Baby it’s cold outside! Just when you thought Spring was near, it’s back to ‘heater on’ and ‘comfort food’ for dinner. This is the ultimate Vietnamese comfort food. The sweet-spicy-savoury, gooey caramel sauce and the soft fatty fish are great combination and make rice taste so good. Lily and Anh started Rice Kitchen because they want to take other home cooks, like you, on their journey and to share their love of Asian flavours.

Lily and Anh arrived in Melbourne from Vietnam more than a decade ago, bringing with them an abundance of treasured family recipes and the Vietnamese way of eating, communally and with love.

“Australia introduced us to a new culinary scene with “foreign” ingredients and techniques that we have enjoyed incorporating into our own style of cooking. We love that around every corner there is always something new to discover and learn about food, which makes our passion for cooking even more exciting and tasty!”

Vietnamese caramelised clay-pot fish:

Total cooking time: 40 minutes
Servings: 4 – 6

Ingredients:

1kg silver perch or barramundi cutlets
4 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons black pepper
3 spring onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons caramel sauce
400ml coconut juice
Chilli (optional)
Cooking oil

Method:

Clean the fish cutlets, rinse well and pat dry. Marinade with fish sauce, sugar and pepper for about 30 mins.

Cut the white part and green part of spring onion separately.

Heat the clay pot on the lowest heat for 5 minutes, gradually increase the heat to medium high. Add garlic, and the white part of spring onion. Stir fry until fragrant. Add the caramel sauce and coconut juice.

Bring the mixture to the boiling point.  Add the marinaded fish. Cover and turn to medium low heat and allow to simmer for about 25 minutes. Check after 10 minutes to make sure that the juice doesn’t reduce too much. Pour the sauce over the fish using a spoon so the fish brown and caramalise evenly.  Taste the sauce and adjust to your liking.

Take off heat and add additional fresh cracked pepper, green onions, and chilli.

“We think food is fun and we want to put the fun back into cooking and hosting a dinner party”
Lili & Anh – Rice Kitchen
www.ricekitchen.com.au