Instead of just looking at the outside raining in the afternoon, people usually keep themselves busy doing homeworks such as cooking delicious and nourish meals for their families and friends to cope with the next working day. Along with banh xeo (sizzling cake), Mi Quang (Quang stylenoodle) is popular with the local people. Unlike Mi Quang in Phan Thiet city, Mi Quang in Gia An has its distinctive features of the original Mi Quang made by the locals who originate from Quang Nam or Quang Ngai provinces.
In order to cook original Mi Quang, women in Gia An often have good and fragrant rice ground then steamed into round and thin noodle-sheet, which is similar to rice paper but a little bit thicker than that. After cutting the noodle-sheet into string-shape, it is double than “Pho noodle” in size.
The material includes various stuffs such as pig bones, pork, chicken or frog, etc. However, Gia An people are in favor of fish from rice paddies particularly snakehead, which is cleaned and cut into slices, then mixed with fresh onion, crushed turmeric and fish sauce in proper formula. Next, cooking them with peanut oil or cooking oil until it smells good. Heads and tails are primarily boiled, crushed and filtered to get first extract for broth making.
Accompanied vegetable must be baby chard, lettuce, water mint, sliced banana flower, lime, red chilly (chili sauce). The following is showing how to set up a ready-to-eat Mi Quang: clean the bowl, respectively place a layer of vegetables at the bottom of the bowl, rice noodle, well-done fishes and then the broth. Do not miss fried peanut, lemon and chili pepper at final addition.
Now, a gourmet will smartly recognize the hot, sourness, bitterness, sweetness, etc in a bowl of Mi Quang, which is the mixture of spices and materials. The deliciousness and special flavor of Mi Quang can not be found in any best bowls of “Pho noodle”. Thanks to the main ingredient of fish cooked by oil, Mi Quang is certainly greasy and its greasiness can be easily balanced by adding more banana flower. Once you taste Mi Quang made of snakehead in Gia An, its flavor will be kept forever in your mind because it bears the affection for homeland where the fragrant rice brings up for making noodle, the snakehead fillet remains firm and tasty making out the best broth than any others.
My Thien (Source: Binh Thuan Newspaper)
