Vietnamese-Style Fried Fish With Lemon Grass

This is a popular dish in South Vietnamese Seaside resorts. You can use either fillet fillets or whole fish for this dish and the seasoning goes well with Salmon Fillets too....


As from the name of this dish, you will know the main spice ingredient used will be Lemon grass. Lemon grass is widely used as an herb in Asian (particularly Thai, Lao, Sri Lankan, Khmer and Vietnamese) and Caribbean cooking. It has a lemon flavour and can be dried and powdered, or used fresh. The stalk itself is too hard to be eaten, except for the soft inner part. However, it can be finely sliced and added to recipes. It may also be bruised and added whole as this releases the aromatic oils from the juice sacs in the stalk.

For this dish, I bought a Yellow Croaker(黄花鱼) which is mainly used for steaming. But it do fixed well in this pan-fried dish and the meat is very tender and fine.

Ingredients:
1 Medium Size Fish or Fish Fillet, about 250g
2 Stalks Lemon Grass Thinly Sliced, white parts only
3 Cloves Garlic, lightly pound
4-5 Shallots, peeled and sliced
1 Large Red Chilli or 2 Small Thai Chillies, deseeded and sliced
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
3 Tablespoons Oil
1/4 Green Lime

Methods:
1. Clean, wash and pat dry the fish. Cut shallow, diagonal slits on both sides of the fish body and place on a large plate.
2. Using a mortar or food processor, pound or blend the lemon grass, garlic, shallots, chilli and sugar to a paste.
3. Add fish sauce and season to taste. Stuffed some of the paste into the stomach of the fish then rub the remaining on both side of the fish and let it marinate for about 1 hour or more.
4. Pour the oil in a large non-stick frying pan on medium heat. Place fish in the pan, cover fried for 1 minutes until skin slightly brown then remove cover and turn to the other side for another 1 minute.
5. Reduce heat to low and carefully turn fish over to cook for another 2 minutes on each other until the skin is golden and crisp and fish is cooked through.
6. Dish and place on plate. Drizzle the pan oil over the fish and square some lime juice over it and serve immediately with rice.

Notes: You can used any kind of fish to your preference, Cod Fish works well with this too.