Everyone knows about lotus root, but there is another delicious variety that many people don’t know, this season, buy it and eat it right away.

In April, no matter how many markets I go to, I can’t find any potatoes… This delicious dish is still there, but many people forget it because it’s difficult to buy, and it’s difficult to re-cook the old Hanoi flavor. But for a Hanoian like the author of this article, the sweet potato dish is always there.

My mother passed away more than 20 years ago. Whenever I miss my mother, apart from the tender affection she has always had for my father and me, I often miss the taste of the old Hanoi dishes my mother cooked – the vegetables are very common but delicious through my mother’s hands – in There is a dish of sweet potato, look at the beginning of summer.

Looking at the early season potatoes, you can cook many delicious dishes. Illustration.

In the fourth month of the lunar calendar, the rain showers in the beginning of summer and sporadic seeding in the morning are when the new season of taro and taro fields are sprouting. The ponds in the countryside are flooded with water, along the banks of the beds are purple and green sweet potato beds that rise rapidly after every rainy night. On each silvery green leaf, raindrops glistening in rainbow colors in the early morning sun.

Among the trunks of the potato trees, there are leaf buds that are still tightly curled like the curved little fingers of a lady who are ready to jump up and spread out her beautiful hand in a dance to welcome the falling rain – these are the sweet potato buds, the young potato buds. – can be processed into very delicious specialties.

Potato buds are not available all year round, only seasonally and for a very short time. Potatoes are usually planted from November of the previous year’s lunar calendar to May of the following year.

When potatoes grow to mid-April, they develop and lay female and young bulbs, so do not pick buds. Until the end of April and beginning of May, a few weeks before harvesting the potatoes, people will pick the potatoes/potato buds both for food and for the tree to be shriveled up to focus on nourishing the big and fat tubers.

If you want to eat potato buds/potatoes, don’t wait until the middle of the week, or the last week of the fifth month of the lunar calendar because it’s already late. The most correct is when the buds are still tightly rolled, then harvested.

Every dozen buds tied a golden straw, brought to the market to sell.

That sweet potato, that bud can be an itchy potato, taro, taro, yams… are all very itchy, but they’re local vegetables with a strong homeland.

In the season of potato buds, my mother went to the market early to go to Hang Be market to choose to buy itchy potatoes. Mother chooses tight, tight bunches of buds that are really young, but big, plump ones are still called buds, but they’re still immature – Hanoians choose such strict young potato buds.

My mother bought a bunch of turmeric tomatoes in March, the skin was still green, the black shrimp paste wrapped in lotus leaves tied with golden straw. A crisp dry peanut butter. A bunch of fresh, fresh and cool water spinach. Add a few covers of Mo beans and a handful of scallions – that’s enough for a family meal in Hanoi.

Ingredients for making delicious braised potatoes. Duong Tien Dat’s photo.

The mother’s sweet potato is usually made by hand. I once asked for help, my mother couldn’t – as a result, I had an itch, and had to keep my hands on the hot coals for a long time to go away. Later, I learned from the experience of soaking my hands in a bowl of old hot water for a while, and the itching gradually disappeared.

After the potatoes are cleaned, they are dried. With her own hands, she wrapped each ring like a large earring, blanched in hot water and then picked it up.

Mother fried the fragrant onions and then used aluminum ladles and aluminum spoons to look at the blanched potatoes on the island.

Next, my mother filtered the batch and poured it in, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste a few slices of fresh red chili, added some crushed garlic and lowered the heat to braise.

One day, when my mother put a lump of fat in the braised pot for a while, so that it had just soaked in the water, it softened, but still did not lose its crispy, fragrant taste.

Do not stir with bamboo chopsticks in the process of braising the potatoes – because when you eat it, it will be itchy. It is an oral tradition from the past, and cooking sweet potatoes has always been done using aluminum spoons and aluminum spoons, not bamboo chopsticks.

In addition to potatoes, potato buds, this season also looks like potatoes (also known as strips of potatoes). If the potato bud, the bud that comes out from the tip of the potato, rises straight up among the old leaves, then the potato – in some places called the potato bud, the strip of potato that comes out from the root of the potato, stretches out horizontally, most of which is submerged in the mud. (like lotus).

Harvesting potatoes and strips is more difficult than harvesting the pods and buds.

That is, we have to dig in the mud under the potato clumps and pull them out, then wash the mud, and bundle them together like a bunch of celery sticks.

