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Vietnamese Roasted Catfish - Ca Nuong
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Vietnamese Roasted Catfish | Ca Nuong

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By: Cindy Lam Lorimer
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Servings: 6
Roasted Catfish is the ultimate dish to make to impress any dinner guests. It has a mild, sweet flavor with a moist and firm texture. Perfect as a filling in a rice paper roll to dip with any dipping sauce, but I personally love dipping it with the Fermented Anchovy dipping sauce!

Ingredients 

Ingredients:

  • 1 large, whole catfish
  • 1 onion, peeled, sliced
  • 3 inch ginger, peeled, sliced
  • 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 Tbsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 Tbsp mushroom powder

Honey glaze:

  • ½ cup honey
  • 1 Tbsp white vinegar

Fried shallots and green onion oil:

  • 1 cups avocado oil, or any neutral oil
  • 2 large shallots, thinly sliced
  • 10 green onions, chopped

Garnish:

  • fried shallots
  • 1 cup roasted peanuts
  • cilantro
  • lime wedges

Ingredients to make rolls:

  • rice paper
  • lettuce
  • vermicelli noodles
  • cilantro, or other herbs like basil, etc.

Optional dipping sauce:

  • hoisin peanut sauce
  • fish dipping sauce
  • fermented anchovy dipping sauce

Instructions

  • Set oven to 450 degrees.
  • Let catfish sit at room temperature for an hour, then clean and scrub the catfish
  • Clean and scrub the catfish so it’s nice and white. I usually use a clean stainless steel scrubber to get the black off of the catfish.
  • Flatten catfish by snapping the front fin section and pushing it down, then pat the fish dry with paper towels.
  • Cut slits on both sides and stuff catfish with sliced onions and ginger.
  • Place catfish on the rack of the roasting pan.
  • Brush inside and outside of fish with the melted butter.
  • Mix together salt, pepper, garlic powder and mushroom powder for your dry rub.
  • Rub dry rub all over the catfish including its inside.
  • Place catfish in the oven and cook for 45 minutes, less time if it’s a smaller catfish, at 450 degrees.
  • Mix honey and white vinegar to make the honey glaze.
  • After 45 minutes, pull pan out and pour out any juice that is left before adding the honey glaze.
  • Brush both sides of catfish with the honey glaze and turn pan around. Put it back in the oven to cook for another 15 minutes (again, less time if it's a smaller fish)
  • In a wok or small saucepan, add oil. Make sure that whatever cooking equipment you use, it needs to cover LESS than half if not 1/3 of the pot/wok to avoid the hot oil from spilling over once you add the shallots.   
  • Once it’s hot, add your sliced shallots.
  • Keep stirring them around until they’re nice and brown. They burn quickly so watch carefully.
  • As soon as they start turning a nice brown color, remove from oil immediately. I usually like to put them on a plate lined with paper towel to soak the oil from the shallots. Set aside.
  • While the oil is still hot but the heat turned off, add green onions to create green onion oil.
  • Remove the catfish from the oven.
  • Spoon green onion oil mix all over the catfish.
  • Top with fried shallots, roasted peanuts, cilantro springs and lime wedges.
  • Serve catfish as a filling in rice paper rolls stuffed with lettuce, vermicelli noodles and herbs etc. And if you like, you can dip the rolls with a hoisin dipping sauce, nuoc cham (fish dipping sauce), or mam nem (fermented anchovy dipping sauce).

Nutrition

Serving: 1portion | Calories: 842kcal | Carbohydrates: 83g | Protein: 41g | Fat: 42g | Saturated Fat: 14g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 8g | Monounsaturated Fat: 17g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 135mg | Sodium: 1794mg | Potassium: 933mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 25g | Vitamin A: 679IU | Vitamin C: 6mg | Calcium: 109mg | Iron: 4mg

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