Wild Leaf Salad – Gỏi Lá
This is one of the most distinctive salad meals in Việtnam. You have to try this dish if you get the chance. The forests and meadows of the highlands have an endless variety of leaves and colours. Highlands such as Kon Tum, Gia Lai, and Đà Lạt are great places to try this “unique” dish. There are between 40 and 60 distinct varieties of leaves in a tray of wild leaf salad. Brocade leaves, red pronged branches, bear bile, bamboo leaves, five houseplants, fig leaves, guava leaves, mango leaves, cloves, crab claws, perilla leaves, apricot leaves, fish mint, sweet basil, and bitter greens including plant shoots and buds are among the choices in gỏi lá.
Thinly sliced boiled belly, steamed prawns, ground dry shrimps, and thinly sliced boiled pork skin with grounded galangal and spices are served alongside the wild leaf salad. The key to the success of the gỏi lá is a special porridge-like dipping sauce made from fermented glutinous rice, dried shrimps, bacon, Vietnamese satay sauce, and spices.
Gỏi lá can also be enjoyed in a variety of ways that are not repetitive. To begin, roll an apricot leaf into a small funnel and fill it with around 5-7 different sorts of leaves. Place a slice of boiled meat, pig skin, shrimp, and a dipping sauce on top, along with a little green chilli. Then immediately treat yourself to get the best outcome. The taste and flavour of each roll are explosive and thrilling, with a distinct flavour experience and well-defined characteristics.
In the following roll, you can use different leaves in a different tray, and the ideal way to taste the flavour combination of different leaves is to roll no more than 10 leaves at a time, just enough to grip and be good as bite-size pieces.
The Colour, texture, and flavour of the leaf salads range from nutty, sweet, spicy, minty and tender to bitter, sharp, peppery, pungent, and earthy. It’s a one-of-a-kind flavour combination that no one has ever experienced before.
