Similar to other spring roll kinds such as fermented pork rolls in the North or regular spring rolls in the South, yet Danang’s pork spring rolls, as their particular long name (literal banh trang cuon thit heo, meaning “boiled pork with spring rolls”) describes, include at whole a mix of those global famous materials.
This simple spring roll dish, as a food served cold, does not require any particular cooking skills. However, it takes superior skills in choosing the exact materials and ingredients to make the taste of the spring rolls truly unforgettable.
Rice papers used to make spring roll must have already been hung out in the dew (a.k.a. banh trang phoi suong). The process of hanging is aimed to firstly make rice papers naturally fragrant with rice smell, then to make them not to easily break when being rolled. Pork chosen must be the superior kind and must not be overly boiled. Once pork is moderately boiled, it is soaked for a short time in the broth in order to get reasonably soft and look good with separate parts of lean meat, fat and skin. Otherwise, if pork is overly boiled, the lean meat will become too dry and its skin gets contracted.
A plate of fresh vegetable is an important element of the dish and is usually the biggest plate on the table, since it includes almost ten different kinds of green, fresh vegetables. They are scrumptious and usually grown in any season during the year.
To enjoy this special dish properly, the first thing to remember it not to be hurried. A well-made spring roll is one with reasonably mixed materials. Spread out a rice paper at first, then put into it some rice vermicelli, a slice of boiled pork, a slice of fresh cucumber, green banana, bean sprouts and a bunch of fresh vegetables and herbs: salad, perilla, basil, fish herb… , roll them all together in the rice paper and dip the roll into a bowl of spicy salted fish sauce.
Salted fish sauce if the most typical and might be the official sauce served with pork spring rolls. It can hardly be replaced by any other kinds of sauce. There are slight differences between pork spring rolls in Da Nang and other kinds of spring rolls in other areas, you may say; however, the salted fish sauce is the highlight of the dish. Each pork spring roll restaurant in Da Nang has different recipes of salted fish sauce, impressing their guests with different tastes. Besides, since people might hesitate to try the dish without any guarantee of the salted fish sauce’s quality, the process of making salted fish sauce must be tested regularly by restaurants, in order ensure the food hygiene and gain trust from eaters.
The fresh taste of mixed vegetables, the fragrance of well-cooked pork along with the sour-spicy taste of salted fish sauce have altogether enchanted the eaters and visitors of Da Nang particularly. If you have a chance to visit this wonderful city, don’t forget to stop by one of pork spring rolls restaurants (most famous at Tran or Mau chains of restaurants) or a number of street food stores in Con Market, Han Market…and get a taste of it.
Relate:
- Lung Phin Village Fair in Ha Giang
- The “backpack” journey through Binh Thuan
- The charms of lakes in Dalat - Da Nhim Lake
- Magnificent roads in Ha Giang
- Ghenh Island (Hon Ghenh) - Binh Thuan
- Baguettes in Sai Gon - Vietnam