🇻🇳 Vietnam · Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Canh chuaVietnamese sour soup
A Vietnamese sweet-and-sour soup of the Mekong Delta: a tamarind broth with pineapple, tomato, catfish or other fish, elephant-ear stalk, okra and bean sprouts, scented with rice paddy herb and eaten with rice.
Origin and history
Canh chua is a sweet-and-sour soup eaten with rice, with a Mekong Delta version of tamarind, pineapple and river fish that is the best known. A Vietnamese article describes it as balancing sour, spicy, salty and sweet. Cambodia has a comparable soup, samlor machu; the sources are too thin to say which came first, so no origin is claimed.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 40 min
- Hands-on
- 25 min
Ingredients
- 450 g1 lb catfish or snakehead, bone-in steaks, 2.5 cm / 1 in thick
- 1.2 litres5 cups water, or light pork-bone stock
- 50 g2 oz tamarind pulp, or 2 to 3 tbsp tamarind concentrate
- 165 g1 cup fresh pineapple chunks, juice saved
- 2 tomatoes, in wedges
- 2 elephant ear (taro) stems, peeled and sliced; celery is a substitute
- 5 okra, sliced
- 150 g5 oz bean sprouts
- 2 tbsp fish sauce, more to taste
- 1 1/2 tbsp sugar, to taste
- 3 cloves garlic, minced and fried golden in 3 tbsp oil
- 1 handful rice paddy herb (ngò om), chopped; or Thai basil and culantro
- 2 Thai chilies, sliced, optional
- steamed jasmine rice, to serve
Method
-
1. Fry the garlic in the oil over medium-low heat for 2 to 3 minutes until pale gold. Strain at once, keeping garlic and oil.
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2. Pour 250 ml (1 cup) of hot water over the tamarind, mash it, and strain out seeds and fibre.
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3. Bring the water or stock to a boil, add the pineapple and half the tomato and simmer for 3 minutes.
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4. Add 3 to 4 tablespoons of the tamarind liquid, the fish sauce, sugar and any pineapple juice. Taste: it should be lightly sour, gently sweet and savoury.
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5. Salt the fish lightly, rinse, then slide it into the boiling broth and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, until opaque and just flaking.
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6. Add the okra, elephant ear stems and remaining tomato and cook 1 minute. Turn off the heat.
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7. Stir in the bean sprouts and most of the herbs, letting them wilt in the heat for 30 seconds.
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8. Ladle into bowls, top with the remaining herbs, chili and fried garlic with a little of its oil, and serve at once with rice.
Notes
- This is the southern, Mekong Delta form, soured with tamarind and sweetened with pineapple, usually made with catfish or snakehead (cá lóc), the fish a Vietnamese article ties to the western delta. Rice paddy herb gives its characteristic scent; Thai basil, lemon basil or culantro are the usual stand-ins, and a pinch of cumin is sometimes used, though none is a perfect match.
- Northern versions are more restrained and sour with sấu fruit, star fruit or fermented rice; central versions are bolder and spicier.
- A richer version starts with a pork-bone stock simmered for about 1 1/2 hours before the pineapple and fish go in.
- Use Southeast Asian tamarind, as Indian tamarind is sharper. Add it gradually, since you can add sourness but not remove it. Keep the broth just below a boil after the fish goes in so it stays clear.
- Best eaten fresh: leftover fish turns soft, so store it apart from the soup.
Adapted from Savour the Pho, Canh chua, Cooking Therapy, Canh chua, and Znews, Về miền Tây ăn cá lóc.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.