In Vietnamese cooking, we use many fresh ingredients from nature: herbs, roots, leaves and spices. We don’t just add them for flavour. We add them for balance.
Vietnamese cooks believe in yin and yang (âm dương). Some foods are “cooling” and some are “warming.” Fish is a cooling food, so we cook it with warming ingredients like ginger, chilli and spring onion. Together, they make the dish gentle, light and easy to enjoy.
That’s why fish in Vietnam is almost always cooked with something warming. But it is not always ginger! Each dish has its own partner:
- Steamed fish with ginger and spring onion
- Cá kho (caramelised fish in a claypot) with lots of black pepper and chilli
- Chả cá with turmeric, galangal and fresh dill
Different ingredients, the same idea: balance from nature.
Best with a bowl of jasmine rice ![🍚]()
Little Saigon, 03 Church Street, Bishop’s Stortford
