Hello fellow college students who are hungry and dying of a home cooked meal because after a whole week of eating pasta, chicken, and burritos for lunch and dinner, your heart just wants to give up...literally. So I understand that making a home cooked meal is hard, especially Vietnamese food since there are so many different types of spices and herbs you have to incorporate into the food to give it that exploding Southeast Asian flavor; not to mention those spices and herbs can be expensive and difficult to find (if you're in a city that does not have a large Asian community). But, all that aside, to help the poor, starving college student who wants to reminisce the scent of his or her mother's cooking, but does not know the traditional way (or does not have time), here is a simplified version of canh chua.
Canh chua is Vietnamese sour soup. It's literally called sour soup in Vietnamese! Traditionally, it would be cooked with catfish or cá trê (in VN). I don't think we have cá trê in the U.S., or not to my knowledge. It is best with catfish, but it could also be substituted for salmon or chicken ( I will go into the best type of chicken sour soup later). I don't like chicken much and I love salmon, which is a good thing because frozen salmon fillets are easier to work with in comparison to catfish. After all, we are only college students with no prior knowledge in cooking. The main ingredient to make the sour soup sour is usually tamarind (me in Vietnamese) and sometimes we would add pineapples to give it a more flavorful taste. So onward to the simplified version of canh chua, where everyone can make it. It takes about 20 minutes max once you have all the ingredients at hand.
Ingredients:
-A bag of tamarind/sour soup seasoning
-A fillet of salmon
-A can of Dole pineapple chunks in juice NOT syrup.
-Bean sprouts
-Tomatoes
-Bạc hà (it's a spongy, stalk-like veggie, usually found in veggie section in Asian supermarket).
-Leek OR shallots
-Ngò ôm (herb for seasoning)
-Fish sauce OR mushroom seasoning OR salt (I prefer the first two over the last)
-Tofu (optional)
-Red peppers (optional)
1. Heat up the pot and put a bit of oil in it. Dice the leek/shallot. Put it into the pot and stir it around. Add in the salmon fillets.
2. Once the salmon is slightly seared, add water to the pot. Fill half a pot.
3. Add half a bag of tamarind seasoning in. Stir. Wait for pot to boil. When the water boils, there will usually be frothy bubbles. Carefully spoon them out. Cut tofu into squares and put them into the pot.
4. Cut the tomatoes into quarters. Add tomatoes. Drain the pineapples from the juices (you can keep the juices if you want) and add the pineapples chunks. Bring pot to boil again.
5. Add bạc hà. The bạc hà doesn't take that long to cook. Lower the heat if the soup starts to boil.
6. Taste the soup. Too sour or not salty? Add some fish sauce/mushroom seasoning/salt. Not sour enough? Add a bit more of the tamarind mix. Too salty? Add some water or some of the pineapple juices that you saved. Keep on it until you get the flavor you want.
7. Add in the bean sprouts.
8. Wash and dice the ngò ôm. Garnish the soup with it.
9. If you want red peppers for spice, cut the red pepper into small pieces and put it in.
10. Eat and enjoy!
To me, this is the simplest version of canh chua. Now, onto the chicken canh chua. Usually in Vietnam, there would be an herb called lá dang. It provides the sour taste to the canh chua, totally different from the tamarind. In America, we don't have lá dang. So we have to improvise. My Mum uses rau chua, literally called sour herb. Those who eat bánh xèo should be familiar with rau chua.
So enjoy this simple recipe and remember, every time you cook something, you come up with alternative ways to make it better and more unique. I hope I can learn how to make cá kho tộ, so I can have canh chua cá kho tộ. First, I have to learn how to make the catfish...
