The leaves grow a lot in mangrove areas, depending on the time of collection, they will have a salty, slightly sour, and sweet taste.

When coming to Can Gio (HCMC), visitors can enjoy delicious dishes from seafood grown and caught in the sea and dishes made from natural vegetables that grow wild in the mangrove area. Among them, pliers, also known as pliers, are quite special. They are succulent and teardrop-shaped finger-sized vines, crunchy, and the flavor changes with the rainy and dry seasons of the year.

At different times of the day, this leaf also has flavor changes such as salty, tart, and sweet aftertaste. Can Gio people use pliers to make many delicious dishes such as mixing salad with starfish, white shrimp or stir-frying with garlic, dipping fish in a hot pot, cooking soup with shrimp and shrimp, which is very tasty and sweet? Currently, these dishes are present in many eco-tourism areas and are considered as delicious dishes not to be missed when coming to Can Gio.

The pliers grow in large bushes, clinging to trees in the mangrove forest to grow, people pick leaves often go in the early morning, when the sun has just come out. At that time, the leaves will be green, the least acrid, and have a characteristic salty taste, slightly sour with a sweet aftertaste, mixed with fresh crispy salad.

The leaves grow wild in the mangroves of Can Gio and are mixed with herbs, sweet and sour fish sauce. Photo: Vamsat

Eco-tourism areas in Can Gio often serve salad with deep-fried starfish or dried fish. Leaves, after picking, pick up the stalks, wash and dry, add herbs and thinly sliced ​​onions to mix, indispensable roasted golden peanuts that have been peeled, both for decoration and to make the dish more delicious.

Sauce mixed with leaf salad is sweet and sour chili garlic fish sauce mixed in a ratio of 1:1. Depending on the season of the year, the chef also has to change the recipe to suit the taste of the natural leaves. For example, from April to October is the rainy season, the leaves are very thin, the salinity is insignificant, while in the dry season, the leaves are thick and have a more salty taste, so the mixed sauce must also be reduced to harmonize.

The leaves when mixing the salad are left intact, not chopped like herbs, and mixed with the sauce very gently so that the leaves do not crush, lose their crispiness, and will not taste good. At this time, the starfish eaten with the salad is fried to a golden crispy outside and the inside is still soft and wet, separate the meat and sprinkle sweet and sour fish sauce over it to absorb the flavor.

The leaf salad looks fancy and attractive with a green salad in the middle, the smell of basil, laksa leaves giving off a gentle aroma, surrounded by well-arranged goldfish meat. Diners pick up salad leaves combined with pieces of sweet fish and meat and feel the crisp fresh taste of the leaves mixed with sweet and sour fish sauce, mixed with the aroma and fatty taste of peanuts. The rustic dishes with the forest flavor of the sea will make diners remember forever.

In addition to salad, the leaves are also cooked in soup with shrimp and shrimp used in daily meals. The interesting thing about making the dish is that there is no need to add salt to the soup. In the leaves, there is a natural salty taste mixed with the sweet taste of fresh shrimp, when cooked, just add a little spice and ground pepper to have an attractive bowl of soup. Follow vnexpress