serves 4
fish stock:
200g of fish scraps (bones, meat, anything)
1 medium-sized carrot, sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks of spring onion
2 stalks of chinese celery
seafood marinade:
100g squid
100g prawns
200g fish fillet
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 chilli padi, deseeded and sliced
for the soup:
3 stalks of lemongrass, just the lower part and remove the outer layers
1 tomato, sliced into wedges
4 slices of pineapple from a can, cubed
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon of freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
100g bean sprouts
garnishing:
1 baby cucumber, cut into sticks
chinese celery
spring onion
Steps:
1. Put the ingredients of the fish stock into a pot and add about 6 bowls of water. Bring to a boil then let it simmer for 45 minutes. Leave to cool and remove the oil.
2. Combine ingredients of the marinade and mix well with the seafood. Leave for 30 minutes.
3. Stir fry the onion and lemongrass till fragrant, before adding them to the soup.
4. Add the tomato, pineapple, lime juice, sugar and salt to the soup and bring to a boil. Simmer for 1 minute.
5. Add the seafood and simmer for another 3 minutes, then put in the bean sprouts. Remove from heat.
6. Garnish.
My experience:
This must be one of the more complicated dishes I’ve tried so far, but the results are fulfilling! It’s 4 hours after dinner and I can still feel the effects of it. Heh. I’ll probably try it again after O&G. A warning though: deshelling the prawns and waiting for the fish stock to cool takes time – altogether I took more than 2 hours from start to end.
The dish is called Canh Chua Tom in Vietnamese, in case anyone was wondering. And I must apologise for the lousy photos – my photography skills are worse than my cooking skills, and I’ve to admit the pic was saved by the Auto Smart Fix function on Photoshop. Heh.
If you want a better close up but less appetising shot of the soup, here it is (I did warn you!):
