1. Ca bong simmered with pepper

Ca bong (a tiny-sized fish only available in Tra Khuc river) is classified in terms of shape into several kinds: bong the, bong do, bong nhon, bong mu, bong tuong, but most delicious are bong can and bong cat. These two kinds of ca bong have delicious flesh, soft bone, and skin of yellow whitish colour. If caught with trum (a cylindrical fish-catching pot made from bamboo) in the sections of Truong Xuan, An Buong, ca bong fish have unique taste and so delicious that a person can never forget if he/she has once tasted.

No other dishes can compare with Ca bong song Tra if they are cooked in the “hooking way”, simmered with Ky Tan or An Chuan fish sauce, seasoned with pounded fresh ginger and white pepper and served with Ba Gia’s, Tinh Hiep’s or Nghia Lam’s rice cooked in an earthen pot and Ming Long green tea. Today, ca bong specialty has become either commercial goods or gifts after being cooked and put into small jars. 

 

2. Don

Don is a type of dark yellow shellfish that looks like a canarium with thin shell, usually found in brackish waters in Tra Khuc river and Ve river. 

Don is cooked in a very simple way: just put in a pan with two bowls of water per bowl of Don. When boiled, just remove the shell away, the flesh is boiled again seasoned with salt, onion, hot pepper and other spices to be fserved with baked rice paper.      

Don can also be used for cooking soup and porridge. It can also be cooked and served with noodle. Perhaps no other food specialties that can be as delicious and cheap as Don. There are in Quang several Don eateries, most famous are those in Phu Tho-Co Luy, Van Tuong, Thu Xa, Nghia Hiep. 

 

3. Banh Xeo

The name of this rice pancake may have derived from the “xeo xeo” emitted when the flour is poured into a very hot earthen mould.  The main material for making banh xeo is rice flour. While making banh xeo people may fill with shrimp, pork, beef, or egg, depending on ones’ hobby and taste.  However, the most delicious is the way banh xeo is filled with natural mushroom.

Every year, after long days of cold weather with rain and northeast wind, as soon as the sun begins to shine, mushrooms spring up everywhere, usually at the base of trees. People then go picking up. The collected mushrooms are washed clean, then splited into small pieces to make banh xeo. No delicacy can be tastier than Banh xeo that is made with straw mushrooms, some bean sprouts, and is served with fresh vegetables and fish sauce mixed with lemon juice, sugar, hot pepper and garlic. 

 

 4. Roasted sugarcane birds

Sugarcane birds are commonly referred to any kind of birds sleeping in the sugarcane fields in Quang Ngai such as chim cheo, swallows, wagtails, dong doc, red-whispered bulbuls the most delicious of whom is chim cheo.   

The catching season of sugarcane birds lasts from August to April. People catch with nets and long poles. Different kinds of net are used depending on the position and time of catching.   

There are ways of cooking sugarcane birds. Usually, they are fried after being seasoned with salt and pepper or steamed when they are stuffed with lean pork. But the most delicious cooking is roasting: the birds just stuffed with lemon and citronella leaves, salt and hot pepper then pinned with fresh pieces of bamboo or threaded together and then baked on live coals.

 

5. Mam nhum (Nhum salted)

Mam nhum is a delicious but rare dish. Nhum (a sea species) is available in coastal areas in Quang Ngai, most common in the seas of Ly Son, Sa Huynh, My A. Nhum that looks like a spiky ball, about 8-10 cm in diameter, and 3-4 cm thick, with black cover Nhum can be salted. 

To prepare, open a Nhum into two halves with a knife, and separate the flesh from its cover with a piece of bamboo. The flesh, which is white and reddish, can be served raw or cooked with egg and some spices. To have mam Nhum, just put Nhum flesh into a jar, then sprinkle some salt on. About 10 days later, Nhum salted can be served when it turns pink. To preserve its unique flavour, spices are only confined to Ly Son garlic and unground pepper.

 Nhum salted is served with noodle, but most delicious when served with cuts of pork rolled in rice paper. Mam Nhum is also known as “mam tien” (offering sauce) because it was honorably reserved for kings.

 

6. Nieng fish

Nieng fish is a typical species in the upland waterfalls and rapids, therefore found in all mountainous districts of Quang Ngai. This kind of fish depicts a slightly narrow, slender body, sparkling silver scales, and feeds on microorganism living at the root of waterfalls (hence hard to catch).

There are ways to cook Nieng fish such as boiling, souping, frying, however the most delicious is roasting. Nieng if pinned with fresh pieces of bamboo and roasted on live coals, its fat flowing out under hot fire, smelling seductive. When eating, just clean up the attached ashes, take a piece after another to serve with salt blended with green hot pepper, which one can hardly forget whole his or her life. 

 

7. Malt

Malt is made from rice sprouts (dry and powdered) and sticky rice. In the old days, Ruong rice (a local species with big seed, high content of fat, but low yield, now extinct) was chosen to prepare the sprouts. The two aforesaid kinds of material are mixed then to be condensed into malt. However, the quality, flavor and color of malt may vary depending on how to mix. 

There exists a saying about this specialty: “Sugarcane birds in Xuan Pho, Ca bong in Tra river, Malt in Dong Cat (Mo Duc)”. Quang Ngai malt is slightly sweet and flavorful, therefore, is often chosen as a gift by domestic travelers whenever dropping by Quang Ngai. 

 

8. Duong Phen ( sugar candy)

Since the old days, there exists an utterance in Quang Ngai “as sweet as refined sugar, as cool as sugar candies, as delicious as lung-shaped sugar bar”. In sugar refining, making sugar candies appears most complex and time consuming.    

To refine into that clear and shining sugar crystals, it is initially processed with lime and eggs. After impurities removed comes the condensing process, then it is poured into jars for refining and crystalizing. It takes 7-9 days to become sugar candies.

Quang Ngai sugar candies are sold nationwide and exported to ASEAN countries. In addition to a precious dish, sugar candies are steamed with lemon and kumquat to cure cough and sore throat. 

 

9. Guong candy (glass crystal candy)

Crystal candies are so called because they are transparent like crystal and beautiful like a still life, yellow like roasted peanuts, ivory-white like sesame, so fragile that one feels having to “handle with care” while eating.  

In the old days crystal candies were made in Thu Xa (Nghia Hoa, Tu Nghia), but now are produced throughout the province, especially in Quang Ngai city. 

What of foremost importance in making crystal candies is the stage of boiling down the sugar. If overcooked, the candies turn red, unable to thin, and if underdone, they are not clear and brittle. No chemical is used but yolk to remove impurities, and malt and lemon to keep them crystal. 

Crystal candies, both beautiful and delicious and nice-coloured, are a unique specialty upon which generations of Quang Ngai people have prided.