Ninh Binh grilled dishes are very famous because of their delicious ingredients and grilled by many unique manners for keeping the essence, the food originality. Particularly Dai Huu fish is grilled in rice straw by that way the fish meat will keep its fragrant and delicious favor.
A special feature of this dish is that the fish need to be preliminarily processed, leaving the scales and intestines intact. Fish just need to wash the mucus layer, then use a fresh bamboo stick to skewer from the mouth to the tail of the fish and then directly bake it with dry straw.
The fish skewers are inserted into the ground, the tail is pointed towards the sky. Then cover the whole fish with dry straw, light it on fire to grill. Straw is added continuously to keep the heat. After about 12-15 minutes, the fish is just cooked. The cooking time is the most important step, because if the fish is overcooked, it will dry out, lose the sweetness of the meat, and if it is not cooked enough, the fish will be pasty and fishy.
After the straw is burned, the whole body of the fish will be black. People who see it for the first time will often mistake the fish for being burnt black and inedible. However, when using a razor to clean the burnt skin, the meat will be cooked to a golden brown. Continuing to make an additional incision on the back of the fish, the smoke and characteristic aroma of straw emanate, revealing the soft white fish meat, which is cooked to perfection.
Cooked fish are arranged on a plate lined with banana leaves. Fish flesh is tough and retains water, has a sweet and fleshy taste. If you smell it carefully, you will see that the fish meat has a slight scent of burnt straw, helping diners feel the taste of the countryside, no longer a fishy smell.