Recipe: Vietnamese sweet and sour catfish soup (canh chua ca)

	Recipe of Vietnam's Rainbow sweet dessert
	Recipe: Vietnamese yogurt pudding with black sticky rice (sua chua nep cam)
	Recipe: Vietnamese salad rolls with peanut dipping sauce (Goi cuon)

Here is step to make a bowl of ‘canh chua ca’ (Recipe and photo by Vicky Pham)

INGREDIENTS

Fish

1/2 lb catfish (thoroughly clean and slice into 1-inch steaks)

2 teaspoons fish sauce

Soup

8 cups water

5 tablespoons granulated white sugar

2 tablespoons tamarind powder (or 40 grams tamarind pulp dissolved in 1/3 cup hot water, strained and discard pulp)

1 tablespoon chicken or mushroom stock powder

1 teaspoon salt

Vegetables / Other Ingredients

4 large tomatoes (about 1 lb; quarter)

2 cups bean sprouts

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cloves garlic (mince)

8-10 sprigs Thai Basil (remove leaves from stem and cut into thin strips)

1 Thai chili pepper (optional for those who like it spicy)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Marinate catfish with fish sauce at room temperature for at least 15 minutes.

2. Add water (8 cups) to a medium-sized pot and bring it to a boil.

3. Add catfish, along with its juices. Cook for 15 minutes on low heat. Use a mesh or small spoon to scoop out any scum that floats to the top.

4. Add sugar, tamarind powder, chicken stock powder and salt. If you are using tamarind pulp instead of tamarind powder, ladle a cup or so of hot water from the pot into a small bowl. Add the tamarind pulp to the hot water. Smash the pulp with the back of a spoon until it separates from the seeds. Strain the pulp back into the pot, discarding any tamarind seeds that remains.

5. Add tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Turn off heat.

6. Add the bean sprouts. The residual heat will cook the bean sprouts.

7. In a small saucepan, heat up the vegetable oil high and fry the garlic until golden brown. Transfer fried garlic and oil to the pot.

8. Top with basil and chili pepper.

US food blogger criticized for misnaming noodle soup recipe ‘pho’ Tieghan Gerard, the creator of the popular food blog Half Baked Harvest, found herself in hot water after posting a “quick” noodle recipe that she ...

Recipe: Vietnamese egg coffee (Ca phe trung) “Egg coffee” is an iconic street drink in Vietnam. It sounds quite odd to many people but when having a chance to try a cup ...

Recipe: ‘Thit kho tau’ (Caramelized pork and eggs) for Lunar New Year ‘Thit kho tau’ (Caramelized pork and eggs) is a popular dish in the South of Vietnam. This special dish is usually made for the Tet ...