Going to Con Son village in Can Tho without enjoying grilled snakehead fish – a famous specialty of the river – is a pity. Participating in ditch fishing sessions, grilling fish in the fields will give you the most interesting experiences.
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | All Best Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho
1. Better to Know as a Food Lover
Find them: Tan An District, Can Tho City.
Best time: Dusk – Dawn
Don’t miss: Grilled Snakehead Fish
Local’s pick: Con Son Village
Tourist’s pick: Dong Xanh restaurant, An restaurant…
Blog: https://vemekong.com/grilled-snakehead-fish-can-tho-food/
Facts: Grilled snakehead fish is a rustic and simple dish because to make it are simple, everyday ingredients: a snakehead fish, a few raw vegetables, simple spices, etc. Although it is so simple, this dish is the taste of the countryside, of the river, of the people of the Mekong Delta. Sometimes just turning around a tray of grilled snakehead fish, sipping a cup of wine, and tinkering with everyday life stories is already very fun.
2. Better to Know Con Son Grilled snakehead fish
Favored by nature, the Mekong Delta is very rich with countless freshwater fish species, it must be said that this is a place where fish are full of rivers, shrimp are full of fields. The most popular among the fish in the Mekong Delta, it must be mentioned, snakehead fish. Snakehead fish is a very popular freshwater fish in Vietnam, also loved and used by Vietnamese people in their daily meals. There are many dishes with delicious snakehead fish, but to experience the fullest flavor of snakehead fish, there is only one dish of grilled snakehead fish.
If anyone has ever set foot in Con Son Village, it is impossible not to know about grilled snakehead fish, a rustic but extremely attractive dish. Although it is just a simple dish, grilled snakehead fish is very popular not only with people in the West but also with everyone who has been to this land, hence the saying: Catch grilled snakehead fish– Make a tray of white wine for a distant friend.
The people of the Mekong Delta have long been famous for being friendly and hospitable, anyone who comes here will fall in love with the land and the people here. Every year at the beginning of January, when the fish harvest season comes, people slap ditches to catch fish that follow the water swimming in from the river. If you come to the Mekong Delta on this occasion, you can completely participate in slapping the ditch to catch fish which is very interesting and exciting, the result of the ditch slapping session is fresh fish, and your job is to process the fresh snakehead fish so that they become the most delicious.
3. Con Son Grilled snakehead fish in Can Tho
Grilled snakehead fish has a very attractive aroma, the aroma of straw, and the countryside are unmistakable. Grilled fish is simple, but the person who lights the kitchen must be very skillful, because the burning straw will make the fish burn, the dried fish meat will lose the sweetness of the fish; or if there is not enough fire, the fish will not cook.
For large snakeheads about 1 pound or more, baking the fish is a little different. Because large fish is easy to happen, the outside of the fish is cooked, the inside is still alive. To solve this problem, people here have devised a way to pour water into the fish’s belly, then turn the fish mouth upside down and then light it on fire. The fire outside will not only make the outside cooked, but the water inside the fish will boil and cook the inside of the snakehead fish. Indeed, this is the surprising creativity in the life and work of people in the Mekong Delta.
After the fish is cooked, it’s time to enjoy the delicious grilled snakehead fish. Brush off the ash from the fish body, then put the fish in a large tray or tray, split the fish body in half along the back of the fish. From here, the smell of grilled fish permeates the face with an extremely fragrant aroma, a characteristic aroma, with a subtle smell of bitter straw smoke. Grilled fish meat is delicious, rich, dipping with spicy and sour fish sauce is really irresistible.
4. How to Make Con Son Grilled snakehead fish
Ingredients for Grilled Snakehead Fish
Snakehead fish 2
(each one about 1 – 1.2kg)
Fresh vermicelli 200g
Minced chili 100 g
Roasted peanuts 100 g
Spring onion 4 branches
Tamarind juice 100 g
Pineapple 300 g
(pineapple)
Minced garlic 100 g
Minced lemongrass 50 g
Rice paper 300 g
Seasoning 10 g
(fish sauce/pepper/sugar/seasoned fish sauce)
Tools: pan, knife, cutting board, fork, chopsticks, straw (to collect fish) …
Ingredients for grilled snakehead fish
How to choose to buy fresh and delicious snakehead fish
You should carefully distinguish between Vietnamese and Chinese snakehead fish to avoid buying the wrong one.
Chinese snakeheads are often dark black, uniform in size and larger than Vietnamese snakeheads, their ankles are often lethargic and often lie stretched due to long transportation times.
Vietnamese snakehead fish often has an elongated body, uneven size, yellow-black scales and blue-spotted flowers.
You should choose to buy copper snakehead, the scales are dark black, the head is tapered, the fish’s long tail will have more meat and firmness, when grilled, the meat will be sweeter and tastier than farmed snakehead.
