Chicken rice with gac fruit is home

My hometown lies in the central region, which is notorious for the dry, hot summers. However, you can find delicious, refreshing fruit there all year long, such as lychees, longans and spiny bitter gourds (gac fruits).

When I was a child, I used to wonder how my mother and sister could make such delicious dishes from these small gac fruits, such as the Vietnamese red sticky rice (xoi gac), gac wine and gac oil. When we were bored of these dishes, my mother switched to chicken rice with gac fruit.

To make my favorite dish you need to choose soft, fragrant rice and a chicken raised in the garden, which has soft and delicious meat. Finding a red, fresh and ripe gac fruit is also important, as it will create the beautiful red color and the fragrant smell of the dish.

The inside of the gac fruit is mixed with wine and added to the rice, which is already washed and left to dry. This mixture is stirred with oil, and then cooked in the rice cooker with chicken broth. You can also put in pineapple leaves to create more fragrance to the dish.

When the rice is cooked, you can smell the wonderful aroma of rice, gac fruit and pineapple leaves mixed together. The chicken is cut up to be served on top of the red, delicious-looking rice together with some Vietnamese mint (rau ram) and pepper. Then the dish is enjoyed with cucumber and fish sauce (nuoc mam) with garlic and chili.

Some years have passed since I enjoyed my mother’s chicken rice with gac fruit. Suddenly I find myself wandering back in time when she calls and says that the gac fruits in my hometown have again ripened.

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