Due to the differences of weather and terrain, Vietnamese culinary tradition differs from region to region. In the south, the warm weather, fertile soil and very large delta create ideal conditions to grow many types of fruits, vegetable, rice, raising cattle and fishes. As a result, southern food is vibrant and flavorful, with liberal use of garlic, shallots, pepper...and fresh herbs. Specially, people here prefer to add more sugar than other regions.
1) Sweet and sour soup (canh chua)
This is my no1 favorite dish ^^, a hot sweet and sour soup is the best choice in cold and rainy day.
Ingredients:
+Fish (depends on your taste: snakehead ( cá lóc ), hemibagrus ( cá lăng ), pangasius ( cá bông lau, cá hú ), eel...
+Pineapple
+Tomato
+Okra
+Celery ( cần tây ), or bạc hà
+Limnophila aromatica ( ngò om )
+Basil ( húng quế )
+Bean sprout ( giá đỗ )
+Tamarind
+Salt, sugar
You can add some pieces of chili ^^ , we usually enjoy it with white rice or with pork cooked with sauce and pepper, which is mentioned below.
2) Pork stewed with sauce and pepper ( thịt heo kho tiêu )
Ingredients:
+Pork ( ribs )
+Oyster sauce
+Sugar
+Salt or fish sauce
+Garlic
+Pepper or chili
You can replace pork by fish ( pangasius, tilapia ( cá rô )... ), with this option, pepper or chili is necessary to ease the fishy smell.
