Hoàng Lan

For almost all Vietnamese, particularly those living in rural areas, pennywort has become one of their favourite herbs, used to cool down internal body heat when summer approaches, by cooking it into many tasty great and healthy dishes.

"The dishes include pennywort salad, pennywort soup with shrimp or minced pork, boiled pennywort and others,” said Bùi Thị Hạnh, 60, from Nghệ An’s Quỳnh Đôi Village in the central province.

“I often start my day with a refreshing green smoothie, made from different ingredients such as pennywort with green bean, pennywort with pineapple, pennywort with coconut juice, pennywort with banana and pennywort with almond milk and others,” she said.

Wild pennywort, which is available in Việt Nam, can be cooked into many tasty great dishes to cool down severely summer heat. Photo tiki.vn

Hạnh said during severe hot days, Hạnh often made pennywort smoothies for her four-member family. They all enjoy pennywort with coconut juice, watermelon, and green bean milk. 

She told Việt Nam News a method on how to make pennywort with coconut juice, one of her family's favourites. 

To make four smoothies, you need 200 grams of pennywort, two fresh coconuts, two tablespoons of sugar, and a little salt. 

“You should choose pennywort with small, dark green coloured leaves, without any black marks or white spots. These fresh vegetables will also smell nice and fresh with a distinctive fragrance,” said Hạnh.  

Pennywort salad with shrimp is one of beloved dishes by locals. Photo backhoaxanh.com

The pennywort should be carefully cleaned and soaked in lightly salted water for 15 minutes, then cleaned again and drained, before cutting it into pieces and grinding it with coconut juice. The next step is to add in the sweetness with the sugar and some small pinches of salt to taste, while continuing to put it through the grinder, until it all becomes well combined, Hạnh said. 

The last step is to sieve the mix to extract the juice, pour it into four glasses and top it with coconut threads, she said.

Apart from making smoothies, Hạnh also cooks pennywort with shrimp, which results in a nice light bowl of soup with a lightly bitter flavour from the pennywort, but rich in the sweetness from the shrimp. “The soup helps to release each distinctive flavour very effectively,” she said. 

Pennywort cooked with ground strabismus fish lures interests of many dinners. Photo vienmaytinh.com

Other dishes include pennywort cooked with strabismus fish, a very tasty and great soup that all family members like so much. 

Then she also makes a simple pennywort salad, a favourite of housewives when the heat of the summer is building, a dish which is also suitable for vegetarians if you leave out the meat. Ingredients include a good bunch of fresh pennywort, a big onion, tomato sauce or oyster mushroom.

Hạnh said ingredients to make pennywort salad include 500 grammes of pennywort, some white-leg shrimp, 200 grammes of pork belly (leave out for vegetarians), garlic, lemon, spice, fish sauce, salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar and chilli. 

Clean the pennywort well, soak it in lightly salted water for 20 minutes and drain it. Boil pork belly (if you are using it) until it is well-cooked, before putting it into a big bowl with ice, so it retains its form, then cut it into thin slices. For the shrimp, cooks should remove the black thread on the shrimp’s back, boil it until it is cooked, peel off the shell to get the meat and cut each shrimp into two parts.  

Pennywort smoothie with green bean and coconut juice helps to reduce summer heat so much. Photo sasaki.com.vn

To make the sauce: mix the minced garlic, minced chilli with two tablespoons of fish sauce, two teaspoons of sugar and two teaspoons of lemon juice, one teaspoon vinegar and pepper respectively, and three teaspoons of water. All should be mixed well. 

Put the pennywort, shrimp, and slices of pork belly into a big bowl before pouring over the sauce and gently mixing it all.   

The dish is even more enjoyable when topped with roasted peanuts, coriander and basil, said Hạnh.    

Pennywort (scientific name is centella asiatica) is grown in wet and shady areas with loose soil. The herb can be used to treat bacterial or virus infections, stomachache, hepatitis and many other ailments, according to herbalist Nguyễn Đình Trung from the Nghệ An Centre of Traditional Medicine. VNS