Whenever summer comes, the sun is beating down and you can hear the noisy rumble of cicadas from every street corner, sau fruit is ready to be made into tasty dishes for Hanoians.
Sau fruit can be made into a variety of offerings, from salted, sugared dry sau, sau jelly, sau jam, sugar pickled sau or sau water. Sugar pickled sau is a nice, refreshing drink for summer time.
To have a good pot of sugar pickled sau, you have to choose the right sau fruits which are not too young or too old, not too big or too small. Sau fruits will be peeled off, and this process takes a lot of time and requires a lot of patience. After that, you need to take off the seeds and soak the fruit in water for about one hour. Then, sau will be put in hot water for some minutes in order that it will not be too soft.
The final process is to put the fruit in a pot with sugar. One kilogram of sau needs about 350-350 grams of sugar and some ginger. You have to then wait a day and take the fruit together with some of its pickled water and mix it with ice to create a very tasty drink.
The sour taste of sau, sweetness of sugar and fragrance of ginger will make you want to taste it every day. Anyone who is going to visit Hanoi this summer, has to try a glass of sugar pickled sau.
(Source: Saigontimes)
