New Recipe: Hoian Hot Pot

First of all… sorry. Haven’t bloged in ages. I’m training for a marathon which means I’m eating lots but not spending much time cooking. But I have three new recipes ready to go. Here’s the first:

Pen recently went on a trip to Vietnam. This was a dish she learned while she was in one of the southern cities, Hoian. It’s a great, simple and versitile dish, that is surprisingly packed with flavour. You could cook this with fish, chicken, beef, pork, or vegetables. This version uses fish and eggplant:

Vegetable Oil
1 clove garlic
2 tomatoes, quartered
1 lemongrass stalk – dice white part, chop stalk into 10cm chunks
3 spring onions, cut into 5cm chunks
1 small eggplant, cubed
1 fillet fish, about 350g, cubed
1 small red chilli, diced
1 1/2 tbs fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon crushed fresh tumeric (or substitute with 1 tsp ground tumeric)
10 white peppercorns crushed
4 basil leaves sliced
3 tablespoons coriander, diced

First, mix tumeric with fish sauce, pepper, sugar and 1 cup water. Heat oil in medium clay pot or saucepan. Add spring onions, garlic and chilli and fry for a couple of minutes on low – medium heat. Add tomato and lemongrass, including stalks. Simmer for a couple of minutes. Add tumeric mixture. Bring to the boil. Add eggplant and cook for about 10 minutes. Add fish and cook for another five minutes, or until cooked. Serve on steamed rice with herbs as a garnish.

To make this with chicken or pork, follow these directions but cook some chicken thigh fillet or pork fillet in the sauce for about 15 minutes or until cooked. For beef, slice some beef fillet thinly and cook for about 1-2 minutes in the sauce. For a very tasty beef version, add big chunks of stewing beef, 2 star anise and 1 cinnamon stick to some stock and cook for two hours. Drain, reserving one cup for the hot pot sauce, then follow directions as normal. Serves 2