Worldfoods Fusion Taste Team Vietnamese Grill Fish

This weeks country in the WorldFoods Global Fusion Taste challenge is Vietnam. Along with all the other lovely and talented bloggers I will be preparing one of three dishes inspired by this Asian country.

Exciting for me as I've never to my knowledge eaten let alone cooked a Vietnamese style dish. I went on one of my google journeys to find out more.

I discovered there is a heavy influence on fresh herbs, meats, fish and some spices  Vietnamese is actually considered one of the healthiest cuisines worldwide I read lots of accounts of people eating the fresh food from restaurants and street vendors, the uses of so many herbs in the dishes act in a  medicinal way too.

 Common foods seem to be special noodle soup (pho), grilled minced fish,spring rolls, grilled shrimp paste etc. All sounds very tasty and the ingredients in some of the dishes very extensive.

For my Vietnam recipe I have WorldFoods to help out with another of their sauces.  I was given three recipes to choose from and decided to try Vietnamese Grill Fish.

The ingredients were simple and few, lime, garlic, birds eye chilli fish and coriander. Of course the sauce which is the lovely WORLDFOODS Chinese Ginger Garlic Dipping/Stir-fry sauce, as I was in new territory I  stuck to the recipe almost exactly, my only tinkering was the amount of oil, I fried the garlic in a small frying pan with one tablespoon of virgin oil, sieved it carefully and discarded the leftover oil and I used none to grill the fish.
I don't feel it detracted from the overall taste and texture of the food.

The recipe was simple, I deep fried the garlic until it was golden and set to one side, I put the fish onto grill, I used cod to make my dish.

While that was cooking I warmed the Chinese Ginger Garlic Dipping sauce in a pan with the chilli, finally squeezing a fresh lime into the sauce. Assembled my dish as  the recipe below and served on plain noodles cooked in a little Maggi stock.

The finished dish was so good, I was taken with the fried garlic, it has a great taste, I have never eaten it like this before and its great as a garnish, will be adding this to some of my dishes.

The chilli gave a great heat to the sweet gingery WorldFoods sauce, the lime gave that little sharp burst and my favourite of herbs coriander to add perfume and peppery notes.

Changes next time I would double up the sauce as I would of liked more to drizzle over my fish.

We loved this dish, thanks again WorldFoods.

Vietnamese Grill Fish

3 tbsps of cooking oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
500g cod/seabass/snapper fish fillet,cleaned
Coriander to garnish

1 bottle WORLDFOODS Chinese Ginger Garlic Dipping/Stir-fry sauce
2 tbsp of lime juice or to taste
1 bird's eye chili,sliced ( optional - to increase heat level)

1. Heat 2 tbsps of oil in a wok over medium heat and stir fry garlic until fragrant and golden brown. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Brush fish with remaining oil and grill fish on a pan grill,on each side until the fish is cooked. Remove and transfer to a serving platter.
3. To make the sauce, pour in 1 bottle of WORLDFOODS Chinese Ginger Garlic Dipping/Stir-fry sauce, add in bird eye chili and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to low, stir in lime juice and adjust to taste. Remove from heat and pour sauce over the grilled fish.
4. Spread the fried garlic and oil over the fish, garnish with coriander leaves and serve immediately.

You can follow Worldfoods Fusion Taste Team on Twitter @fusiontasteteam and don't forget to check out the Wordfoods Facebook Page. You will see lots of other bloggers trying out the same dish in different ways. Its really fascinating to see the different takes on a theme.