Fast Vietnamese Caramel Bluefish
- Total Time
- 20 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 4(6-ounce) skin-on bluefish fillets (or substitute mackerel, trout or thin salmon fillets)
- 1tablespoon peanut, grapeseed or safflower oil
- 1stalk lemongrass, or use lemon or lime zest (see note)
- ⅓cup light brown sugar
- 2tablespoons Asian fish sauce
- 1½tablespoons soy sauce
- 1teaspoon grated ginger
- ½teaspoon black pepper
- Sliced scallions, as needed
- Thinly sliced jalapeño, as needed
- Fresh cilantro, as needed
- Cooked rice, for serving (optional)
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Preparation
- Step 1
Brush fish all over with oil. Remove outer layer of lemongrass stalk and cut stalk into 2-inch lengths. Using the butt of a kitchen knife, pound and bruise stalks all over.
- Step 2
Place lemongrass pieces, sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce, ginger and black pepper in a large skillet. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, and reduce sauce for 1 to 2 minutes, until syrupy.
- Step 3
Place fish, skin side-down, in pan. Simmer, basting fish frequently with pan sauce, for 2 minutes; carefully turn fish and continue cooking until fish is just cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes longer.
- Step 4
Transfer fish to a serving plate and garnish with scallion, jalapeño and cilantro. Drizzle with additional sauce. Serve over rice, if desired.
- If you can’t get lemongrass, peel a 2-inch strip of lemon or lime zest with a peeler and use that instead. You don’t need to bruise the peel.
Private Notes
Comments
High hopes, somewhat dashed. Cut the sugar in half, and it was plenty sweet. Bigger issue was sauce -- the ingredients shrank immediately in the pan, so we needed to add more liquid to cook the fish. Also, 2-3 minutes per side wholly inadequate to cook beautiful fresh caught thick filet. Is this the best cooking approach for beautiful bluefish? That said, sauce had a nice flavor. If you go for it, add a lot of garnish (Thai basil = nice too)
Vietnamese caramel sauce is stupid easy to make. Slowly melt some palm sugar in a heavy bottomed pot, take it off the burner then slowly add an equal amount of fish sauce and stir. Way more authentic and so much better. Use it on shrimp, chicken, duck, fish. Keeps in the fridge for weeks.
I read through all the notes left by previous cooks prior to cooking my fish and decided to double the sauce. I added a bit more than 1/3 cup brown sugar for twice the liquid ingredients and the sauce still thickened up and caramelized nicely. My fish was also thick in the center and took at least 2 or 3 more minutes to cook as well. Will be make this again and will look for more bluefish recipes.
Delicious! I first sautéed some red and yellow pepper, then made the caramel sauce in that pepper mixture, then added fish. I tripled the sauce recipe for double the amount of fish, which was perfect. As per reviews I only doubled the sugar, and the sauce worked well for our taste buds.
Awesome recipe. Made as described. I found the bluefish needed a lot more time but I had one single 1lb filet.
A 3/4 lb bluefish filet needed a total of about 10 minutes. Subbed 2 Tbsp maple syrup for brown sugar. I would double the sauce next time, even for 3/4 lb, as there was nothing left and it wasn’t easy to baste what there was over the fish as it cooked. No lemongrass so used the peel which was fine. All that being said, the result was delicious and I’d definitely do it again. The bluefish was super fresh from the local fish market. I had never had bluefish before (and I’m 75!). Over rice.
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