Cha Ca Fish with Dill, Hanoi Style

This is a classic style of Vietnamese dish: cooked fish over noodles with oodles of fresh veggies for condiments and Nuoc Cham (Everyday dipping sauce). These dishes are very impressive at dinner parties with all of the color and texture.

From Quick & Easy Vietnamese Cooking.

Cha Ca Fish with Dill, Hanoi Style

I make a variation on this dish all the time. Instead of fish, you can substitute in grilled chicken or steak. Just serve your meat on top of a bowl of noodles, garnish with fresh vegetables and finish it off with Nuoc Cham, and you are set for a delicious, healthy meal.

I like to use Tilapia for this sort of recipe. It is a firm, white fleshed fish that soaks up the flavors easily and doesn't fall apart when you cook it.

Cut 1 pound of firm fish fillets of your choice into 2 inch-3inch square pieces. Toss gently with 2 Tablespoons fish sauce, 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 Tablespoon chopped ginger, 1 teas. ground tumeric (adds color more than anything else), and a pinch of salt. Cover and chill to marinate for at least one hour and up to one day.

ACCOMPANIMENTS:
1/2 pound thin rice noodles or angel hair pasta.
3 cups shredded lettuce (I like to use red leaf)
1 cup fresh mint, cilantro, or basil (or a combo)
1 cucumber, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped, roasted peanuts
NUOC CHAM dipping sauce

Cook 1/2 lb. of your preferred noodle and divide between 4 bowls.

Prepare all accompaniments before you cook the fish.

NUOC CHAM: (it is a good idea to double this, it goes fast!)
1 T chopped garlic
2 T sugar
1/2 chile-garlic sauce
3 T fish sauce
3 T water
2-3 T freshly squeezed lime juice

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, stirring well to disolve sugar. If you want to be really hard core, mash garlic, sugar, and chile sauce first in a mortar and pestle.

DO NOT skimp on the fish sauce. It smells strong at first, but will mellow.
Transfer to small bowls to serve to each guest alongside their dish or I usually just put it in one larger bowl and let everyone ladle some for themselves.

To cook fish, heat 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil in a large, heavy skillet or casserole. Heat oil until a bit of garlic sizzles when you add it to the pan. Add drained fish to pan and cook about 3 minutes. Gently turn fish and add chopped green onion and fresh chopped dill to pan. I only had dried dill, and it tasted great. Make sure green onions and dill gets lightly tossed with fish.

To serve, place a few pieces of fish on top of noodles and allow guests to add in their own accompaniments and Nuoc Cham.

Enjoy! This dish is easy to make and will give you a nice taste of Vietnamese cooking.

Cooking the Vietnamese Way

I never tire of eating Vietnamese cooking. The ingredients are always so fresh, use little added fat, and the frequent combination of chiles, herbs like basil and mint, garlic, and ginger, and peanuts are so delicious and mouth watering. They also have an interesting twist of French colonial history, so it isn't weird to put carrots and tofu on a baguette or eat a puff pastry to start out your meal.

The two main things to know about Vietnamese cooking are:
1) Fish sauce-you can't be afraid of fish sauce (nuoc mam). Yes, it smells like your brother's dirty gym socks that he insisted upon wearing three days in a row. But once you have either cooked with it or combined it with other ingredients, the smell mellows and it adds such an essential part to the flavor and smell of the dishes. Without it, your dishes will only be so-so.

2) Fresh ingredients and patient prepping of foods is key. A lot of the dishes are about delicately sliced vegetables mixed with fresh herbs over rice or noodles with maybe some sort of meat and a little sauce or broth. Substitutions can be made easily, so you don't have to panic if you don't have Thai Basil, you can use regular basil or even cilantro and just move on.

Even though we like to think we are so worldly in our local grocery stores, I still find it hard to find exactly all the ingredients I want at the local Fred Meyer's or Metropolitan Markup (Market). Just under two miles from my house, up on South 38th, is a crazy good, but slightly scruffy looking East Asia Supermarket, or maybe it's called Super East Asian Market, I can't remember. OK, maybe scruffy is a little too nice, really dirty looking would be better, like maybe they actually let the chickens run around in the shop before they butcher them--I like to think of it as the poor man's Uwajimaya. (I love Uwajimaya, but the nearest one is 36 miles up the road in Seattle and is pretty damned expensive.)

But please don't be put off by my filthy description. You can find artichoke tea here and daikon the size of your thigh and super cheap herbs and coconut milk for $1 a can and rice in 50lb sacks and rice sticks and noodles in all shapes and sizes. They also have delicate looking quail eggs, interesting East Asian beers, and plastic Chinese noodle bowls complete with classic red and white designs. I still haven't gotten up the nerve to buy any meat products here, as I prefer to buy organic meats whenever possible, but I've heard from others that the meat is fine. This is where I will be buying most of my ingredients for my foray into Vietnamese cooking.

I am diving into Quick and Easy Vietnamese by Nancy McDermott. I hope you will join me. The food is delicious.

New Cook Book(s)

Okay, how long has it been since I have posted here? I'm embarrassed. But I guess that is the way of the world when you are a blogging newbie. I have a new blog now that covers the whole range of things in my life: arts, the garden, design, do-it-yourself, and, of course, cooking.

House InsideOut

But I am sticking with this blog as well. In fact, I have even found myself a new cookbook to be cooking out of. Actually, I have found two cookbooks; two that are diametrically opposed from each other.

The first one is The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. She, a genius in her own time, yes? These are classic foods, stripped down to the basics. I am sure there are some badly needed basic tips and tricks for me in this book.

The second is Quick & Easy Vietnamese by Nancie McDermott. I originally checked this out from the library and then found so many delicious recipes that I had to go and buy it! I love Vietnamese food and am looking forward to exploring this book thoroughly.

I discovered in my first project, cooking from How To Eat Supper, I got a little bored with the author's tastes. My second mistake was trying to cook all of the variations. I now know that many of these variations in many (ok, not all, but many) cookbooks are basically space fillers. By the results of some of my "variations" I am fairly certain the authors never even tried them themselves. Finally. I am giving myself as much time as I need to finish; no rushed deadlines and stress--who needs it?

So now I have two cookbooks with lots of variation between the two of them and off I go!