A bunch of potatoes, a strip of potatoes without leaves, and there’s an old saying that:

Cried and cooked shrimp soup

Eat in cool intestines until the next day

Potatoes, strips of potatoes, white varieties, purple varieties, green varieties – depending on the variety. Cauliflower is best eaten, just wash the dirt, strip the outer fiber like a squash, and then cut it into pieces as long as your little finger. Stripping by hand, but must be dry – because just a little bit of water will make it itch.

Bring the peeled and blanched potatoes into boiling salted water, then take them out to cool before stir-frying, or braise in batches like braised potatoes, potato buds.

In some rural areas, they add dried shrimp, tomatoes, rice amaranth and drop a few branches of three-leaf sage into the pot to braise. There is a place to braise with stuffed snails, pork belly and grilled tofu, then add shrimp paste, coriander, and perilla. There is a braised town house with a few ribs. Depending on the home and taste, processing – but the sour taste of cooked rice is indispensable – a taste that makes children remember forever the old kitchen of the house in the old town…

It’s hard to find potatoes that make many delicious dishes now at the market. Duong Tien Dat’s photo.

Particularly, the pot of potatoes and potatoes for my two grandmothers and the children are always braised for a few more minutes to soften them up.

Watching the two ladies almost taste a few sweet potato buds, or delicious strips of potatoes that I also crave, sometimes pretending to beg them to eat a few pieces.

Potato buds, crispy braised potatoes have their own delicious taste, braised potatoes also have their own delicious taste – perhaps the seasoning should be more intense.

My sisters and I just need some braised water mixed with rice and a few strips of sweet potato strips to eat sticky rice.

In the fifth lunar month of the fifth lunar month, young clusters of crocodiles were swaying on the green arches of Tran Phu and Phan Dinh Phung streets, sporadically appearing on the stalls selling vegetables in the market – then the sweet potato / braised potato becomes a dish. sweet potato / look at the braised sweet potato.

Potatoes, braised potatoes have a mild sour taste and slightly cloudy water; Sweet potatoes, braised potatoes have a sour taste and clear water. Each dish has its own delicious taste, very attractive.

The meal was served with a few light roasted peanuts for my father to sip a horizontal cup of wine.

The whole family ate rice with a plate of salted roasted peanuts, a plate of boiled water spinach, a plate of fried tofu with spring onions, a bowl of salted eggplant with shrimp paste, and a bowl of braised potatoes with a few pieces of yellow and bright red fat and a few slices of chili – with a bowl of clear vegetable juice with vinegared tamarind/crocodile.

The house is crowded with children, the first dish of the season, the mother must divide it equally among the children, lest the whole family be noisy in a moment.

Strangely, the spiciness of fresh chili in the sour braised potato dish is greatly softened, making the dish simple, rustic, but strangely delicious.

My father sat leisurely, his gentle eyes looked at his children with a very simple and gentle joy.

Now that April comes back, no matter how many markets I go to, I still can’t find a bunch of sweet potato buds, looking at potatoes… Delicious food is still there, but many people forget it because it’s difficult to buy, difficult to re-cook the old Hanoi flavor.

Look at the braised potatoes

Material

– 1kg snails

– 500g of sweet potato

– 3 tomatoes, 1 teaspoon minced shallot, 2 teaspoons minced garlic, 1 tablespoon finely chopped bay leaves, 1 tablespoon finely chopped perilla, 1 tablespoon chopped scallions, 1 tablespoon batch, 2 teaspoons of shrimp paste, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of fish sauce.

Making

Peel potatoes, wash, cut into pieces and boil in boiling water. Tomatoes washed, chopped areca zone.

Filter for sour water.

Snails take their intestines, wash them with dilute alum water to remove the slime, then rinse, drain, and marinate with 1 teaspoon of fish sauce, sugar, cold water, and shrimp paste.

Sauté onion and garlic, add 1/2 tomato and sauté until soft, then add the snails to the island to absorb, then add water to invade, seasoning to lower the heat and braise until cooked.

When the snails are cooked, they have absorbed the spices, put the potatoes in the pot, arrange the tomatoes, cover and braise for another 15 minutes.

The finished product has the fleshy, sweet and soft taste of the potato, the delicious crispy snail is very attractive. strange mouth. Sprinkle scallions, perilla, and bay leaves into the bowl, scoop the hot batch of braised potatoes on top to keep the spices fresh and fragrant to beautify the bowl. This dish is served hot with rice or vermicelli.