Fragrant cassava leaves stir-fried with pork belly

Stir-fried cassava leaves have become a specialty of the highlanders. Photo: ZơRAM THI TY

The cool breeze reminds me of the familiar dishes of my people. For mountain people like me, there is no dish simpler and more refined than stir-fried cassava leaves with pork belly. Just mentioning the name has touched the hearts of generations of mountain people.

While the golden sunlight was still lingering on the thatched roofs, my mother told me to go to the cassava hedge behind the house. There, lush green cassava bushes were growing all over the garden. We picked young cassava leaves to make dinner for the whole family.

Every time I go out to pick cassava leaves, I can smell the scent of the earth mixed with smoke from the kitchen in the distance. It is like a familiar sign that meal is coming.
Mom told me to pick soft and fresh leaves so that when stir-fried they won't be tough, but still retain their characteristic sweet and fatty flavor.

When I got home, I carefully broke each piece of cassava leaf into small pieces and rubbed it on the surface of the winnowing basket to make the leaves into small, soft fibers. This was the most difficult step, and greatly determined the deliciousness of the dish.
At first, I was quite confused about how to do it properly, but gradually I learned how to rub the leaves so that they were neither too fine nor too coarse. When stir-fried, the leaves retained their rich flavor without being too soft. Each soft strand of leaf gave off a distinctive aroma of the remote countryside.

After the cassava leaves were rubbed, they were rinsed two or three times to remove the sap and the pungent smell, then squeezed dry to loosen the leaves. Mom said the preparation was done, now all we had to do was stir-fry them.

Main ingredients for stir-fried cassava leaves. Photo: ZơRAM THI TY

Mom usually chooses fatty pork belly, slices it into thin slices and stir-fries it in a hot pan. The fat seeps into the meat fibers, making them soft and sweet. The aroma of the hot pork belly blends with the scent of fresh cassava leaves, spreading throughout the kitchen.

When stir-fried with pork belly, cassava leaves have a slight chewiness. The dish is not simply a combination of ingredients but a blend of layers of flavors: the fatty taste of meat, the rich taste of cassava leaves, the mild spiciness of spices, and the slight saltiness of fish sauce.

Every time my mother stir-fried cassava leaves with pork belly, I always stood by and watched. Her hands were skillful and her movements were smooth. My mother told me that the stir-frying process required paying attention to the medium heat and stirring constantly so that the cassava leaves and pork belly absorbed the spices evenly, but the cassava leaves still kept their bright green color, soft but not crushed.

This dish is even more special when enjoyed with a little A Rieu chili. The spicy taste of the chili adds a rich flavor to the dish that makes everyone nod in approval.

I cannot find the distinctive taste of stir-fried cassava leaves with pork belly anywhere else but in my mother's small kitchen - the kitchen in the house in the remote border area.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/thom-bui-la-san-xao-thit-ba-chi-3145944.html