Vietnamese dishesGrilled DishesMekong Deltaabout 40 minutes, of which 8 to 10 minutes is the straw fire
In the Mekong Delta, ca loc nuong trui is as simple as it gets: skewer the fish, cover it with rice straw and light it. The skin chars black while the flesh inside stays white and sweet. The difficulty is judging how much straw it takes to cook the fish through.
The fish is left whole, neither scaled nor gutted, and the charred scales are the jacket that keeps the flesh sweet. The straw burns for 8 to 10 minutes, and if the fish is not done another 5 to 10 minutes of straw goes on top.
This batch weighs about 2.7kg, at roughly 152 calories per 100g.
Method
Trim the roots from the spring onions, wash them and chop them fine. Peel the pineapple, mince half and slice the other half thinly. Pick over and wash the herbs and drain them, slice the cucumber, shave the green banana thinly and soak it in lime water, and cut the star fruit into pieces. Shell the peanuts and pound them fine.
Leave the snakehead fish whole, neither scaled nor gutted. Rub salt over the body and rinse it to clear any smell. Push a long skewer or a lemongrass stalk through from mouth to tail and stand it upright in the ground.
Cover the fish completely with rice straw and light it. Add more straw as it burns down, for 8 to 10 minutes in total until the ash dies. If the fish is not cooked, burn another 5 to 10 minutes. Sweep off the burnt straw and scrape away some of the blackened surface.
Make the spring onion oil: heat 2 tablespoons cooking oil in a pan, add the chopped spring onion the moment the oil is hot and turn the heat off straight away, then pour it into a bowl. Spoon the spring onion oil and the roasted peanuts all over the fish.
Mix the mam nem: put 50g minced lemongrass, 50g minced garlic, 50g minced chili, the minced pineapple, 1 tablespoon kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, 2 tablespoons water and 5 tablespoons mam nem in a bowl and stir well.
Mix the tamarind sauce: mash 100g tamarind pulp with 4 tablespoons boiling water, strain out the solids, then add 4 teaspoons kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, 2 tablespoons fish sauce and 50g minced chili and stir well.
To eat, roll the fish in rice paper with the vermicelli and fresh herbs, and dip it in the mam nem or the tamarind sauce.
Tips
Without rice straw, a charcoal grill works: the aroma is different but the flesh is just as sweet.
Rub salt over the whole fish and rinse it before skewering to clear any smell.
The spring onion oil has to go over the fish while it is still hot to soak in.
Mash the tamarind with boiling water and strain it carefully, leaving no pulp or seeds in the bowl.
Shaved green banana goes straight into lime water so it does not darken.
Scrape the charred layer off the fish with a light hand, since going deep takes away the fragrant skin next to the flesh.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.