People in the imperial capital of Hue are very good at cooking so they have many recipes to create unique and delicious dishes using salt with cereals, vegetables, meat and fish. One of these delicacies is rice served with salt.
Rice served with nine kinds of salt. (Photo: Vietnam Pictorial)
There are up to a dozen kinds of salt, such as muoi tieu (pepper salt), muoi vung (sesame salt), muoi sa (lemongrass salt), muoi rieng (galingale salt), muoi tom (shrimp salt) and muoi thit heo (pork salt). The dish is imbued with the culinary art of Hue and is a favourite of both the poor and the rich.
People are finicky about processing the different kinds of salt by frying, steaming and braising. It depends on the processing methods to create the distinctive colours and tastes of each kind of salt.
Previously, only special guests were given a feast of rice with different kinds of salt and the dishes were placed on small, antique plates or bowls that looked eye-catching and smart. The rice was cooked from fragrant Nang Huong rice in a small earthen pot.
When enjoying the dish, it is necessary to chew slowly to enhance the fragrance of the rice and the salty, peppery, sweet, greasy taste of different kinds of salt.
At present, some cooks make the effort to search and preserve recipes to make the dish with the hope of preserving a culinary feature of Hue. For this reason, visitors to Hue will have a chance to enjoy this delicacy.
