How to Marinate Turmeric Grilled Fish Cha Ca Thang Long

The best part about Cha Ca Thang Long is the fish. If the fish tastes great, the rest of the ingredients in the dish will too. Pictured on the right is how grilled turmeric fish should eventually look if we follow the Cha Ca Thang Long Recipe carefully. However, if you already have an idea of how to prepare the rest of the dish, then you can just follow the marinating part here and go forward with your own creation.

Marinate Turmeric Grilled Fish

What types of fish to use? Cha Ca Thanh Long is flexible, you can use any white fleshy fish, for examples: cod, basa, swai, or rockfish. Your fish should be fillet with no bones.

Take these next extra steps to ensure the fish come out perfect: 

1) Clean the fish fillets in cool water with a pinch of baking soda. It's ok if you let the fish fillets soak in the baking soda water for about 10 minutes. 

2) After 10 minutes, rinse the fish fillets with cool water- not warm, not cold, not hot. 

3) Use paper towels to dry the fish fillets. 

4) Cut the fish fillets into one-inch wide pieces, you can also cut diagonally so that the pieces are longer and easy to roll with rice paper. What I normally do is slice the fish fillet into half vertically, then I cut the pieces one-inch widths and slightly work towards a diagonal shape. When you get to the tail part, cut the pieces in 1 ½ inch wide as the flesh is flatter. 

Now that you have your fish chunks, use the following seasonings for one pound of fish. 

·       1 teaspoon of minced garlic - fresh

·       1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder 

·       1/4 teaspoon galangal powder (if not available at your Asian market, substitute ginger powder)

·       1/2 teaspoon salt

·       1/2 teaspoon sugar

·       2 teaspoons of rice flour

·       1 teaspoon of shrimp paste

·       1 tablespoons of olive oil

For two pounds of fish use the following measurements:

·       2 teaspoons of minced garlic - fresh

·       1 teaspoon of turmeric powder

·       1/2 teaspoons of minced ginger/galangal

·       1 teaspoon of salt

·       1 teaspoon of sugar

·       4 teaspoons of rice flour

·       2 teaspoons of shrimp paste

·       2 tablespoons of olive oil

Option 1. Combine the fish fillet cuts with the garlic first, then all the dry ingredients and mix well. It’s best to use gloves and work the shrimp paste in, then lastly mix the olive oil thoroughly. 

Option 2. You can also combine the dry ingredients together first: turmeric powder, galangal powder, salt, sugar, rice flour and mix well. Then pour all the dry ingredients with the fish chunks. Add the fresh minced garlic, shrimp paste, and olive oil. 

Whichever option you use to marinate the fish;

• •      Make sure the ingredients are well mixed and the fish chunks are completely covered. Marinate the fish for 2 hours or overnight.
• •      After marinating is done, place the fish chunks singularly on a lightly greased baking pan.
• •      Bake for 5- 7 minutes at 350 degrees.
• •      Remove the fish fillet cuts and set aside until you are ready to pan fry. 

When the salad, noodles, rice paper, warm water, dill, yellow & green onions, etc. are prepared – go to the full post of Cha Ca Thanh Long | Grilled Turmeric Fish: see the rest of the recipe.

This is the frying part:

In a hot and lightly oiled pan or a nonstick pan, toss in the cut dill, green onions, yellow onions and sear the baked turmeric fish chunks for three to five minutes on medium high. Remember your fish has been cooked so you just want to sear them with the onions and dill for flavor and aroma. After the fish chunks have a nice grilled look, fetch them out and enjoy with the rest of your condiments. Again, this post is just for the fish marinating and cooking part, you must finish the rest of the dish requirements by reading the additional steps from this the Cha Ca Thang Long Recipe