A Vietnamese-style Fish Soup

One of my favourite shows to watch on Cooking Channel is Luke Nguyen's Vietnam. The show is about real people, making real food and revelling in the tastes and flavours of their land. I pray that one day I can visit Vietnam and eat to my heart's delight.

When I saw Luke make this soup on one of his shows, I knew that I had to try it. It's simple, the flavours are clear and it's done cooking in minutes. The broth is excellent on its own but drop some crusty bread into it, let the bread suck up the broth and then bite into the bread... careful, you may have something dripping from the side of your mouth.

If you like seafood, especially fish, be sure to give this recipe a try. I know you'll like it. Here is the original recipe made with cod and below you can find my adaptation.

Vietnamese-style Fish Soup

(Adapted from Luke's Vietnam)

INGREDIENTS

6 sprigs chinese celery (aka Guyanese celery)

5 whole green onions

4 cups fish stock or vegetable stock

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 bird peppers, crushed

2 lbs red snapper cleaned and cut into large pieces

2 ripe tomatoes, quartered

Fish sauce to taste (substitute with salt)

Juice of 1 lime

DIRECTIONS

1. Remove the stems from the celery and bruise them with the back of a knife or rolling pin and set aside. Separate the leaves and the stems.
2. Cut off the white part of the green onions and bruise lightly. Chop green parts into 2-inch pieces and set aside.
3. Add stock to a large pot, cover and bring to a boil. When the pot comes to a boil, add celery stems, garlic and pepper. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 - 2 minutes.
4. Add fish to pot along with the white parts of the green onions and let cook on high heat for 4 minutes.
5. Add tomatoes, celery leaves and fish sauce or salt to taste, stir gently and continue to cook until the fish is fork tender.
6. Toss in green onions and lime juice. Stir, taste and adjust if necessary and serve immediately.

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Pumpkin & Pea Soup with Salted Pigtails

I'm back. I had a great time in Florida and got the chance to meet and chat with some wonderful folks. It is so easy at times to think that you are working in a vacuum, especially when a lot of it is online. Sure, people leave comments and you chat via the social network sites and email, but there is simply no substitution for the live human interaction when you can look at facial expressions, share a laugh and engage in a conversation in a way that is not limited by number of words to type, and, you can delve deeper into an issue in just a couple of minutes. Of course there is that amazing feeling when you just "click" with someone like you've been friends all your life. Those are some of the encounters I had last weekend. Thanks! An added bonus is that all the books that were taken to the two events were sold out. Thanks to The Bishops' High School Alumni Association, (Florida) Chapter and to The South Regional Broward College Library!

As soon as I download the photographs, I'll share them with you.

On to this season's best - again. Yep, pumpkin is still very much in season in many parts of the world. For those of you up North - Calabaza Squash. Butternut squash is a good substitute for this recipe though you may not get the richness of the colour and the natural sweetness.

Rather than using regular salt, I used salted pigtails to season this soup. It adds a lovely flavour with its cured porky-ness :) Of course if you cannot put your hands on salted pigtails then try some thick-cut pieces of bacon or pancetta.

Often when people make pumpkin soup they tend to put in heavy cream to give it body and creaminess but I urge you to try putting split peas, red lentils or split yellow moong dal instead. The combination of the pumpkin, peas and cured pork will have you going back for more. If you are serving this to company, make a large amount. Having some crusty bread on hand is not a bad idea either. Click here for the recipe.

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