1. Black cake

Anyone who has the opportunity to visit the white plateau of Bac Ha will not be able to forget the taste of black banh chung of the Tay people here. On the surface, the black banh chung is also wrapped in green dong leaves but has no square shape. But the black rice of the Tay people in Bac Ha is wrapped in a long, round humpback shape that looks like a hunchback cake of the Giay ethnic group. The ingredients for the cake also have many special things with highland flavor: Upland sticky rice, cardamom, black pork, green beans and especially the black color of the cake is created from the wood charcoal of the tree in the forest. . After pounding, sifting many times to make it very smooth, the person wrapping the cake will bring charcoal powder mixed with rice to create black color. To spice up the filling of the black banh chung, there is no shortage of cardamom, cardamom is baked or roasted with the shell and crushed seeds, sieved, and mixed with pork belly to make the filling with a sufficient amount to create aroma. characteristic of the cake. Before boiling, the cake is soaked in cold water once, placed in a pot, filled with water to cover the leaves. Usually, Banh Chung will be cooked for about 8 to 9 hours.

In the past, this type of cake only appeared on holidays, Tet, anniversaries... but now it has become a popular dish that anyone who comes to Bac Ha - Lao Cai wants to buy as gifts for relatives and friends. friends or enjoy on the spot.

2. Bac Ha pink noodle soup

Called pink pho because banh pho is made from upland pink rice - a specialty rice in this land, it can only be grown in one crop on the highlands, where the climate is cold almost all year round. Pho is made from pink upland rice, so when coated, the leaves are pink, no matter where you go to make pho, the noodles are soft and very tasty. When eating pho, you can choose chicken noodle soup or chicken noodle soup, pho char siu mixed with sour water, a kind of sour water made from vinegar or pickle juice. high, adding soy beans and chili sauce is even more attractive. There are also people who choose to eat pho rolls, roll them up, then cut them into pieces and dip them in the broth with char siu, green beans, and herbs at will.

It is these ingredients that are made from the hard-working hands of the people of this region, grown and nourished from the water source in the ravine and watered by the fresh air of the highlands that make up a bowl of pho. famous persimmon, making it impossible for anyone who has eaten it once to forget the taste.

3. Five-color sticky rice (rice from leaves)

It is said that, when coming to Bac Ha, the dish that should not be missed is five-color sticky rice. The strange sticky rice is not only flexible and fragrant, but the color is also very eye-catching with five main colors: Green, red, purple, yellow, white - the color of forest leaves, a specialty that only the highlands can grow.

The ingredients for making five-color sticky rice include fragrant glutinous rice grown in Bac Ha, which is a large round rice grain without a little bit of ordinary rice. After washing, soak in cold water for 6-8 hours, then, the glutinous rice is divided into 5 equal parts to dye the leaves purple, green, red, yellow, and the white part for the rice. Usually, people here will use gac fruit or red rice leaves to create brick red color for sticky rice. Green uses ginger leaves, cilantro leaves, yellow uses old turmeric to pound for water, and purple uses purple leaves that are very fragrant and have many medicinal flavors in them.

Five-color sticky rice often appears in the trays of wedding offerings, New Year's festivals and new homes... The people here think that, in these days, the house that mixes the standard and eye-catching sticky rice color, that house will have many. good luck and happiness in the new year.

4. Humiliation

Ingredients for making humiliating dishes include: pork belly, basil, five flavors, terracotta, garlic, chili, wine, vinegar, monosodium glutamate, pepper, etc. When preparing this dish, pork must be used. only fresh and delicious, cut into squares, wash and boil thoroughly. Remove the cooked meat and let it cool. Scrape off the skin of the meat, use a sharp object to prick the skin carefully, when you see that the skin is fat, wipe it clean, use wine or vinegar to apply it to the skin to absorb evenly. Next, put the meat in a hot fat pan (fried) until golden, just take it out. When frying is complete, the meat is removed to drain the fat, cut into large pieces with a thickness of about 1.5 cm, so that each piece has skin. Continue to marinate the spices into the fried pieces of meat, mix with your hands until the spices are absorbed, then arrange the meat into a round shape. At this point, the skin is at the bottom of the bowl, the meat is facing up. Put in the steamer for about 6 to 8 hours to simmer, until the meat is tender. Place the large bowl on top of the plate and turn it over so that the humiliation plate will be cooked soft but not crushed, keeping the beautiful rounded shape, with the golden skin being flipped on top. When eaten hot with rice, sticky rice, or banh chung, there is nothing better than that.

5. Thang Co

Thang co is a traditional dish of the Mong ethnic group in Bac Ha. However, over the years, this dish has been imitated and modified by most ethnic groups. However, it still has the typical flavor and ingredients, which are the organs and bones of horses and cows. Thang Co is cooked with a lot of herbs such as anise, cardamom, cinnamon, five flavors… usually at fairs, people cook Thang Co in a large pot for customers.