Island hotpot: A tasty dish in Mekong Delta

Updated: 08:21, 02/09/2022

Visitors to the Mekong Delta region often rave about the rich and tasty hotpots, with ‘lau cu lao’ (island hotpot) being a particular favourite.

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The hotpot is loved not only for its tasty, aromatic flavour but also its colourful decoration.

The hotpot is loved not only for its tasty, aromatic flavour but also its colourful decoration.

Different from hotpots in the north, the dish here includes more ingredients. They include pig’s heart, liver and marrow, grilled ‘that lat’ fish (a kind of fragrant and sweet fish from the region), duck egg, a piece of dried pork skin, dried squid, dried shrimp, pork paste, cabbage, carrot, cassava, white radish, coriander, salt, sugar, pepper, broth, quality Phu Quoc fish sauce and chili.

To make the dish, you first clean the bones, parboil them and pour the water out before pouring two litres of water into the pot and continue to cook for two hours.

When the broth is finished, dried shrimp, squid and white radish are added, then salt, sugar, and broth mix.

The pig's heart and liver is chopped into thin slices then parboiled. It is mixed with the fish paste and fresh onion, pepper, and fish sauce. The duck egg is stirred then fried, covered with fish paste, rolled it and cut it into thin threads after steaming.

We should soak the dried pig skin for an hour, then add ginger before frying. The next step is to parboil the cabbage and fresh onion, spread pork paste on the cabbage and roll it, using the parboiled onion to tie it before steaming it for 10 minutes.

The last step is to put all ingredients into the pot and wait until it boils. The hotpot is enjoyed with vermicelli or noodles.

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