The smell of Mam is strong, even quite difficult to eat, but it is also an addictive smell, and addiction is difficult to quit. If it is prepared as well as U Minh Mam (fermented fish) Hotpot, it is like a drug that stimulates the sense of smell, taste, sight and touch. All senses will be numbed to go on the path of discovering typical Ca Mau cuisine.
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | All Best Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau
1. Better to Know as a Food Lover
Find them: Ca Mau city.
Best time: Dusk-Dawn
Don’t miss: U Minh Fermented Fish Hotpot
Local’s pick: U Minh Fermented Fish Hotpot restaurant
Tourist’s pick: Restaurant in Ca Mau
Blog: https://vemekong.com/u-minh-fermented-fish-hotpot-ca-mau/
Facts: The smell of Mam is not easy to eat, but once you eat it, you will only forget to die. It is like U Minh’s Mam hot pot, once eaten you will remember it forever, as deep as first love.
2. Better to Know U Minh Fermented Fish Hotpot
Mam hot pot in general is inherently a characteristic of the Mekong Delta, so it is not surprising that U Minh hot pot is so famous that it is considered a trademark of Ca Mau Cuisine. Not the type of eating according to the brand, but U Minh sauce is really special. It is a treasure trove of specialties from the popular to the rare, the talented combination of the culinary hands. Because just counting the raw materials, the U Minh Mam hot pot has exceeded 10 numbers. Any Mam, snakehead fish, eel, shrimp, water lily. As for the recipe, it’s sophisticated, measuring every spice.
Going back to Ca Mau, eating grilled snakehead fish and Ca Mau crab without trying U Minh Fish Hot Pot is not a complete trip. Knowing that how delicious the Mam hot pot is, how special it is. It is also true that people are careful in every process. When cooking hot pot, you must definitely choose Ca Linh Mam to make the broth very fragrant. According to the experience of the fisherman, although the Ca Linh fish has many bones, the meat is quite fragrant.
3. U Minh Fermented Fish Hotpot in Ca Mau
Different from other types of hot pot, Mam hotpot only needs Mam that has been cooked to disintegrate the meat, remove the small bones and season with spices. Choose monosodium glutamate, sugar or use the secret of replacing sugar with cow’s milk to make the water fragrant, fat, and thick. And of course, we can’t forget the minced fragrant lemongrass.
The water is done, now it’s time to prepare the hot pot dipping material. Almost all kinds of country seafood are included in this dish. Fatty field eels, firm snakehead fish or gizzard perch are cleaned, cut into bite-sized pieces, and displayed on a plate. In addition, there are also crab meat and snails to add more flavor for users to choose from. As for the accompanying vegetables, full convergence of the countryside to the wild of the rich U Minh. The majestic vegetable plate is bitter, acrid, fleshy, and sour as a symbol of the richness of the soil. There will be crunchy water lilies, bitter green cabbage, fragrant coriander leaves, lumpy bananas or young green mango leaves, etc. Add rich fruits and vegetables such as mushrooms, okra, eggplant, etc. And especially, it must have a good name even though there are already 10, 15 types of vegetables above. All will also be neatly and beautifully decorated, evoking stimulation and curiosity in diners.
U Minh Mam hotpot is the dish that best shows the characteristics of Ca Mau cuisine and converges many specialties and products of the cape region. Because it not only conquers all the senses of diners but also exudes a simple and elegant look in the way of enjoyment. The pot of broth is boiling hot under the fire, taking a slice of fish, pinching a handful of vegetables as you like, and then the feeling of breathing and chewing slowly is so enjoyable.
4. How to Make U Minh Fermented Fish Hotpot
Ingredient
100g choke Mam
100g Linh fermented fish
300g basa fish
300g shrimp
300g squid
300g roast pork
300g pork belly
500g fresh vermicelli
200g pineapples
Buffalo horns, purple onions, garlic bulbs, 3 lemongrass plants 500ml coconut water + 1.5 liters of filtered water
1 teaspoon seasoning
2 tablespoons with rock sugar
3 tablespoons cooking oil Water spinach, squash, bitter vegetables, water lily, water hyacinth, spinach, eggplant
Cooking steps
Process materials
Vegetables bought and cleaned: shaved water spinach, water lily, coriander, cut water hyacinth to taste.
Cut eggplant in half and then cut into slices 1-2 cm thick.
Bacon is only washed with salt to remove the fishy smell, then sliced thinly.
Peel the shrimp or leave the shell on as you like.
Cut the squid into pieces about 2-3cm long.
Basa fish is cleaned and cut into slices.
Lemongrass smashed, minced the root, lemongrass leaves cut into pieces.
Minced onion and garlic.
Pineapple cut into slices.
Horny chili peppers, sliced diagonally or trimmed with flowers, are used to season and decorate the hot pot
Pre-boiled seafood
North on the stove 1 liter of water. Wait for the water to boil, add 3 purple onions to make the seafood more fragrant when boiling. In turn, add shrimp, squid, and basa fish and boil briefly. Save the boiling water.
Cooking hot pot with fermented fish
Put 500ml of cold water + 500ml of coconut water + 100g of Linh fermented fish + 100g of choking fermented fish into the pot and turn on the stove to boil. Stir well for the fermented fish to disintegrate, then turn off the heat, use a racket to remove the fish bones. Put the fermented fish in the pot of boiling water in the above step to form a seasoning.
Heat a pan on the stove, add 3 tablespoons of cooking oil and the garlic, lemongrass, and onion mixture until fragrant. Add pork belly and stir-fry together, add a teaspoon of seasoning, stir until the meat is firm.
