The dish is the pride of Hau Giang people, according to Huynh Thi Phuong, 66, who has sold the fish for several decades.”I sell several hundreds of cha ca thac lac a day to locals and visitors, including foreigners,” said Phuong.She said that to make a good dish, she often woke up early in the morning to go to the seashore to buy fresh fish – meaning the meat is firm, the eyes look pure and green while the gills are light red. “Fish with red eyes, and soft meat is not suitable for making cha,” said Phuong.The fish can be made into soup with bitter gourd, steamed, braised, fried and used in hotpots. Phuong said cha ca thac lac was available in restaurants and at luxury parties. It was also a good gift for relatives and friends.Hanoian Bui Thu Nga said that she was happy to join Phuong make the dish by cutting off all the lean meat and then mixing it with dried onions, garlic, peppers, MSG, sugar and salt to clear out any fishy smell for an hour. It is then placed in a stone grinder and regularly pounded until the meat is thick and pink-while before shaping it into small balls and frying them until they turn yellow.“The dish should be eaten with rau ngo (coriander) and mui tau (sawtooth) to add taste,” said Phuong.Apart from cha ca, she also invited Nga to enjoy thac lac fish hotpot with bitter gourd. “It is a great dish that you should try,” she added.Ingredients include broth stewed from pork bones,… [Read full story]
Fish farmers in Hau Giang Province have decided to stop their work for fear of possible wastewater discharges from the Lee & Man Paper Manufacturers. On April 12, Do Thi Thu, head of a fish farming group in Phu Nhon Hamlet, Dong Phu Commune, Chau Thanh District said they were facing many difficulties. When it was first established in 2015 by Hau Giang Province Women's Union, it had 25 members that were also in the hamlet women's union. But now only a few members left and the number of farmed fish is dwindling. Despite support from local authorities on finance…... [read more]
Being a newly-estanblished province, Hau Giang in the Mekong Delta seeks to become an ideal venue for domestic and foreign investors. Ample potential for development Hau Giang province is located in the inland area of the Mekong Delta. It has a dense network of rivers, canals, and tropical monsoon climate, which give it an advantage of growing rice, fruit trees, and rear aquaculture. The province has 80,000 hectares of land reserved for rice farming, most of which are used to grow high-yielding rice species with active irrigation. Annually, farmers harvest 1.2 million tonnes of rice with an average yield of…... [read more]
The Department of Science and Technology in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang has handed over the Certificate of Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) of brand name Hau Giang Feather-Back Fish issued by the Intellectual Property Bureau to the province's Office of Standards, Metrology and Quality. Products from feather-back fish of Hau Giang must be produced and processed in the province and meet quality norms. For instance the fish fillets must be pure white and firm. The feather-back fish is a well-known specialty of Hau Giang Province and considered to be the most delicious in the Mekong Delta. Products from…... [read more]
In spite of having poor socioeconomic infrastructure, in the past five years (2010-2015), the Party, government and people of Hau Giang province have constantly endeavoured to mobilise its resources to overcome numerous difficulties and accomplish very important comprehensive achievements to gradually raise its position in the Mekong Delta. Many bright spots The five year socioeconomic development plan (2011-2015) sets 19 key indicators and Hau Giang province has achieved all 19 indicators, with 11 exceeding the targets and seven matching the objectives. Economic growth, economic restructuring, and labour structure have made a progress. Annual economic growth averaged at 13.12 percent, almost…... [read more]
Hau Giang seeks to woo farm processors By Quoc Hung - The Saigon Times Daily HCMC - The Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang will give a red-carpet welcome to enterprises investing in farm produce and aquatic processing sectors in the locality, and will make this clear at an investment promotion conference next week, said a senior official. "We are calling for investment to increase the storage and processing capacity in the province," Thang said.Hau Giang is a key rice-growing province of the country, yielding an average annual output of one million tons of rice including 350,000 to 400,000 tons…... [read more]
