Cook crab soup with vinegar or tamarind?

On a hot day, a bowl of soup with its shiny red color, sour taste, and gentle aroma helps stimulate the taste buds.

According to traditional medicine, crab is salty and has cold properties, has hemolytic properties, strengthens tendons and bones, and tomatoes have a sweet and sour taste and cool properties that help clear heat, quench thirst, nourish blood, and have good digestion.

Crab soup has the effect of cooling the body, stimulating the taste buds, and is easy to digest on hot summer days. In each region, there are different ways to cook and season crab soup.

Northern crab soup

The North has four distinct seasons, so there are many types of sour fruits with their own flavors ranging from mildly sour, mildly sour to richly sour, sharp sourness. Each type of sour fruit is suitable for each type of crab, fish, snail, mussel, clam...

People in the North in general and Hanoi in particular often cook crab soup with grilled fruit or vinegar. In particular, cooking with vertical fruit gives the soup a beautiful lemon yellow color. When cooked with vinegar, the sticky rice wine has a very unique sweet aroma, the occasional smell stimulates the taste buds.

Vertical fruits are quite rare nowadays. When in season, housewives often choose to buy a lot of green fruits, grill them on a charcoal stove, sizzle with water, then peel off the burnt shell, take the crushed yellow flesh inside and put it in. soup. You should make a lot to freeze and then use gradually when cooking crab paste. As soon as the fish paste is de-fishy, it turns golden yellow next to the beautiful red color of tomatoes.

Some people cook crab soup with sour ears, Thanh Tra, Muom... the taste is good, but these fruits are better suited with Mussels and Mussels. Some families, according to their own style, cook crab soup with lemon to make the water clear without being bitter. Be careful not to squeeze too much lemon juice when you squeeze it out. You should put the lemon in a small bowl, scoop out the hot water and mix it slowly into the pot. Neutralizing the taste is the secret to adding lemon to soup and hotpot without it being bitter.

You should not cook crab soup with dracontomelon fruit because it can easily make the soup dull in color, dark in color, less flavorful and less fragrant. Alligator is best combined with vinegar and boiled water spinach.

Canh rieu, crab noodle soup from the South

Southern people often cook sour soup in general from wild fruits that are typical of this place such as tamarind, gooseberry, gooseberry, cork fruit... of which the most popular is tamarind. The sour taste of tamarind helps balance the salty and sweet taste of the dish.

Nam Bo soup and vermicelli noodles also show the same liberality as the people here when adding many toppings depending on each family's taste such as fried tofu, pork trotters, crab rolls, pork blood... The broth has a high temperature. Sweet because it is mixed with bone broth.

Whether cooking soup in Northern or Southern style, you need to keep in mind the following points to have the perfect bowl of soup:

- You should pound and filter the crabs manually to get more crab meat. When cooking the soup carefully, initially put the crab meat juice on the stove, add a little salt, then turn on the stove and cook over medium heat, stirring in one direction to avoid sticking to the bottom. When the crab meat (meat) floats and the liquid gradually separates, lower the heat to low. Some experienced housewives share that placing an iron ladle in the pot also helps to set the mass faster. Fragrant steamed crab bricks help enhance the flavor of the dish.

- The rule when seasoning is to add salty and sweet spices first. Finally, slowly add a sour taste like natural vinegar, fruit or tamarind depending on the region, and season to taste.

- Crab soup cooked with lard is just as delicious as the folk saying, "The color of crab rind", moreover, the fat also makes the vitamin A in tomatoes "pop" and give it a beautiful color. Furthermore, the high content of glutamate, the substance that creates the umami taste, in tomatoes helps make the broth more delicious.

- Do not add herbs early on the stove because the sour taste can easily make the onions and herbs turn yellow and unsightly. Only when eating, scoop out the vegetables and spices to add to the eye-catching element. Hanoi and Northern crab cakes usually only add spring onions, while the South adds Chinese coriander (cilantro).