The Đoan Ngọ Festival, also known as the Insect-Slaying Festival, has arrived with its interesting customs of the Vietnamese people. In addition, there are familiar dishes that you must try on this day. Let’s explore these delicious dishes with Cooking Tips!
1. Tro Cake (Tro Steamed Cake)
With glutinous rice soaked in lye water (burnt from various dry plants), tro cake thus has a very unique aroma, unlike other types of steamed cakes.
Tro cake has a small triangular shape, wrapped in a layer of bamboo leaves or banana leaves and steamed until soft. The cake is a blend of lye-soaked glutinous rice and sweet green beans, rich and fatty, extremely enticing. Besides the filled version, tro cake is sometimes made without filling and is dipped in molasses, bringing an indescribable sweetness and deliciousness.
2. Duck meat
In Central Vietnam, it is not without reason that duck meat is favored on the Tết Đoan Ngọ holiday. They not only have a cooling property, helping the body to relieve heat, becoming cooler on the sweltering early summer days. Additionally, from the beginning of May onwards, ducks are in season, so their meat will be fattier, more fragrant, and firmer.
Not just one, you can prepare duck in hundreds of delicious dishes. Roasted duck with crispy skin and irresistible aroma. Duck porridge is sweet and fragrant with tender, chewy duck meat. Duck noodle soup, duck cooked with fermented tofu, or bamboo shoot duck noodle are also very delicious duck dishes that you should try to make!
3. Fermented sticky rice
Typically, fermented rice will be eaten first thing in the early morning when you just wake up on the Tết Đoan Ngọ holiday. People believe that in our stomachs there are types of bacteria that sour and astringent foods can eliminate, so fermented sticky rice is the top priority.
Fermented sticky rice is a mixture of whole sticky rice that has been steamed into glutinous rice, then sprinkled with a layer of yeast and fermented for three days. The basket of fermented glutinous rice is placed on a basin to catch the rice wine, so when eaten, it is mixed with it, creating a sweet and pleasantly spicy flavor. Whether young or old, this is a dish that is easy to eat thanks to its light sweetness and irresistible mild sourness.
4. Sticky rice dumplings
This dish is simple yet very special, sticky rice dumplings are loved and featured in many important occasions throughout the year such as the 23rd of December sending Mr. Tao to Heaven, Hàn Thực Festival,… Therefore, during the Đoan Ngọ Festival, this delicious sticky rice dumpling is a must-have dish.
The round dumplings, evenly shaped, come in a variety of beautiful colors. Inside, they are filled with sweet mung bean paste, combined with fragrant sugar and rich coconut milk. Just thinking about it makes you want to eat a bowl right away, doesn’t it!
5. Fruits
On every holiday, Vietnamese people always have a beautifully arranged fruit tray, consisting of the best seasonal fruits.
Not only are they visually appealing due to harmonious colors, but the taste of early-season fruits like: plums, lychees, mangoes, rambutan, and watermelons… is also delicious. People always hope that diseases will be eliminated, and fruits will thrive and flourish.
To make the Tet Doan Ngo celebration more complete, remember to try some delicious dishes for their flavor and the significance they bring!
