Canh Chua Ca (Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup)

Updated from the archives September 25, 2009:

After a recent trip home, my mom sent along an entire steelhead salmon. I chopped off the head and tail and decided to update the photos from this old recipe. Original post below the picture.


As I promised in my previous post, here's my recipe for canh chua ca (Vietnamese sour fish soup). Canh chua ca can be made with fish heads, or whole fish, supplemented by lots of veggies. You can eat it as is, or spooned over rice. It's a good way to use up every part of the fish. It's especially good with large fish heads such as tuna or salmon or sturgeon. If you're cooking it with the whole fish, often the fillet portions will be scooped out and placed on a dish of fish sauce and chili peppers so you can enjoy the meat alone with rice or wrapped up in banh trang (Vietnamese rice paper). The veggies and soup broth are often spooned over rice too.

The sour part of the canh chua comes from tamarind, and is offset by the sweetness of pineapples. There aren't any hard or fast rules, it's simply fish soup with veggies. This is just how I make mine.


The plant you see below is the aforementioned bac ha. Although it may resemble elephant ears, make sure you've got the alocasia odora variety or else it'll irritate your bowels.


I peeled the thin outer layer and sliced them on the diagonal. You can see the spongy stalks. That's what helps soak up all the flavors when you add bac ha to whatever you're cooking. You can find bac ha at most Asian grocery stores. If you can't find it, you can substitute with celery stalks but it won't be quite the same.


You'll also need pineapple, beansprouts, shallots, garlic, tamarind, tomatoes, okra, lemongrass, and bac ha.

And let's not forget the most important ingredient...


Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

I took a fish head,
Out to see a movie,
Didn't have to pay
To get it in

Fish heads fish heads,
Roly poly fish heads,
Fish heads fish heads,
Eat them up yum

Sorry, I couldn't resist. You can listen to the rest of the Dr. Demento song and watch the video on YouTube. I don't know what's up with me and childhood songs lately. Those were the only lyrics I remembered of this song from 6th-grade outdoor school at Trout Creek. I always thought it was a children's song. And the way it's sung on the video is totally not how I was taught. How disconcerting.

But anyway, onto the recipe.


Canh Chua Ca (Vietnamese Sour Fish Soup)

For a 5-quart pot, you'll need:

2 to 4 fish heads, tails, or fillets. I used catfish but tuna and salmon work well too.
2 to 3 stalks of bac ha (Vietnamese taro stem) or celery if you can't find it, peeled and sliced along the diagonal
2 tomatoes, large dice
1 to 2 cups fresh pineapple chunks
1 cup bean sprouts
a dozen or so okra pods, sliced in 1-inch segments
1 shallot, minced
2 or more cloves garlic, minced
A few sprigs ngo om (Vietnamese rice paddy herb) or rau ram (Vietnamese coriander)
2 tblsp tamarind (I buy seedless tamarind in blocks. They also sell it in paste or liquid concentrated form. Adjust amounts if necessary.)
Nuoc Mam (Vietnamese Fish Sauce), to taste

Optional:
2 stalks lemongrass, bruised and cut diagonally into about 3-inch segments or big enough to make them easy to remove from the soup pot

Add a few drizzles of oil to your pot and saute shallot, garlic, tamarind, and lemongrass until fragrant. Add cleaned fish heads.

Then, leaving the ingredients in the pot, fill your stock pot 3/4-full. Bring to a boil, turn heat down to medium to simmer, and scoop out any excess foam. You can either remove the lemongrass stalks at this point if you don't want to have to do that while you're eating. I like to leave them in so they can flavor the soup even more. Leaving the lemongrass in big sections makes it easier to find and to remove from the soup later.

Add tomatoes, pineapple, bac ha, and okra and let simmer. Add fish sauce to taste.

After maybe 15 minutes, when the fish is fully cooked and the veggies have slightly softened, taste soup again and add fish sauce if needed.

Add bean sprouts and ngo om when the soup is almost done since they cook almost immediately. Ngo om has a taste and scent like fresh cumin. It adds a lovely dimension to the soup.


Ladle into a big soup bowl to serve. Eat plain or spoon over rice.


Enjoy!

Or you can also make Canh Chua Tom (Vietnamese Sour Shrimp Soup).

So why the update?

Eek! Look at that hodgepodge of a photo.


My other Vietnamese fish recipes:
Ca Bong Lau Nuong voi Mo Hanh (Vietnamese Roasted Catfish with Scallion Oil)
Ca Chien Sot Ca Chua (Vietnamese Fried Fish with Tomato Sauce)
Ca Hap Gung Hanh (Vietnamese Steamed Fish with Ginger and Scallions)
Ca Kho To (Vietnamese Braised Catfish in a Claypot)
Cha Ca Thang Long (Vietnamese Hanoi-Style Turmeric Fish with Dill)