Hanoi turmeric fish grilled over charcoal, then finished at the table in a pan smothered with dill and spring onion
Origin: Hanoi & the Red River Delta, Vietnam
From the journey of Dill.
There is a street in the Hanoi Old Quarter named after a single dish, which is not a distinction many dishes anywhere have earned. The Doãn family began serving it from their house on Hàng Sơn around 1871, and by the time the French had finished mapping the quarter the street had been renamed Chả Cá after what came out of that kitchen. The restaurant's own name comes from the figure who stood in the dining room: Lã Vọng, the Vietnamese name for Jiang Ziya, the Chinese sage who is said to have fished with a straight and baitless hook on the principle that the fish which wished to be caught would come. A statue of him holding his rod stood by the door, and the dish took his name. What arrives is startling the first time. A brazier is set on the table with a shallow pan of oil on it, and into the pan goes fish that has already been marinated in turmeric and galangal and grilled over charcoal, followed by what looks like an entire market bunch of dill and as much spring onion again. The herbs collapse into the hot fat within a minute, and everything is lifted straight from the pan into a bowl over cold rice vermicelli with roasted peanuts, coriander, and a spoonful of mắm tôm, the fermented shrimp paste, whipped with lime and sugar until it turns pale and frothy. The dill is the part that puzzles visitors, because dill is not a Southeast Asian herb. Its distribution within Vietnam is the giveaway: thì là belongs to the north, to the Red River delta and the fish cookery of the coast and the rivers, and it is very nearly absent from the kitchens of Huế and Saigon. Had it arrived with the French, who governed the whole country, it would be everywhere. That it stops at the old boundary of Chinese cultural influence points instead to the long northern connection, and to the herb having come overland into Đại Việt rather than by sea with Europeans. The fish, properly, is cá lăng, a large river catfish from the Red River, prized for firm flesh that will take a skewer and a charcoal fire without breaking up. The sourness in the marinade comes from mẻ, a fermented rice starter kept alive in a jar on the shelf, and it is the ingredient hardest to reproduce elsewhere.
Galangal is not interchangeable with ginger. It is pine-scented and sharper, and it is sold fresh or frozen by Southeast Asian grocers; frozen is perfectly good here. Ginger alone gives a recognisably wrong dish. Mẻ is a live fermented rice starter and cannot be bought outside Vietnam. Plain yoghurt is the standard substitute and works; rice vinegar with a pinch of sugar is the next best. The traditional fish is cá lăng, a Red River catfish. Any firm white fish that will hold together on a grill works: catfish, monkfish, hake, or thick cod loin. Avoid anything delicate and flaking. Dill and spring onion go in together and in roughly equal weight. That pairing is the signature of the northern Vietnamese fish kitchen and recurs in bún cá and canh cá, the noodle and soup versions of the same idea.
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