Should choose to buy live fish, swimming well and when observing no fungal spots. Snakehead fish is still fresh, the anus is small, if you choose a fish with a large anus, it means that the fish has been kept for a long time, decomposed and marinated with many preservatives that adversely affect health.
Vegetables served with grilled snakehead fish:
For grilled snakehead fish dishes, you can use accompanying vegetables as you like, usually: lettuce, cucumber, star fruit, pineapple, acrid banana, herbs such as basil, basil, etc. basil, laksa leaves, fish paste, tubers, bean sprouts, chives…
Rice paper rolls should be bought in banana leaves, which will soften when used without having to sprinkle more water, so buy small cakes with a diameter of 12cm to 15cm for convenience.
How to cook grilled snakehead fish
Step 1. Prepare the accompanying vegetables
Onions are removed from the root, washed and finely chopped. Pineapple peeled, washed, half chopped finely, half cut into thin slices.
Quick tips for peeling pineapple (pineapple):
How to peel pineapple:
– Cut off the two ends of the fruit, the pineapple will become a vertical cylinder.
-Use a double-edged knife to peel the skin from top to bottom or put the fruit on a cutting board and then use a knife to cut off the outer layer.
How to get rid of fragrant eyes:
Use a knife to cut diagonal grooves along the fruit body to remove the eyes. You can also use a special scented eye remover to remove these eyes.
Note that you cut shallowly, cut too deep, the fragrant meat will not be much, very wasteful.
Raw vegetables remove deep leaves, wash, then drain. Wash cucumbers, cut into thin slices.
Thinly sliced bananas, soaked in water with a squeeze of lemon so that the bananas do not turn black, when they are close to cleaning, they will drain the bananas. Sour star fruit peeled off edges, cut into thin slices like bananas.
Peanuts peeled and crushed.
Step 2. Preliminary processing and skewers of snakehead fish
For grilled snakehead fish, snakehead fish bought for you to stay whole does not need to be scaled or cut open. Use salt to rub the body of the fish, then rinse with clean water to remove the fishy smell of the fish
You can also use vinegar, lemon or rice water to get rid of the fishy smell better!
Then use a long stick to skewer from the mouth of the fish to the tail of the fish and then plug it into the ground or you can also use a skewer from the mouth of the fish to the tail, which will help the fish be more fragrant and less fishy.
Step 3. Grilled snakehead fish
After placing the fish in the ground, take a sufficient amount of straw to cover it, cover it with straw to cover the snakehead fish and then light it on fire.
When the fire burns out the straw, continuously add more straw and burn for about 8-10 minutes until the ashes are fine. If you feel that the fish is still not cooked, then you should burn it for about 5-10 minutes longer!
After the fish is cooked, remove the burnt straw, take out the fish, use a knife to remove the black burnt parts from the outside of the fish.
Step 4. Make onion fat
Put the pan on the stove, add about 2 tablespoons of cooking oil, wait for the oil to boil, add the minced scallions, then turn off the heat immediately, then pour the onion fat into the bowl.
Note:
Add a little salt to make the onion fat more delicious.
Do not use fire when frying the onion fat because it will cause the onion fat to burn, stale, not delicious and not have a beautiful green color.
Once done, use a spoon to scoop out the onion fat and the roasted peanuts and sprinkle them all over the fish.
Step 5. Make grilled snakehead fish sauce
Make fish sauce seasoning
Put the minced lemongrass, 50g minced garlic, 50g minced chili, minced pineapple, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 tablespoons filtered water, 5 tablespoons seasoning sauce.
Mix well to combine ingredients.
Make tamarind fish sauce
Squeeze the tamarind into a cup, then add about 4 tablespoons of boiling water, use a spoon to pick up the tamarind juice. After soaking tamarind, use a comb to remove the body, only taking the tamarind juice.
Put in the cup of tamarind juice, 4 teaspoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, 50g of minced chili, stir with chopsticks to complete a delicious cup of tamarind fish sauce.
Note:
You can replace white granulated sugar with yellow sugar or jaggery to make the tamarind fish sauce sweeter.
If you want the fish sauce to have a thicker consistency, you can put the fish sauce in a pan to boil on the stove, add a little cornstarch, and stir until the desired consistency is reached.
Step 6. Finished product
The grilled snakehead fish dish is fragrant with the smell of straw, the fish meat is soft and sweet, with the flavor of peanuts and onion fat. When eating, use fish paper rolls with vermicelli, served with raw vegetables, then dip it with seasoned fish sauce or rich tamarind fish sauce, it’s delicious!
Note:
If there is no straw, you can also grill fish with a charcoal stove, but the taste will not be as delicious.
If you are afraid of eating the bitter part of the fish, you can also cut open the abdomen to remove the intestines, wash them clean, then use a skewer from head to tail of the fish, then bake..
