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Preparation
20 minutes
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Cooking
45 minutes
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Difficulty
Easy
Red tilapia is a familiar food in Vietnamese family meals because it is very easy to eat and easy to prepare. Today, let’s join TasteVN in the kitchen to learn how to make red tilapia braised with pickled mustard greens to enrich your family’s menu!
Ingredients for Braised Red Tilapia For 4 people
Red tilapia 1 fish (about 1.3 kg) Pork belly 250 gr Pickled mustard greens 300 gr Carrot 1 piece Tomato 3 pieces Green onion 400 gr Bell pepper 1 piece Red onion 4 pieces Garlic 4 cloves Fish sauce 1 tablespoon Cooking oil 300 ml Common spices a little (Sugar/ Seasoning/ MSG)
How to choose fresh ingredients
How to choose fresh red tilapia
- To make the dish delicious, you need to choose fresh red tilapia, with clear eyes, a slippery feel when touched, pink gills, firm scales, and still flexible.
- If the slime on the fish turns sticky, the eyes are sunken and cloudy, scales easily come off, the flesh is soft and not elastic, and it floats on the water, you should not buy it because it has gone bad.
How to choose fresh and delicious pork belly
- Fresh and delicious pork belly has a dry outer layer, light red or bright pink color. When cut with a knife, the meat should have a light pink color, a slight shine, and the layers of fat in between should be bright white and firm.
- To select a good piece of meat that doesn’t feel too greasy due to excess fat or too dry because it has mostly lean meat, you should choose a piece with a balanced ratio of fat and lean meat.
- Good, clean pork belly, not raised with lean additives, usually has a firm texture, with the meat and fat tightly adhered to each other, and when held, it doesn’t feel too loose.
How to choose delicious pickled vegetables
- Delicious pickled vegetables have a natural fermentation smell, and the cabbage leaves retain a beautiful slightly yellowish green color. When tasted, the cabbage should be crunchy, have a balanced sour taste, and not be slimy.
- Choose cabbage heads that have large leaves, are not infested or rotten, have no strange smell, and the pickling brine is clear, without mold. Avoid selecting cabbages that are yellowed, dark yellow, or too green.
- It’s advisable to buy from reputable stores with packaging to ensure the shelf life and origin of the pickled vegetables. Alternatively, you can refer to TasteVN’s recipe for making pickled vegetables at home.
How to choose fresh and delicious tomatoes
- It is recommended to choose tomatoes with a firm skin, bright red color, evenly colored, and without scratches or rough skin.
- The best tomatoes are those of medium size, with the stem tightly attached to the fruit and emitting a subtle, easily detectable fragrance.
- Avoid buying tomatoes that are abnormally large, have lost their stems, and have no scent when sniffed, as they may have been treated with growth hormones.
How to cook red tilapia braised with melon
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Prepare fish and pork
Clean the red tilapia by removing the scales, washing it with diluted salt water, and then rinsing it with clean water.
Effective ways to remove fishy smell
- Using salt or rice washing water: After cleaning, you can rub the fish with salt or soak it in rice washing water for about 15 minutes to eliminate the fishy smell.
- Using lemon and vinegar: You can dilute vinegar with cold water or mix lemon with cold water, soak for about 5 minutes to quickly remove the fishy smell. This method is very useful for smooth-skinned fish.
- Using white wine: Use diluted white wine to marinate the fish for about 2 minutes, then wipe it dry; this will reduce the fishy smell.
See details: Effective ways to remove fishy smell
To remove the odor from pork, after buying it, you wash it clean, blanch it in boiling water, then cut it into bite-sized pieces.
Effective ways to remove pork odor
- Clean the pork you bought, place it in a pot containing clean water so that the water just covers the surface of the meat. Put the pot on the stove, boil for about 2 – 3 minutes, quickly take all the meat out, rinse with clean water to effectively remove the odor.
- Alternatively, you can use diluted salt water to wash the meat, soak all the cleaned pork for 25 – 30 minutes. When the time is up, take the meat out and rinse it under running water. You can add a few smashed ginger slices while soaking to clean the meat and eliminate the smell.
See details: Effective ways to remove pork odor
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Prepare other ingredients
Sour cabbage should be rinsed briefly with very diluted salt water to reduce the saltiness. Then rinse with water and squeeze dry, then cut into bite-sized pieces.
Tomatoes should be washed clean and then cut into quarters, using 2/3 of the tomatoes to stew the fish and 1/3 for decoration.
Carrots and green onions should be washed clean and shredded into long strips. Bell peppers should also be cut into strips.
Shallots and garlic should be peeled and minced.
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Fry the fish
Put a pan on the stove, add 300ml of cooking oil, wait for the oil to heat up, then add the fish and fry on low heat for about 10 minutes. When one side of the fish is golden brown, flip it over and fry for another 5 minutes until both sides are evenly golden.
Then take the fish out and place it in a pot.
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Braise the fish
Using the same pan you fried the fish in, scoop out some oil, leaving about 1 tablespoon of oil in the pan. Continue to place it back on the stove and add 4 shallots and 4 minced garlic cloves to sauté until golden and fragrant.
Then add 250g of pork belly, 2/3 of the chopped tomatoes, and 300g of pickled mustard greens, stir-fry, then cover and cook for about 5 minutes. Next, open the lid and add 800ml of filtered water, cooking until the water boils, then season.
Add 1 teaspoon of seasoning powder, 1 tablespoon of monosodium glutamate, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, then cook for an additional 2 minutes for the seasonings to dissolve before turning off the heat. Pour all the sauce over the fried fish.
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Final Product
Garnish with sliced green onions, carrots, and bell peppers, and add a portion of tomatoes for an appealing look.
Now you have a hot and delicious pot of braised red tilapia. The red tilapia is crispy, the pork belly is rich, combined with the pickled mustard greens and tomatoes that are infused with rich spices, served with white rice makes for a perfect meal.
See more
From the ingredients and recipe shared above, TasteVN hopes you can prepare a simple yet nutritious meal for your family. So why wait any longer, get into the kitchen and make braised red tilapia right away!
