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Yellow ant salad fish is prepared from ‘God-given fortune’ in the Central Highlands. Each year there is only one season around the end of May – early June.
Hearing the name “golden ant salad” seems unique and attractive, but looking at the way people prepare it, many people will not dare to eat it. However, if you try it once, diners will definitely be fascinated by the deliciousness, nutrition and extremely special flavor of this dish.
The Ro Mam people often use ant eggs to cook sour soup, mix salads, and stir-fry meat (Photo: Tran Hien)
The Ro Mam people are a very small ethnic group in Vietnam, with nearly 160 households (about 460 people) living mainly in Le village, Mo Rai commune, Sa Thay district, Kon Tum province.
As an ancient ethnic group that has long lived in the deep forest, the Ro Mam people have many very strange and unusual dishes that few people can enjoy. The Ro Mam people often use weaver ants and ant eggs to cook sour soup, mix salads, stir-fry meat or make dipping sauces.
Yellow ant salad fish is made from “God-given fortune” (Photo: Tran Hien)
However, the most delicious and quintessential flavor is the golden ant salad fish dish made from “God-given fortune”, which only has one season each year, around the end of May – early June. Around the residential area The Ro Mam people’s residence has a lot of weaver ants, but according to the experience of the people here, delicious weaver ants must be young ant nests or have lots of eggs.
Yellow ant salad fish is one of the famous specialties of the sunny and windy land of the Central Highlands because of its delicious, strange and unique taste. Furthermore, the appeal of yellow ant fish salad is not shown in its appearance.
The appeal of golden ant fish salad is not reflected in its appearance (Photo: mia)
To prepare golden ant fish salad, you need to go through many elaborate and meticulous steps. Wanting to keep the typical flavor of fish salad, the Ro Mam people often choose stream fish with firm meat, even scales, and freshness. Thus, the dish will be sweet, chewy, naturally fragrant and not at all fishy.
As for the second ingredient, people will look for very large ant nests with a large volume of eggs because yellow ant eggs are very fragrant, delicious to eat, and processed with stream fish for the sweet, fragrant taste of the fish, the greasy taste of the eggs and Ant sourness.
Filter the meat from stream fish, chop it finely, and squeeze out the water to remove the fishy smell (Photo: mia)
According to the experiences of the Ro Mam people in the forest, when they find a nest of yellow ants, they often place it under a basin of water, use a knife handle to knock the ants out, then gently split them in half and pick up the eggs. Weaver ant eggs are usually as big as a grain of rice, opaque white in color and have a light scent.
When you choose standard stream fish, clean it, filter the meat, chop or pound it, and squeeze out the water to remove the fishy smell. Similar to stream fish, ant meat and ant eggs are also pureed and then dried in the sun to firm up.
Yellow ant salad fish rolled with forest leaves such as sesame seeds, young mango, and fig leaves (Photo: Pham Hoang)
The next step is seasoning, mix the fish with the ants with salt, wild pepper, green chili, you can add a little rice powder to enhance the flavor and remember to mix thoroughly, leave for about 30 minutes. According to the ethnic language, people call the fish salad with yellow ants Plat, and when mixed with rice, it is called Trot IagLia, which has the sweet taste of fish, the sour taste of ants and the typical greasy taste of ant eggs.
It is not known when the golden ant fish salad dish was born, but according to village elders, the dish was passed down from our ancestors. Over many generations, yellow ant salad fish has become a specialty without realizing it. The Ro Mam people often make fish salad with golden ants during Tet, important holidays of the village or family to entertain distinguished guests. Nowadays, older people who are skilled in preparing this dish often teach young people the experience and secrets to preserving their nation’s traditional dish.
The dish has the sweet taste of fish, the sour taste of ants, and the greasy taste of ant eggs (Photo: Tuoi Tre Capital)
Enjoying yellow ant salad fish rolled with forest leaves such as sesame seeds, young mangoes, fig leaves…, and drinking ghe wine (can wine) is one of the extremely unique culinary cultures of the Central Highlands ethnic people. The sweetness of stream fish mixed with the sour, greasy taste of ants, the spicy taste of chili pepper, and a little bitterness of forest leaves gives ant egg salad fish a unique aroma that cannot be mixed with anything else. any fish salad.
