is still hot. The tender buffalo meat and the delicate sourness of the bamboo leaves really create a very special dish.
6. Meat-wrapped pomelo leaf in Mai Chau cuisine
Meat-wrapped pomelo leaf is also a Hoa Binh specialty dish created by the Muong ethnic people. Many visitors will be surprised to see a dish made with grapefruit, but when enjoying it, they will never forget the delicious and unique flavor of this dish.
Meat-wrapped pomelo leaf
In Hoa Binh, when mentioning grapefruit, it refers to the specialty meat-wrapped pomelo leaf of this Northwest region. The grapefruit leaves chosen to roll the rolls are young grapefruit leaves, and these must be sour grapefruit leaves to have the characteristic aroma of this dish.
The pork used to make patties is pork belly, which is both lean and fatty. When grilled, the fat melts out and blends into the meat, making it very fragrant and delicious. Pick the grapefruit leaves, wash them, mince or grind the pork, then mix it with onions, doi seeds, sesame seeds, herbs, season with fish sauce, leave for a while to absorb the spices, then roll in the grapefruit leaves. Pierce with a toothpick to secure.
After rolling the rolls, the grapefruit leaves are clamped onto a bamboo grill and grilled on a charcoal stove. When grilling the rolls, pay attention to turning them so that the grapefruit leaves don’t burn. When they turn gray, the attractive meat-wrapped pomelo leaf in Hoa Binh can be enjoyed on a plate.
Enjoy the strong, spicy aroma of grapefruit leaves, the sweetness of meat, and the richness of spices. Grilled pork patties dipped in chili salt or grilled guava seeds are the standard of Mai Chau cuisine.
7. Mai Chau bamboo worm in Mai Chau cuisine
Bamboo worms are a specialty of Mai Chau cuisine that is not for everyone. Bamboo worms are a meal that can leave people speechless. This is a seasonal item. Bamboo worms are only found in young bamboo trees from October to December of the lunar calendar. Bamboo worms have a milky white body that is shiny, as big as a chopstick head, and about two knuckles long.
Mai Chau bamboo worm
Bamboo worms can be used to prepare stir-fried dishes, fry, chop, and even make soup. The fatty taste mixed with spices and marinade makes the bamboo worm dish even more rich and attractive.
8. Boiled roasted piglet in Mai Chau cuisine
Boiled roasted piglet is also a famous specialty in Mai Chau cuisine. Many people also call this an armpit pig dish that is raised very specifically and carefully. These pigs will be free to roam in the natural environment, so the meat is very firm without being greasy. Each pig is only about 10–15 kg.
Boiled roasted piglet
Before boiling, the pig will be rubbed. People will then cut off the best parts of the meat to boil. After being boiled, the meat is hot, and the skin has an eye-catching cockroach yellow color. The flesh is a light pink, delicious, and very sweet. You will enjoy this boiled meat dish with salt mixed with guava seeds, typical of the region. The taste is spicy, but extremely delicious.
9. Man taro root in Mai Chau cuisine
Man taro root
Another beloved specialty of Mai Chau cuisine that many tourists enjoy is the Man taro root. Man taro root is not unique to Mai Chau, but the taro grown here is characterized by being larger, more tender, and more fragrant than other varieties found elsewhere.
When tasting the Man taro root soup, tourists will experience a distinctively delicious, sweet, soft, and slightly nutty flavor. Particularly, the taro root from Mai Chau- Hoa Binh, even in a batch of ten roots, remains uniformly succulent, without any fibrous texture, so those who have tasted it never fail to praise its deliciousness.
10. Mai Ha Liquor in Mai Chau cuisine
Mai Ha liquor is a specialty of Mai Chau cuisine distilled from leaf fermentation without any additional ingredients mixed in, apart from blending the initial and final alcohol solutions.
It is potent, poured into porcelain dishes, and lit ablaze with a blue flame like ethanol. For those accustomed to the strength and fermentation of foreign liquors, this one may sear the throat with its intensity; however, it is primarily used for medicinal soaking and is highly effective.
Mai Ha Liquor
The Mai Ha liquor is so pure that it cannot be any purer. With just a gentle shake, the alcohol clings tightly to the neck of the bottle, reluctant to dissolve for a while. Without needing to bring the wine cup to the lips, the fragrance of the liquor already permeates the air.
The scent of Mai Ha liquor dissipates in the spacious atmosphere of the stilt house, its aroma teasing the olfactory senses. When deeply inhaled into the lungs, one feels fulfilled and intoxicated by the fragrance of the forest and the earth. Even before drinking, one feels intoxicated by the hospitality of the Mai Ha people.
