Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup
Y'all ready for this?
Hello, and welcome to the first installment of What’s That You’re Cooking, Thea? - a newsletter! Each fortnight I’ll be sharing a recipe and a tit-bit or two, maybe a recommendation, maybe news, maybe an opinion. Paid subscribers will get an extra recipe and other surprises on an undisclosed date… to keep things interesting.
This week’s recipe is a re-creation of a dish I ate in Hội An in 2013. I love it because it is sour in not one way but three, and because rice is served with it. Rice is something I think we should all incorporate more in our soups.
Use whatever white fish you like or can afford. Just make sure you bring the soup off the heat as soon as the fish is just-cooked, to retain its integrity.
I hope I retain my integrity through the development of this newsletter. Even more, I hope that you enjoy this recipe! If you make it, let me know - it thrills me whenever anyone cooks anything I’ve shared.
Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup
Serves 4
100ml tamarind pulp
500 firm white fish fillets, bones removed
1 tsp chilli powder (or more if you like)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp neutral oil (sunflower/vegetable/rapeseed/groundnut)
½ shallot, chopped
2-3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
800ml fish stock or water
200g pineapple, cubed
3 small tomatoes, quartered (you can peel them if you don’t like skins)
1 lime
300g okra, cut in inch pieces
Handful coriander, chopped
Steamed rice, to serve
Make the tamarind purée by softening a golf-ball sized piece from a block of tamarind in boiling water. When it’s cool enough to touch, stir and remove any seeds if needed.
Season your fish with salt, pepper, and the turmeric and set aside. I leave the skin on because I don’t mind it, but remove yours if you prefer. After 15 minutes, cut the fish into bite-sized pieces.
Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. Sautée the shallot or onion until soft. Add the chilli powder.
Stir in the tamarind, fish sauce, sugar, and enough fish stock or water to cover. Bring the mixture to a boil, lower to a simmer, and add the cubed pineapple and tomatoes. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the pineapple has softened. Taste for seasoning and add more fish sauce if you want it saltier.
Lastly, add the sliced okra and fish chunks to the pot and simmer for 2 minutes, or until the fish is just cooked through. Remove from the heat.
To serve, top with fresh coriander and lime juice. Add a spoonful of steamed rice into the bowl to soak up all the lovely flavour. Enjoy!
Being born and raised there, I don’t tend to step back into SE13 very often. It’s not that I’m scared, rather that you’ve got to be in the right headspace to head back into the streets that formed you, where you might bump into a former neighbour or old school teacher at any turn. Know what I mean? But a trip to Longdan in Lewisham makes the bumpy journey on the 484 worth it every time. Opposite the former bingo hall that has stood empty for over a decade, the arrival of the shop has soothed some of the pain I felt when our beloved Turkish Food Centre disappeared to make way for another Travelodge…
15 types of dehydrated mushrooms? They’ve got ‘em. Fresh morning glory, pandan leaf or rambutan? Fill your boots. I think I spend 30 minutes in the shop each time because the place is a mecca of Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, Taiwanese, Singaporean and Malaysian ingredients and as such deserves to be more than a one-stop-shop. I am MAD FOR IT. The good news is, it’s not only Lewisham that is graced with a Longdan, you can find the shop in Elephant, Leyton, Kingston, Camden, Hoxton and Shoreditch. And a few further flung locations besides. AND you can explore the world of Longdan online too.
Last month my boyfriend and I went to Paris and did a lot of walking and eating. Here are the top 3 dishes we ate there, which also happened to be some of the cheapest.
The crêpe complete at Creperie Josselin (€8!)
The French onion soup at Bouillon Pigalle (€3.80!)
The mashed potato at Chez Janou (Can’t remember how much!)
While I’m on the subject, can anyone tell me why lettuce tastes so much better in France??? I would love to know.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for subscribing, and for reading. I can’t believe more than 270 of you want to receive my daft recipes in your inbox, but I am over the moon about it. I’ll see you in a fortnight, or sooner if you are a paid subscriber! Until then, it’s goodbye from me, folks. Solidarity.