5. Pro tips:
Here are our tips for easing your mind (and stomach) around food-handling environments that you may not be used to.
Make sure the food is freshly cooked. If you’re eating hot street food, it’s always safest (not to mention more delicious) to eat food you can see being cooked to order.
Look for lines and busy stalls. Busy street food stalls are an indicator of popularity, and their high turnover rate means the food is never sitting out for hours and developing dreaded bacteria. Yes, long lines can be discouraging when you’re hungry after a full day of exploring, but it’s not worth the risk of grabbing precooked food from the empty spot next door.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho: Co Ut’s Cong cake, Ut Dzach Fine Rice Vermicelli, Thanh Van Grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Noodle Soup At Floating Market, Scorched Rice with Caramelized Fish Sauce, 7-Toi’s Duck Meat Pancake, Banh Mi Thuy, Banana Blossom Salad, Fried Spring Rolls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Fetal duck egg (balut), Honeycomb Cake, Mini Sticky Rice Cake, Cassava Silkworm Cake, Grilled Banana Wrapped in Sticky Rice, Khmer-style Bun Goi Da Soup, Egg Coffee, Con Son Grilled Snakehead Fish, Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup, Lau Mam – Fermented Fish Hotpot, Grilled Snails with Pepper, Magenta Sticky Rice Cake, Duck cooked with Fermented Tofu, Rice Noodle Pizza, Vegetarian Noodle Soup, Snails Stuffed With Pork…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Chau Doc: Chau Doc Fish Noodle Soup, Sugar Palm Fruit, Basa Fish Hot Pot, Mam (Fermented fish), Phu Huong Beef Noodle Soup, Broken Rice with Pork Chop, Long Xuyen Broken Rice, Nui Cam Pancake, O Thum’s Chicken Grilled with Lime Leaves, Stir-fried Shrimp with Sesbania Flower, Sweet & Sour Soup with Siamese Mud Carp Soup & Sesbania Flower, Caramelized & Braised Catfish, Grilled Rice-field Rat with Salt and Chili…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang: Pia Cake, Cong Cake (Banh Cong), Bun Nuoc Leo Soc Trang’s Noodle Soup, Soc Trang’s Bun Goi Da Soup, Duck Noodle Soup with black Pepper, Curry Noodle Soup, Grilled Beef on Tile, Khmer-style Tube Cake, Khmer-style Mung Bean Cake (Banh In), Dried Radish (Xa Bau), Stir-Fried Noodles with Seafood (Mi Sua), Soc Trang’s Green Rice Flakes…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre: Phu Le Rice Wine, Ben Tre’s Coconut Candy, Flat Banana, Coconut Rice, Snail Pancake, Sea Snail with Coconut Milk, Coconut Worm, Young Coconut Salad with Shrimp & Pork, Son Doc Puff Rice Paper…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Cai Be: Puffed Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Vinh Long: Elephant Ear Fish (fried giant gourami)…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in My Tho: Fried Sticky Rice, Snakehead Fish Rice Porridge, Hu Tieu My Tho (Noodle Soup), Coconut Banana Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Tra Vinh: Macapuno Coconut, Bun Nuoc Leo Tra Vinh’s Noodle Soup, Tra Cuon’s Sticky Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Sadec: Sa Dec Noodle Soup, Sadec Crab Hotpot, Lai Vung Spring Rolls, Sa Giang Shrimp Puff Pastry, Lai Vung Tangerine…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Bac Lieu: Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, Bac Lieu’s Three-striped Crab, White Radish Pies, Bac Lieu Thick Noodles & Creamy Coconut Milk, Bon Bon Pickles…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken), Grilled Vop clams with salt and pepper, Grilled Mudskipper Fish, Stone Crab Roast With Salt, Young Bee Salad, Nam Can’s Crab, U Minh Forest’s Honey, U Minh’s Fermented Fish Hotpot…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Hau Giang: Cau Duc Pineapple, Cai Tac’s Pork Organs Porridge, Hau Giang’s Bronze Featherback Fish Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ha Tien: Herring Fish Salad, Spider crab cake soup, Ken Noodle soup, Xoi Xiem (Siamese sticky rice), Steamed Noodle soup, Ha Tien Oyster porridge…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Rach Gia: Stir Noodle Soup, Kien Giang Fish Noodle Soup…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Con Dao: Bang nut jam, Vu Nang Snail, Roasted Pork Bread (Banh Mi), Coconut Ice Cream…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Phu Quoc: Phu Quoc Sim Wine, Phu Quoc Pepper, Phu Quoc fish sauce…
Hopefully, the above tips will help you to come up with a great plan for your adventure in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Have a safe trip!
“Sleep less, travel more, respect more” – Thomas Vietnam – Local travel expert.
Thank you
