Vietnamese cuisine - "Canh Chua" - Sour Soup

"Canh Chua" in English is Sour Soup.
Vietnamese Sour Soup is the famous soup of the Mekong river religion of Southern Viet Nam. It is a healthy dish which made with fishes and various types of vegetable. I do not know much about the history of this dish because it has been became a very common dish in our Vietnamese family meals long time ago. Sine was a little child; I have loved this dish very much.

In different areas in Viet Nam, there are different recipes of Sour Soup. And time by time, people have created a lot of new kind of Sour Soup such as Chicken Sour Soup, Shrimp Sour Soup, and ect. But I still like the Fish Sour Soup best.

Catfish Sour Soup recipe (Sai Gon style)
(Severing 4 person)

½ kg Catfish
200g Tomato
200g Pineapple
100g Okra
200g Bean sprouts
10g Tamarind
20g herb, long coriander
Spice inclued salt, sugar, chili and fish sauce.

1. Purify all the fish and vegetable
2. Boiled 2 liters water in a cooking pot
3. Add the tamarind to make the sour taste. Cook in 2-3 munities and then, fish out all the tamarind.
4. Add the catfish and the tomato to the pot. Cook in 10 munities
5. Add 2g of salt, 10g sugar, 2-3 spoons of fish sauce into the soup
6. Add the pineapple, okras, bean sprouts which were cut in to smal pieces and cook till it boilded again.
7. Add the chili and the herb on top.
8. Sever with rice or vermicelli