Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup in Asian WSJ

Robyn Eckhardt of the Eating Asia blog  is a frequent contributor to this blog and my friend in Kuala Lumpur. She's also an accomplished food and travel writer. She just went to Saigon and reported on Vietnamese canh chua ca sour fish soup -- the quintessential Saigon sou -- for the Asian Wall Street Journal.

Robyn intervied Nguyen Dzoan Cam Van, the famed chef and restaurateur in Vietnam, who had lots to say. Oh yes, Robyn and I chatted about the soup too. It's one of my favorites with lots of nuanced tart-sweet-pungent flavors and wonderful flavor. And the lovely photo? Taken by David Hagerman, Robyn's husband. What a pair.

Check it out:  Canh Chua Ca in Asian Wall Street Journal (9/25/08)

There are many variations to sour seafood soups in Southeast Asia. What's yours?

The Vietnamese version can have taro stem (bac ha) or okra, lots of rice paddy herb (ngo om) that smells like zesty cumin, and tamarind and/or pineapple.  You can botch if you don't use fresh ingredients. When you hit it on the mark, you can eat bowl after bowl while sweating in the Saigon heat. Sour cools, right?

Comments

[John]

very neat posts. I don't know if Tom KA fits under the definition of a sour seafood soup, but it's one of my favorites

[Simon Bao]

Andrea, I have almost year-round access to fresh salt-water fish, and to their heads and bones, so I use that instead of the traditional freshwater fish. Around here, many of us use Striped Bass for Canh Chua, I do think it's the best of several local choices.

I'm curious to know what other people in other locations use. I see a lot of farmed catfish in markets, but never the bones and heads needed for the broth. I'm wondering if anyone in the Great Lakes area has ever used fresh whitefish for Canh Chua. I have a feeling that might work.

I never make a special trip somewhere just to get some taro stem, and while celery is in no way a plausible substitute for that, it's still a decent alternative. In the same way that if someone really doesn't like okra, that's fine, leave it out, but put something in that put to take its place: sugar snap peas or wax beans or something...

[Nate]

My favorite's got to be Penang Assam Laksa.

[Joel]

I remember reading about a homestyle Indonesian vegetarian sour soup years ago. The now-deceased author, who was a Singaporean Chinese based in Hong Kong, described the soup is vegetarian and soured using tamarind without vinegar (it seems using lemon as a souring agent in cooking was unheard of in Indonesia before 1980s) and there was not even a single drop of oil used in the whole preparation. The only other seasoning is salt. I guess this makes it a bit like a type of drink rather than a broth.

But my personal favourite is something far more mainstream: Thai tom yum kung. A balance of texture, taste, and flavours.

[Joel]

BTW Andrea, I have just read a description of canh chua ca in a HK magazine. There is a Vietnamese herb which is transliterated into Cantonese as "pak ha". I wonder if it is bac ha in Vietnamese i.e. taro stems, since it is in this case a Cantonese transliteration of Vietnamese names?

[Lili]

If you don't like the okra, substitute with rau muống (water spinach). The rau muống is one of my mother's favorite variations, it was easier to find than taro stems or taro leaves. And sometimes, she would use shrimp. She also makes a non-seafood versions with fried tofu squares and thinly sliced beef & one with just bone-in chicken pieces.

My favorite canh chua ca uses salmon heads, which is almost all edible. I also like cat fish (steaks, not fillets).

Ah....

[Andrea Nguyen]

Joel, "pak ha" is likely bac ha -- the spongy taro stem for the soup.

Nate, Penang Assam Laksa is good. Do you guys have a recipe to link to?

Simon, striped bass is a lovely, mild-flavored fish for canh chua ca. The other day, I made a Singaporean fish curry with it and the flesh was tender and nice. Pieces of fish fillet are fine for the soup but if there are some bones, that's good too. All depends on your comfort level with picking fish flesh!