Culinary Corner: Five seafood soups you need to try

2. Canh Chua Cá Trê (Sweet and Sour Catfish Soup)

In the seafood rich coastal country of Vietnam, comes this traditional home-cooked soup, canh chua cá trê.  In her blog, Vietnamese Home Cooked Food, Vicki Pham-Le describes this dish as the perfect balance of sweet, salty, sour and savory, the characteristic beauty of Vietnamese cooking. 

“The sweetness comes from sugar. The tartness comes from the tamarind, which gets mellowed out by the sugar. And lastly, the savory is obviously the catfish,” she wrote.

Other bloggers suggest pineapple should be used for sweetness, which could make it more similar to the Vietnamese equivalent of tom yum soup, which has origins in Thailand.

Canh Chua Cá Trê (Serves 4-6)

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb catfish (Thoroughly clean and slice into 1-inch steaks)
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 8 cups water
• 5 tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 2 tablespoons tamarind powder (or 40 grams tamarind pulp)
• 1 tablespoon chicken stock powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 large tomatoes (about 1 lb; quarter)
• 2 cups bean sprouts
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic (mince)
• 8-10 sprigs Thai Basil (remove leaves from stem and cut into thin strips)
• 1 Thai chili pepper (optional for those who like it spicy)

Method

1. Marinate catfish with fish sauce at room temperature for at least 15 minutes.
2. Add water (8 cups) to a medium-sized pot and bring it to a boil.
3. Add catfish, along with its juices. Cook for 15 minutes on low heat. Use a mesh or small spoon to scoop out any scum that floats to the top.
4. Add sugar, tamarind powder, chicken stock powder and salt. If you are using tamarind pulp instead of tamarind powder, ladle a cup or so of hot water from the pot into a small bowl. Add the tamarind pulp to the hot water. Smash the pulp with the back of a spoon until it separates from the seeds. Strain the pulp back into the pot, discarding any tamarind seeds that remains.
5. Add tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Turn off heat.
6. Add the bean sprouts. The residual heat will cook the bean sprouts.
7. In a small sauce pan, heat up the vegetable oil high and fry the garlic until golden brown. Transfer fried garlic and oil to the pot.
8. Top with basil and chili pepper.
9. Serve with Vietnamese Caramelized Clay Pot Cat Fish (Cá Kho Tộ) and steamed white rice for a complete meal.