Autumn is probably the most beautiful season of the year. Hanoi is perhaps the most beautiful in the autumn weather with the yellow sun mixed with the passionate scent of milk flowers and the gentle breeze bringing the scent of nuggets like sending the whole autumn sky… Nugget is idyllic but hard to forget. It is no coincidence that in the song “Miss Hanoi autum”, musician Trinh Cong Son mentioned “nugget” with beautiful lyrics:
Mùa cốm xanh về, thơm bàn tay nhỏ
Cốm sữa vỉa hè, thơm bước chân qua…
Now, many places can make nuggets, but nugget nowhere is as delicious as Hanoi’s nuggets. Only Hanoi nuggets have such softness and aromatic consistency. Vong village (Dich Vong Hau ward, Cau Giay district) has the famous profession of making nuggets. The best nuggets are made in the crop season (from August to October of the lunar calendar). Fresh, bright and thin nuggets with a faint and sweet aroma of young rice are very attractive to diners. Nuggets are wrapped in lotus leaves with sticky rice straws. The scent of young rice is mixed with the soothing and faint scent of lotus gives people a feeling of relief and peace. The image of mothers and sisters with small shoulder poles and small bundles of sticky rice straws, walking around the streets of Hanoi and saying “Who’s going to have nuggets”, “Who’s going to buy nuggets”… is so poetic and heart-wrenching.
Hanoians enjoy nuggets in many ways, sometimes by taking a few seeds to eat, sometimes sitting and sipping with a cup of green tea. But the most delicious is eating nuggets with ripe bananas. The combination of sweetness and aroma of bananas and the softness of nuggets gives diners the true autumn flavor. Nugget can also be combined with many other spices or ingredients to create “reminiscent” nugget-based dishes such as fried nugget cake, nugget sticky rice, nugget sweet soup…
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From fresh nuggets, greasy fried nugget cakes can be made for a cozy meal for each family. Nugget is mixed with ground meat, fat and spices then molded into palm-sized pieces. Those who are picky can add a little glutinous rice flour, baking powder or tapioca flour. The non-fried pieces are steamed and then fried in a pan of hot oil. On cold days, crispy hot nugget cakes served with vermicelli, sticky rice and rice will be very delicious. The aroma of the nuggets and the richness of the meat make the dishes more flavorful, making people “eat more and more”.
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In addition to fried rice, another delicious dish from nuggets that is often mentioned is nugget sticky rice. It remains an inherent feature of autumn nuggets, but when it is transformed into a soft sticky rice dish, each grain of nugget becomes very different with the aroma of green beans, the fat of coconut and lotus seeds, and the cool sweetness of sugar blended in each grain of nugget to create an irresistible delicious sticky rice dish.
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It requires neither sophisticated ingredients nor complicated processing, but the small plate of stir-fried rice makes many people nostalgic for the cool Hanoi days. The rustic gift from young rice is delicious but also easy to make. The soft nuggets are selected and stir-fried with coconut milk until thick, put on a small plate and sprinkled with a little grated coconut, which is enough to create the perfect dish to enjoy.
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Hanoians also love the simple nugget sweet soup, especially young people who are very passionate about this snack from young rice seeds. Nugget sweet soup is mildly sweet, which linger on the tip of the tongue and have the faint aroma of the nugget. Simple but full of nostalgia, the sweet soup has been sold by street vendors everywhere. On an autumn afternoon with a gentle wind, sipping a bowl of sweet soup and watching the slow pace of life is wonderful.
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Referring to the dishes when the season of young nuggets comes, people remember the smooth sweet nugget cake wrapped in white cellophane, packed in a lovely box with many memories. I don’t know since when sweet nugget has become a unique and characteristic gift that all visitors to Hanoi wants to taste and buy a lot as gifts for their relatives and friends. Each cake is made of soft nuggets, pureed green bean paste and greasy coconut, making diners never forget each time they taste it. The Hanoi dish often appears in the offerings of families, the engagement ceremony of couples as a beautiful cultural feature.
Hanoi with delicious and sweet dishes from nuggets always waits for visitors by every autumn to feel the full taste of Hanoi’s culinary quintessence.
Ngoc Tram