|
People often think about seafood like grilled chopped fish and sweets like coconut rice-cake when talking about the local specialties of Quy Nhon, a coastal city in central Binh Dinh Province. But they may not know there is a kind of sauce which makes these foods spicier. It’s hot red chili sauce with a typical central region mix of sweet, salty and peppery-hot tastes. Its role is crucial but not often recognized when served with well-known local foods.
Surely, it’s made of red hot chili peppers but the locals’ process keeps the sauce quite different from others. In order to make the sauce in a fresh red color, the chili is soft-boiled the chopped into medium pieces of half-ground. The chopped chili is added with a small amount of water and salt to keep it fresh. This is the preliminary process often made by small facilities which sell the products to local markets.
The taste of the sauce is then decided by each cook when they stir-fry the preliminary-processed chili with hot cooking oil and sugar. The chili must be fried long enough over a small flame to ensure the sauce is tender but still inviting with chili seeds. The local way of cooking and adding spices may make Quy Nhon chili sauce special. I think that’s why Quy Nhon locals often take the sauce with them when migrating.
When I first saw my friends in HCMC getting chili sauce sent from their relatives in Quy Nhon, I could not understand why they wanted to be sent chili sauce instead of other, more delicious foods such as seafood or something else. But after leaving Quy Nhon and living in HCMC for years, I found that no chili sauce is as spicy as the stuff made in Quy Nhon because the others are not as well-cooked or well-flavored.
The sauce is often mixed with goi, a local snack which includes fried rice-cake, chopped-into-thread papaya and simmered cuttle-fish, as a major spice. Coconut rice-cake or rice noodles served with grilled chopped fish called bun cha ca cannot have the local taste without the sauce. An acquaintance selling bun cha ca Quy Nhon in HCMC told me he must buy not only grilled chopped fish but also chili sauce from the central province to make sure the dish has the typical local taste. The sauce is delicious even when it’s eaten with nothing. When I was a child, I felt hot seeing my elder sister hold a bowl of chili sauce and “drink” it despite her tears that over-flowed profusely. I think this is a persuading image to say Quy Nhon chili sauce is delicious.
| 
