Grilled fish wrapped in new lotus leaves

Grilled fish served with new lotus leaves is a specialty in Dong Thap Province - Photo: Son Lam

Dong Thap Province in the Mekong Delta has many dishes made with lotus such as steamed lotus seeds, steamed rice with lotus leaves, lotus sprout salads and grilled loc fish rolled with new lotus.

Dong Thap is a lowland province with areas in flood all year round - great conditions for growing lotus. Locals grow water flower in immense fields. When the lotus blossoms, Dong Thap is at its most beautiful and locals use it a lot for cooking.

The loc fish is cleaned carefully and skewered longwise with bamboo. Then it is covered with a layer of straw, clay or banana leaves and grilled over charcoal.

Once the fish is done, the outside layer is peeled off to see the yellow color of fish skin.

In cities, people often wrap small portions of the cooked fish meat in rice paper rolls, but in Gao Giong in Dong Thap, people use new lotus leaves instead of rice paper to make the wraps containing fish, noodles, aromatic herbs and fish sauce.

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