Tamarind leaf sour soup

Someone blurted out: "When I get home, I must eat sour soup with young tamarind leaves!"…

That sentence brought back so many childhood memories to me. The rustic, simple, easy-to-cook dishes make people miss them so much when they are far away.

Usually, June and July of the lunar calendar is the beginning of the rainy season, when tamarinds sprout new leaves and then bloom. The tamarind leaves are now lush green, sour and soft. My brothers and I would pick a few handfuls of tamarind trees and bring them home so that in the afternoon we could "ask" our mother to cook sour soup.

In the following months, with continuous rain, the tamarind leaves that were picked a lot or the tamarind branches that were cut down would eventually grow new, lush leaves. A small tamarind tree could provide enough leaves for the whole village to eat. In the dry season, if you water and prune the branches, the tamarind would grow new leaves again. Like that, sour tamarind leaf soup can be eaten all year round, but it is still the most delicious in the rainy season…

My family often cooks sour soup with tamarind leaves with silver shrimp or eel. Silver shrimp from the pot (also known as the pot), close to the bottom, small body, soft, the meat is sweeter and richer when cooked in sour soup. Otherwise, land shrimp or squash shrimp just need to cut off the head and tail to cook, it is also delicious, although not as good as silver shrimp.

There are always eels in the fields. When I was a child, I often saw my father turning the soil over to dry it out or building a bank, he always carried a basket or a tin bucket to hold the eels.

When I grew up, I went to the fields myself to catch some to eat or to use as bait for crab fishing. Sour soup is often cooked with water spinach, the red water spinach that grows in the pond, or sweet potato shoots, bitter vegetables, water hyacinth flowers, etc. Pick a handful of basil leaves from behind the house, add a few chili peppers and you have a delicious pot of soup.

To add some more flavor, change the taste: stir-fry silver shrimp with coconut milk until fragrant; smashed eel stir-fried with coconut water over low heat. Or fried duck eggs with toppings (now called toppings!) such as shredded crab meat or minced tomatoes with shallots...

Meals with sour tamarind leaf soup are always delicious. Especially on rainy afternoons, meals around the oil lamp are warm and passionate, both the taste of home and the taste of deep affection. Vegetables, tamarinds, shrimps and fish are almost all grown around the house, caught near the house, not expensive, just a little effort but have a delicious, cozy meal.

One day, I was invited to a party to entertain a group of foreign guests. I didn't pay much attention to the menu, but when I got to the last dish, I was startled because on the table was a bowl of sour soup made from young tamarind leaves and catfish.

It turned out that a rustic dish of the countryside was present on the luxurious banquet table to entertain international guests. I ate deliciously and thought about how many dishes that used to be the main meals in the countryside have now become specialties, although the ingredients may be slightly different. That can also be considered a wonderful thing because the soul of the countryside, the soul of the nation is still preserved and continues to be elevated!