Pour the seasoning water into the pot. Wait for the water to boil, then put pineapple and lemongrass in. Add 2 teaspoons of rock sugar. Wait for the pineapple to soften, then take it out, put the chopped eggplant in the pot, wait for 2 minutes, then turn off the heat.
Then pour the seasoning water into the hot pot, arrange the accompanying ingredients such as raw vegetables, squid, fish, shrimp, roasted pork, fresh vermicelli and enjoy.
Some note
A delicious fermented fish hot pot requires fresh and clean ingredients. Meat, fish, squid, shrimp are just cooked, not too soft. Therefore, when pre-processing, care should be taken not to overcook the ingredients. The vegetables can be eaten wherever they are for crispy and delicious vegetables. When buying pineapple, you should cut off the eye part so that when you eat it, your tongue won’t burn.
5. Pro tips:
Here are our tips for easing your mind (and stomach) around food-handling environments that you may not be used to.
Make sure the food is freshly cooked. If you’re eating hot street food, it’s always safest (not to mention more delicious) to eat food you can see being cooked to order.
Look for lines and busy stalls. Busy street food stalls are an indicator of popularity, and their high turnover rate means the food is never sitting out for hours and developing dreaded bacteria. Yes, long lines can be discouraging when you’re hungry after a full day of exploring, but it’s not worth the risk of grabbing precooked food from the empty spot next door.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho: Co Ut’s Cong cake, Ut Dzach Fine Rice Vermicelli, Thanh Van Grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Noodle Soup At Floating Market, Scorched Rice with Caramelized Fish Sauce, 7-Toi’s Duck Meat Pancake, Banh Mi Thuy, Banana Blossom Salad, Fried Spring Rolls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Fetal duck egg (balut), Honeycomb Cake, Mini Sticky Rice Cake, Cassava Silkworm Cake, Grilled Banana Wrapped in Sticky Rice, Khmer-style Bun Goi Da Soup, Egg Coffee, Con Son Grilled Snakehead Fish, Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup, Lau Mam – Fermented Fish Hotpot, Grilled Snails with Pepper, Magenta Sticky Rice Cake, Duck cooked with Fermented Tofu, Rice Noodle Pizza, Vegetarian Noodle Soup, Snails Stuffed With Pork…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Chau Doc: Chau Doc Fish Noodle Soup, Sugar Palm Fruit, Basa Fish Hot Pot, Mam (Fermented fish), Phu Huong Beef Noodle Soup, Broken Rice with Pork Chop, Long Xuyen Broken Rice, Nui Cam Pancake, O Thum’s Chicken Grilled with Lime Leaves, Stir-fried Shrimp with Sesbania Flower, Sweet & Sour Soup with Siamese Mud Carp Soup & Sesbania Flower, Caramelized & Braised Catfish, Grilled Rice-field Rat with Salt and Chili…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang: Pia Cake, Cong Cake (Banh Cong), Bun Nuoc Leo Soc Trang’s Noodle Soup, Soc Trang’s Bun Goi Da Soup, Duck Noodle Soup with black Pepper, Curry Noodle Soup, Grilled Beef on Tile, Khmer-style Tube Cake, Khmer-style Mung Bean Cake (Banh In), Dried Radish (Xa Bau), Stir-Fried Noodles with Seafood (Mi Sua), Soc Trang’s Green Rice Flakes…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre: Phu Le Rice Wine, Ben Tre’s Coconut Candy, Flat Banana, Coconut Rice, Snail Pancake, Sea Snail with Coconut Milk, Coconut Worm, Young Coconut Salad with Shrimp & Pork, Son Doc Puff Rice Paper…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Cai Be: Puffed Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Vinh Long: Elephant Ear Fish (fried giant gourami)…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in My Tho: Fried Sticky Rice, Snakehead Fish Rice Porridge, Hu Tieu My Tho (Noodle Soup), Coconut Banana Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Tra Vinh: Macapuno Coconut, Bun Nuoc Leo Tra Vinh’s Noodle Soup, Tra Cuon’s Sticky Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Sadec: Sa Dec Noodle Soup, Sadec Crab Hotpot, Lai Vung Spring Rolls, Sa Giang Shrimp Puff Pastry, Lai Vung Tangerine…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Bac Lieu: Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, Bac Lieu’s Three-striped Crab, White Radish Pies, Bac Lieu Thick Noodles & Creamy Coconut Milk, Bon Bon Pickles…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken), Grilled Vop clams with salt and pepper, Grilled Mudskipper Fish, Stone Crab Roast With Salt, Young Bee Salad, Nam Can’s Crab, U Minh Forest’s Honey, U Minh’s Fermented Fish Hotpot…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Hau Giang: Cau Duc Pineapple, Cai Tac’s Pork Organs Porridge, Hau Giang’s Bronze Featherback Fish Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ha Tien: Herring Fish Salad, Spider crab cake soup, Ken Noodle soup, Xoi Xiem (Siamese sticky rice), Steamed Noodle soup, Ha Tien Oyster porridge…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Rach Gia: Stir Noodle Soup, Kien Giang Fish Noodle Soup…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Con Dao: Bang nut jam, Vu Nang Snail, Roasted Pork Bread (Banh Mi), Coconut Ice Cream…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Phu Quoc: Phu Quoc Sim Wine, Phu Quoc Pepper, Phu Quoc fish sauce…
Hopefully, the above tips will help you to come up with a great plan for your adventure in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Have a safe trip!
“Sleep less, travel more, respect more” – Thomas Vietnam – Local travel expert.
Thank you
