Mit Tron: Quang Nam's Kitchen-Corner Jackfruit Salad

Mit tron is a country salad of Quang: young jackfruit boiled, shredded and dressed like a Vietnamese salad. Every plate comes with grilled rice crackers, because the proper way to eat it is to scoop it up with them.

A dish tucked into the kitchen corner

Quang folk say “young jackfruit sent down, flying fish sent up”. Mit tron once stayed tucked away in the kitchen corner of every Quang Nam household. Later it became food for guests and for death-anniversary gatherings.

One Quang native recalls that his grandmother made it to stave off hunger for the family, and his mother learned it from her. Picture the whole family gathering, scooping mit tron with crackers, talking and laughing.

In Quang Ngai, Quang Nam’s neighbour to the south, the jackfruit salad appears at daily meals and at weddings, funerals and gatherings. In the old, poorer days the young jackfruit was mixed mostly with pork skin; the vegetarian version uses tofu. Today, as life is easier, people also add prawns and pork belly.

From the kitchen corner to the banquet table

The “country dish” is now on restaurant menus, a local dish no visit to Quang Nam should miss. Mit tron, so typical of the poor Quang countryside, has reached a smart banquet table in Hoi An. There it is a starter to go with French wine. The restaurant’s English name for it was “salad baby jack”.

People short on kitchen time have a shortcut too: markets now have stalls selling boiled young jackfruit by the piece.

The young jackfruit season

From about the 2nd to the 4th lunar month, jackfruit hang on the tree like piglets crowding their mother. Growers thin them out so the rest grow plump, and the young, fine-spined fruit are picked. That is the best time to make mit tron.

Choose young fruit that is not wormy, with firm fibre. Pick young for crunch, but not so young that the sweet nutty taste is lost. Peel off the green spiny skin in a basin of water covering the fruit and the flesh stays white, with no latex sticking. Dip the whole fruit in cold water with a little salt and peel it right in the water.

Young jackfruit also goes into other dishes. In Quang Ngai large fruit is eaten ripe. Small fruit goes into soup with lolot leaf and shrimp, braised with flying fish, and above all made into the salad.

What is in a bowl of mit tron

The base is young jackfruit: cut lengthwise into pieces about 5 cm, cored, rinsed, boiled until just cooked, drained and cut into thin strands along the grain.

The jackfruit can be mixed with flying fish, shredded pork skin, shredded pork belly or peeled boiled prawns. The prawns are peeled, seasoned and stir-fried; the pork belly is boiled and cut into strips. For a vegetarian bowl, fried tofu cut into strips goes in instead of meat.

The dressing is good fish sauce, sugar and a little lime juice, with roasted peanuts and ground pepper. Last come rau ram and rau hung, with sliced banana blossom and red chilli. Rau ram and hung are also herbs Hoi An’s Tra Que (Trà Quế) village is famous for.

Making a plate of mit tron

The salad is rustic, easy to make but takes effort. The steps below combine the Dan Tri and VnExpress articles:

1. Pick young fruit with firm fibre, not wormy. Peel the spiny skin in a basin of water so the flesh stays white and latex-free.
2. Cut lengthwise into pieces, core, boil until just cooked, drain and cut into thin strands along the grain.
3. Prepare the topping: peeled fresh prawns, seasoned and stir-fried; pork belly boiled and cut into strips. The old way uses shredded pork skin.
4. Fry minced shallot in oil, add the sliced jackfruit and mix with pork skin or the chosen topping. VnExpress instead fries garlic, takes it off the heat to cool, then mixes in the jackfruit, prawns, pork belly, sugar, lime and fish sauce with herbs and sliced chilli.
5. Season with good fish sauce, sugar and a little lime juice, then add roasted peanuts and ground pepper. Finish with rau ram and rau hung, banana blossom and red chilli.
6. Plate it and add coarsely pounded roasted peanuts and fresh chilli.

How to eat it properly

Do not reach for a spoon or chopsticks. The proper way is to scoop it up with grilled rice crackers, which should be Phu Chiem (Phú Chiêm) or Dien Phuong (Điện Phương) rice paper, with spicy fish sauce. The cracker crunches and smells of rice. The salad is crunchy, and the nutty peanut, the tingling spice of herbs and chilli and the sour lime come together in the mouth.

For another way, put a little vermicelli in a bowl, spoon the salad on top and pour garlic-chilli fish sauce over it.

Phu Chiem village and the cracker

Phu Chiem village is in Dien Phuong commune. About a hundred of its noodle carts sell daily in Da Nang, Tam Ky, Hoi An and nearby towns. After the big floods of 1996-1999 washed away much of the farmland, villagers turned to the traditional noodle trade.

The trade has a division of labour. Besides those who sell the noodles, some people coat the noodle sheets, supply ingredients and vegetables, and make rice crackers. The village and its noodle bowl are covered in Mi Quang.

Mit tron elsewhere

You can also eat mit tron in Hue, Quang Ngai and Da Nang.

Where to find mit tron

In 2014 a woman at Han Market in Da Nang had sold mit tron at the same corner for about ten years. She also sold banh beo and black-bean sweet soup.

To mix it at home, ask at the market for stalls selling boiled young jackfruit by the piece. For other places to eat in Da Nang, see the listings at danangoi.com/places/ (opens in a new tab).

What to eat next

After the savoury course, finish with a bowl of hot mung bean dessert, che luc tau xa. Another Quang snack is banh beo; for rolls try banh trang cuon thit heo. More dishes are in the food section.

Photo credits

• The jackfruit tree in an engraving from Hendrik van Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus, seventeenth century: Wikimedia Commons — Hendrik van Rheede, Hortus Malabaricus, public domain (opens in a new tab) (Public domain)
• Peeled young jackfruit, pale and firm, the stage used for the salad: Wikimedia Commons — Ganmatthew (opens in a new tab), Ganmatthew (CC BY 4.0)
• Grilled sesame rice crackers, the kind you scoop salad with: Wikimedia Commons — stu_spivack (opens in a new tab), stu_spivack (CC BY-SA 2.0)