Go to Nam Sach to enjoy grilled sea bream

Grilled sea bream is a rustic but delicious dish, imbued with the flavor of the homeland, and is included in the menu of many families in Nam Sach district (Hai Duong) on ​​weekends or holidays.

Grilled sea bream is a rustic dish, loved by many families in Nam Sach.

Almost every weekend, the stall selling bream at Hop market (Nam Sach town) is crowded with customers. The quantity of bream is limited, buyers often arrive before the sellers, for fear of running out of stock.

Bream are often caught by fishermen in the district in the Thai Binh and Kinh Mon rivers... and then sold to traders at Hop market. At first glance, they look quite similar to crucian carp but have larger, taller and flatter bodies.

Bream are often caught in rivers.

On average, each bream weighs from 300 - 400 grams, with some large ones weighing 500 - 600 grams. Bream usually lives in clean water, eats algae, insects, and leaves, so the meat is white, not fishy, ​​and is very delicious when processed into fish cakes.

The ingredients for making grilled sea bream are available locally, but the preparation process is quite time-consuming. Therefore, people usually only make this dish on weekends or holidays.

Traders at Hop market process and filter fish meat for customers.

To save time, people often ask traders to scale and filter the fish meat into pieces right at the market before bringing it home to process.

After soaking, the fish meat is washed again with clean water and drained. In the meantime, housewives will prepare the spices for the fish cake dish.

Depending on the taste of each family, the spices used for this dish are different. However, spices such as dill, fresh onions, dried onions, ginger, chili, pepper, lemongrass... are indispensable. These spices are chopped or ground.

The drained fish meat will be cut into moderate pieces, put into a blender or chopped on a cutting board until small (not too fine so that the meatloaf does not become mushy). The next step is to add a little ground pork and the above spices and stir well.

The bream meat is cut into pieces and mixed with spices before being ground or minced.

To keep the fish cake from drying out, making it chewy, crispy and more delicious, people also add a little fish sauce, seasoning powder, cooking oil, and fried flour to stir-fry. Some people also add chopped ginger leaves and betel leaves to increase the deliciousness and aroma of this fish cake dish.

After mincing the fish meat, mix it with the spices and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 1 hour. The purpose of this is to help the fish meat absorb the spices and become elastic, making it easier to shape into pieces before frying.

After the above time, the fish is taken out to be shaped into small round pieces. The size of the fish cakes is large or small depending on the preference of each housewife. After shaping, the fish cakes are fried in a pan or steamed, then cooled before frying.

When fried "2 fires", the fish cakes will be more delicious and crispy (illustrative photo)

Place the pan on the stove, heat cooking oil or lard, then drop each piece of fish cake in and fry over medium heat until both sides are golden brown. However, many people like to fry the fish twice (also known as frying over two fires). The first time, fry over medium heat until cooked, remove and drain the oil and fat. The second time (before sitting at the table), fry over high heat for a short time to make the cake chewier, crispier, and more golden.

Grilled sea bream with fish sauce, garlic and chili is best served with hot rice. This dish is suitable for cool weather days.

If you have the opportunity to visit Nam Sach, "order" your relatives to make grilled fish - a rustic dish but containing the flavor of the homeland, attractive and very delicious.

DAWN

Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/ve-nam-sach-thuong-thuc-cha-ca-ven-410666.html