Caolau - an enigmatic and distinctive dish of Hoi An Ancient Town

(QNO) - Cao lau has been known  for a long time as a specific dish which distributed to create the soul of Hoi An city's cuisine. It is completely different from the same kind of other regions in Vietnam.

The Huffington Post  newspaper (US) has recently introduced the specialties of the world to the tourists, one of which is Hoi An Cao lau. The author wrote “ There are many famous specialties in over the world such as Sushi of Japan, spaghetti of Italia… However, some dishes you have ever known or they are not famous across the world, but their taste is hard to forget after enjoying…”
In the list of those regional dishes, Hoi An Cao lau is named together with Ochazuke mixed cooked rice of Japan, Chicken 65 of India,  Pozole stewed beef of Mexico,  Ful medames (Fava been with spices and olive oil) of Egypt  Sudan. Other specialties named in the list are Khao Soi of Laos and Thailand,  Pachamanca meat soup of Peru and Biltong dried meat of South Africa.
At first glance, Cao lau looks like noodle, but it is not noodle. The quintessence of Cao lau is its noodle strings. The process of making Cao lau is complicated from steps of preparing ingredients.
In first step, a kind of local sticky and fragrant rice is dipped in ashes water (water mixed with ashes of a special kind of firewood on Cham Island, 16km from Hoi An city, Quang Nam province) to make the noodle strings dry,  flexible and a bit brittle in the last step.
After that, the dipped rice will be filtered carefully and ground into flour. Water for grinding Cao lau must be taken from Ba Le well - an ancient well built by Cham people since thousands of years ago.

After being dried,  flexible  Cao lau is rolled into thin layers and then cut  into strings. These noodle strings will be steamed and dried again under the sun to become perfect Cao lau noodle.
People used to eat Cao lau with bean sprout which was dipped in boiled water but not too soft. Some kinds of vegetable of famous Tra Que  vegetable village of Hoi An city are added.
To have a quality bowl of Hoi An Cao lau, beside noodle and bean sprout, it also consists of thin slices of soy-simmered pork, some pieces of fried pork skin, a teaspoon of lark and alittle hot chili jam added. These foods make Cao Lau more attractive with various flavors “sour, pungent, bitter, astringent and sweet ” …
Many people who are living in other place have tried to make and sell Cao lau specialty, but the quality was not as good as Hoi An Cao lau and  they failed at last.

It was said that the combination of Hoi An’s sticky and fragarant rice , water from Ba Le well, ashes of Cham island and Tra Que’s vegetable has itself made  real Cao lau – a distinctive dish that can be found in Hoi An Ancient Town only…

By HOANG LY