Chả Cá Lã Vọng

Name: Chả Cá Lã Vọng
Total time: 3 h 30 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Vietnamese (Hanoi / North)
Ingredients: 700 g Firm white fish fillet, cut into 4 cm pieces; 2 tsp Ground turmeric; 20 g Galangal, grated; 3 tbsp Plain yoghurt; 2 tbsp Fish sauce (nước mắm); 3 Shallots, minced; 100 ml Neutral oil; 200 g Dill; 8 Spring onions, cut into 5 cm lengths; 400 g Rice vermicelli (bún); 80 g Roasted peanuts, crushed; 3 tbsp Mắm tôm (fermented shrimp paste); 1 Lime; 2 Bird's eye chilli, sliced

Hanoi's one-dish restaurant made portable: catfish marinated yellow with turmeric and galangal, seared, then finished at the table in a pan of hot oil under an absurd, wonderful quantity of dill and spring onion.

Fonte

Ricetta di Hanoi kitchens and street stalls · 🏺 Tradizionale · Northern Vietnamese cooking — Hanoi households and the pavement stalls of the Old Quarter

Hanoi speciality · Northern Vietnam — A dish tied to one family's restaurant rather than to a named individual cook, so no cook is credited. The reference confirms the hemibagrus catfish (cá lăng), the turmeric-and-galangal marinade with fermented rice, charcoal grilling, the hot pan brought to the table, the dill and scallion, and service with rice noodles, peanuts and mắm tôm — and records that the local community helped the Đoàn family open an eatery at 14 Hàng Sơn Street in 1871, after which the street was renamed Phố Chả Cá. One honest substitution: this book replaces mẻ, the fermented rice starter, with yoghurt or rice vinegar because mẻ is effectively unobtainable outside Vietnam. That is this book's choice, not the traditional recipe.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

Watch it being made · 3 videos

CookingWithMamaMui Lennardy feedthepudge

⏱ 210 min🍽 4 porzioni🔥 520 kcal🇻🇳 Vietnam

Senza latticiniPescetariano

Passaggi

Mix the turmeric, galangal, yoghurt, fish sauce and shallots, turn the fish through it, and leave it in the fridge for 3 hours. Overnight is better if you have the time.
💡 Use a glass or ceramic bowl. Turmeric will dye a plastic one permanently yellow, which you will remember every time you open the cupboard.
Cook the vermicelli, rinse it under cold water and leave it at room temperature. Crush the peanuts. Wash the dill and spring onion and pile them on a plate near the stove — everything must be ready before the fish goes near heat.
Whip the mắm tôm with 2 tbsp lime juice, 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp of hot oil straight from the pan. Keep beating until it turns pale and frothy, then stir in the chilli.
💡 The whipping is what makes it edible for newcomers — beating air into it lifts the smell and softens the salt. Unwhipped, straight from the jar, it is a wall.
Heat half the oil in a wide frying pan over medium-high. Lay the fish in one layer, without crowding, and leave it alone for 3 minutes until a yellow crust sets. Turn once, give it 2 minutes more, and lift it out.
💡 Moving the fish early is how it breaks up. Wait for the crust and it releases from the pan by itself.
Add the rest of the oil to the same pan, return the fish, and pile the entire mountain of dill and spring onion on top. Toss for 30 to 45 seconds — just long enough for the herbs to collapse and go glossy, while still holding their colour.
💡 Herbs that go army-green have been in the pan twice as long as they should. Pull the pan while the dill still looks like dill.
Carry the pan to the table while it is still spitting. Everyone builds their own bowl: vermicelli, a few pieces of fish with the oily herbs, a spoon of peanuts, and a dab of the whipped shrimp paste or a squeeze of lime.

💡 Consigli

This dish belongs to one address. The Đoàn family opened an eatery at 14 Hàng Sơn Street in Hanoi in 1871, named it after a statue of the patient sage Lã Vọng that stood inside, and became so identified with the dish that the street itself was renamed Phố Chả Cá — Grilled Fish Lane.
Traditionally the marinated fish is grilled over charcoal first and only then finished in the pan. Searing it in the pan instead, as here, is the practical home shortcut and gives up a little smoke.
If dill in this quantity sounds wrong, trust it once. Its aniseed edge against turmeric and fish is the entire reason the dish survived 150 years.