Vietnamese Soul Food part I (canh chua)

I always found it interesting how the definition of “Soul Food” could have a different resonance to different people, depending on who they are, and where they grew up. For me, I tend to enjoy the combination of something soupy and savory, regardless of weather or time of day. Lucky for me, Vietnamese cuisines feature a wide variety of “soul” foods.

A couple of nights ago, I’ve decided to make Vietnamese “sweet and sour” soup (or canh chua in Vietnamese) to pair with caramelized catfish (ca kho to) to be served with rice. To me, this is the equivalent to fried chicken and mash potatoes; this is what I grew up eating, this is also considered as a very traditional Vietnamese meal. Like all great dishes, its origins typically came from necessity and what’s readily available to a given region. In most of Asia, fish and vegetables were considered cheap and in abundance, while meat and dairy products were expensive and often exported to the more “privileged” crowd. It’s funny how things are flipped here with seafood prices marked up so high.

I’ll show you how to make sweet and sour soup now, and save the caramelized fish for next time. To make the soup, here are some things that you’ll need:

• Tamarind (you can get the paste or the powder; this is the sour component)
• 2-3 fresh chili pepper (chopped finely)
• 1 pineapple (chopped into cubes)
• 3 small cups of okra
• 2 handful of bean sprouts
• Thai Basil
• Rice paddy herbs
• Fish sauce (to taste)
• 2-3 roma tomatoes (chopped into even cubes)
• Sugar (to taste)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion
• 2-3 catfish cut into even cubes (head is optional, but not really good eats in this case)
• Freshly chopped celery (optional)

Directions:

1. Finely chop garlic and onions and place them into a large pot with pre-heated oil. I’ve found that everything that’s good starts with garlic and onion (except for desert, that would be weird).
2. Add the catfish and sear all sides until golden brown and remove from pot. Pre-cooking the fish this way will eliminate the fishy smell in the soup, and will allow the fish to hold better in the cooking process; skipping this step will be very bad.
3. Add water to the pot. I usually filled the pot almost half way with water at this stage. You’ll find that the soup has a brownish color to it, this is what you want since you’re extracting the flavors from the garlic and onions at the bottom of the pot.
4. Add the tomatoes and cook until they’re soft.
5. Add the pineapple and okras and cook for about 5-7 mins.
6. Add the fish, bean sprouts, chilly peppers, and celery.
7. Season with sugar, fish sauce, and tamarind to taste. You want to add a little of each elements at first since fish sauce is really salty and tamarind is really sour. What you’re trying to achieve here is a balance between the sweet and sour, with a hint of saltiness. I like mine more on the sour side, but that’s just me.

To serve: Place the soup into a large bowl and add chopped basil, chili peppers, chopped rice paddy herbs on top.  This is great with plain rice and you can place a side of fish sauce with some chili pepper (I like it spicy) on the side to dip your veggies from the soup.

Cooking time should be no more than 30 mins so that all your ingredients are fresh and crunchy. A good note to add is that this is not really a good dish to re-heat more than 2x, since you’ll loose that initial freshness.