Leaf salad specialty: As the name suggests, it is full of leaves with up to 60 types of leaves

This specialty has the special name “leaf salad” because it contains up to 60 different types of leaves, each leaf has a unique flavor of Central Highlands specialties. Kon Tum leaf salad is a blend of sour, spicy, sweet, fleshy, fatty, rich… Once eaten once, people will remember it forever.

This dish has the special name “leaf salad” because it contains up to 60 different types of leaves, each leaf has a unique flavor of Central Highlands specialties.

Leaf salad has brought diners closer to the characteristics of Central Highlands culinary culture because when eating from choosing leaves, taking side dishes and rolling the salad, they must use their hands to properly style it.

The main ingredient of the dish is forest leaves, so the leaves must be taken from the forest early in the morning. Types of leaves that only the Central Highlands has such as brocade leaves, red prong, bear bile, leaves, great compassion… In addition, the leaf salad tray also has easier-to-find leaves such as gooseberry, pentaphyllum. fig leaves, guava leaves, mango leaves, polyscias fruticosa, crab claws, perilla leaves, apricot leaves, mustard leaves…

Leaf salad is eaten with thinly sliced ​​boiled pork belly and dry roasted ground shrimp, both fatty and soft. The pork skin dish is prepared extremely elaborately when it is shredded and then mixed with finely crushed galangal and spices. Must have a plate of whole pepper, salt and chili pepper, a green chili with the characteristic aroma of red basalt soil.

But perhaps the most special highlight of this specialty is the dipping sauce. The dipping sauce for Kon Tum leaf salad is not the usual fish sauce or soy sauce, but is specially made from wine wort, sterilized with cooking oil and then mixed with duck eggs to create a rich, eye-catching dipping sauce with the yellow color of turmeric. . After that, all the leaves picked early in the morning will be washed and placed on a tray. Side dishes are also served together.

The stage of preparing ingredients is elaborate, when enjoying this dish is equally special, you cannot rush but must follow the correct process. First, choose a large leaf like a mustard leaf or apricot leaf with feathers on the outside, then choose a young leaf to fold inside. When you see that it fits a salad roll, fold it and roll the leaf into a funnel shape.

Then, add a slice of pork, a piece of shrimp, and a few strips of skin on top. Be sure to add salt and pepper to get the full flavor. As for chili pepper, you should eat it separately if you like its spicy aroma. Each time we roll the leaves, we can choose different types of leaves to create our own flavors, sometimes the rich flavor of fig leaves, the astringency of guava leaves, sometimes the gentle, sour aroma of mango leaves.

Finally, scoop out a spoonful of dipping sauce, then put all the salad rolls in your mouth and slowly enjoy the blend of wild, passionate, cool and rich flavors of the Central Highlands.

In the spring, when flowers and grass sprout, there are 56 types of leaves in the salad tray. In the remaining seasons, there are only about 30-40 types of forest leaves left. When picking, people also take care to maintain the young branches and leaves “to save” for tomorrow to have something to collect.

According to the people here, leaf salad appeared in Kon Tum nearly 25 years ago when they, along with ethnic minorities, often picked forest leaves to replace rice when going to the fields. Later, when they returned to the city, in addition to forest leaves, they also discovered other easier-to-find leaves and side dishes to become today’s unique leaf salad.

Kon Tum leaf salad was twice recognized by the Vietnam Record Organization as the top 10 Vietnamese specialties with Asian culinary value.

Local people often say that if you come to Kon Tum and don’t eat leaf salad, you shouldn’t leave. Leaf salad is considered the quintessence of the Central Highlands, a dish with a strong mountain and forest flavor when the leaf salad tray, as its name suggests, is full of leaves.