Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup
Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup
Soup Name:
Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup (Canh Chua Ca)
Taste: Sweet and sour
Nature: Slightly cooling, can add more ginger to warm it up
For soup and recipe videos, visit us on YouTube.
To start, you’ll need fresh fish heads. To be honest, you can use any type of bigger fish, such as salmon, tuna, big head fish, or bass. I just go to my local wet mart and pick up some “big head” fish, which is at like $15 HKD a head, which is cheap! If you’d like more protein, you can buy the fish tail as well. Don’t forget to use a fish bag in the soup. This will help keep the fish bones together as it disintegrates in the soup. I’ve found a few good ones on amazon that are durable and affordable. And if you have the patience, you can wash and reuse.
To make your fish heads super fragrant for the soup, use your soup pot (empty) and add in a dollop of oil (any type) and pan fry on medium head the diced garlic, ginger slices, sliced green onions, tamarind, sliced lemongrass, and diced shallots and fry until fragrant. Add in your clean fish parts and fry until the skin is a golden brown. When sufficiently yummy, you can throw everything into a thin mesh soup bag and set aside (optional).
After you bring the soup to a boil, turn to medium heat and add in the tomatoes, celery (or taro stems), okra, and pineapples and continue to boil. Boil on medium for another 15 minutes or until the fish is completely cooked and the vegetables have softened. You can almost consider this a quick boil soup.
Cook time: 30 mins on medium heat
Total time: 1 hour
Serves: 6 bowls
- 2 large fish heads, halved (or use fish tails)
- 2-3 stalks of celery (or Vietnamese taro stem), chopped
- 2 tomatoes, quartered
- 1 cup of pineapple chunks (canned is OK)
- 1 cup of bean sprouts
- 1 cup of okra, chopped
- 1 shallot, minced
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 slices of fresh ginger
- 2-3 stalks of fresh green onions, diced
- 2-3 stalks of fresh lemon grass, chopped
- fresh parsley
- 2 tbsp of tamarind
- fish sauce, to taste
- 3L of water
- In your soup pot, add a tablespoon of oil and fry the shallots, garlic, ginger, fresh green onions, and fresh lemon grass.
- When fragrant, throw in clean fish parts and pan fry until the skin is golden and crispy.
- Fill the pot to 3/4 full (or about 3L worth of water)
- Bring to a boil and turn to medium head, scooping out any oil or foam on top.
- Throw in tomatoes, pineapples, celery (or taro stems), and okra and let simmer for 15 minutes until the fish is completely cooked or the vegetables are soft.
- Taste soup and add fish sauce as needed.
- Add bean sprouts to boil for 1-2 minutes and serve. Garnish with fresh parsley.
EQUIPMENT USED
To answer your questions on what equipment I'm using, I've built a section here where you can find and explore what I'm using to make soups. Ingredients are a little harder, but I will do my best as I source them around. However, you can always message me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, and I will reply and try to point you in some direction!
A great help for fish or small bones in soups, including small ingredients such as barley, fox nuts, spices just to keep everything together.
A MUST HAVE in the kitchen! Energy saving, cost effective, and perfect for busy chefs! Check out my article here that explains it.
Another MUST HAVE in the kitchen for soups! It's so fine that it will scoop off the top oil and foam layer when using meats in your soup!
I use these types of stove top safe tea pots to make most of my herbal teas!
