Roasted turtle with salt in Ca Mau
Ca Mau with a big network of rivers, channels, ponds, and lakes is full of turtles. Local people created a very famous recipe from turtle – Roasted turtle with salt (or Rua rang muoi). In recent days, catching wild turtles are forbidden so that we can only enjoy the dish cooked from farmed turtle in Ca Mau. Not all kinds of the turtles are tasty. According to local people, Nap turtle and Vang turtle are good ingredients to cook Rua rang muoi. The flesh of these kinds of turtles are not only delicious but also healthy.
Although Rua rang muoi is an easy recipe, it needs experience and patience to cook the dish. To bleed the turtle, they use a sharp point knife and cut the blood vessels quickly in order to get the fresh blood. Wine mixed with fresh turtle blood is very good for your health. Then the whole turtle is poached in boiling water to remove dirt, slime, and odor. In Ca Mau, they roast turtle in clay pot and with unrefined salt. The ratio of the turtle to salt is 1, it means the cook should use 1 kg of unrefined salt to roast 1 kg of turtle. Put salt and the turtle into a pot and cover the lid. While cooking, there are explosive sounds. When the cook cannot hear the sound, it is time to get the turtle out of the pot. The last step is removing the shell and guts.
Turtle taste is a mix of seafood, chicken, duck, beef and sheep tastes. Roasted turtle with salt is distinctively tasty and seductively fragrant. The dish is usually served with a mix of salt, black pepper, lime juice and herbs such as Vietnamese mint. Some prefer to wrap turtle meat in rice paper and dip in sweet-sour fish sauce dip. If you have a chance to visit Ca Mau, Mekong Delta, this dish is worth a try. 
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