← Nouns Cooking · Vietnamese

Ingredients

• 700 g firm white fish fillets (catfish, hake or monkfish), cut into 4 cm pieces
• 1 tbsp Ground turmeric
• 2 cm piece galangal or ginger, finely grated
• 2 cloves Garlic, grated
• 2 tbsp shallot, minced
• 1 tbsp Fish sauce
• 1 tsp Sugar
• ½ tsp Salt
• 3 tbsp Cornflour (cornstarch)
• 4 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 2 bunches dill (a big pile), cut into 5 cm sprigs
• 6 Spring onion, cut into 5 cm lengths
• 1 small onion, cut into thin wedges
• 300 g Rice vermicelli
• 4 tbsp roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
• 1 handful Coriander (cilantro)
• 4 tbsp fish sauce, for nước chấm
• 3 tbsp sugar, for nước chấm
• 3 tbsp lime juice, for nước chấm
• 8 tbsp warm water, for nước chấm
• 1 Bird's eye chilli, finely chopped

Method

1. Mix the marinade ingredients into a paste and coat the fish gently. Leave for 30 min; it can also sit in the fridge for a couple of hours.
2. Meanwhile cook the noodles following the packet, rinse in cold water and drain. Make the nước chấm: dissolve the sugar in the warm water, then add the fish sauce, lime juice and chilli.
3. Dust the fish lightly with the cornflour. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat and fry the fish in one layer for 3 min per side, until golden and just cooked through. Turn it carefully so it doesn’t break.
4. Push the fish to one side, add the onion and fry for 1 minute, then pile in the dill and spring onions and toss everything for about 1 minute, just until the herbs wilt and smell amazing.
5. Bring the pan to the table and serve with the noodles, peanuts, coriander and nước chấm: each person takes noodles, a piece of fish and a tangle of dill, then spoons over sauce.

Tips

• Use a whole lot of dill: in Hanoi it’s treated as a vegetable, not a garnish.
• Contains peanuts and fish. The traditional dip is pungent mắm tôm (fermented shrimp sauce) with lime; nước chấm is the gentler choice.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Vicky Pham Marion's Kitchen