Red Dzao salmon steamboat

By: Luke Nguyen
From: The Food of Vietnam
Serves: 4-6
Photographer: Alan Benson

Steamboats are a perfect dinner-party dish. They are super easy, as all you need to do is cook the broth and slice up your ingredients. Your guests then do the rest, cooking their own meal! It’s an interactive and fun way to cook.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
1.5kg	whole salmon, gutted
4	tomatoes, cut into wedges
500g	silken tofu, cut into cubes
1kg	soft rice noodles
1	chinese white cabbage, sliced
1 bunch	watercress
1 bunch	water spinach
1 bunch	mustard greens

Broth

Quantity	Ingredient
4	lemongrass stems, bruised
4 cm knob	fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
15	dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water for 30 minutes and drained
2	black cardamom pods
2	star anise
2	coriander roots, washed well
2	tomatoes, diced
2	long red chillies, sliced
1 tablespoon	* sate sauce [rid:8096]
1/2	pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced
2	lime, juiced
1 tablespoon	sea salt
125ml	fish sauce

Method

Cut the head off the salmon and reserve. Fillet the salmon, reserving the bones and trimmings for the broth. Cut the fillets into 3 cm x 5 cm chunks. Cover and refrigerate while making the broth.
To make the broth, put the salmon head, bones and trimmings in a stockpot. Add the lemongrass, ginger, mushrooms, cardamom, star anise and coriander roots. Cover with 3 litres water and bring to the boil. Skim off all the impurities until the broth is clear, then reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook for 1 hour.
Stir in the remaining broth ingredients and simmer for a further 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, distribute all the remaining raw ingredients on separate platters and place around a portable gas cooker in the middle of the dining table. Place the stockpot on top of the cooker and turn it up to medium heat.
When the stock starts to simmer, each person dips their own ingredients in the hot broth until cooked. They then retrieve their cooked ingredients with their chopsticks and ladle some of the hot broth into their bowls.