Cooking Recipes: Tilapia Braised in Ginger and Lemongrass Caramel Sauce (Ca Ro Phi Kho Gung Xa)

Cooking Tilapia with Ginger & Lemongrass Caramelized sauce doesn't take much time, and yet it brings fresh and juicy meat when you are ready to serve. The best part about this is that when you buy the fish at the market, the people there will do all the cleaning and takes all the necessary waste out of the fish. They clean it very thoroughly for you before you bring it home. Of course, it depends on the market where you buy it, but if you buy the whole fish and you have to clean it yourself at home, it doesn’t really take much of your time to clean it anyway. So I don't really mind whether they clean or I clean. What I like about Tilapia is that it is cheap, but very delicious.

Tilapia is a white fluffy fish. It is one of my favorite fish to cook with. It is very easy, quick, and yet it is very delicious. When I braise caramel any kind of fish, I normally add some kind of herb or even vegetables like tomatoes or onions to get rid of fishy smell. However, this time, I did not use any of those on this tilapia fish recipe at all. Surprisingly, it comes to be one of my favorite fish dishes that I’ve ever cooked.

Now, when it comes to caramel dish, most of us like to do caramel sauce on our own style, but the most commons are the combination of sugar and oil; and we just let it cook until it formed a caramel color. I am not really good at doing it. I get it burned most of the time, so I usually buy a dark soy sauce, which also gives you that really nice caramel sauce. But if you are familiar with doing your own caramel sauce, you can leave dark soy sauce part out. 

So let’s get this delicious braised tilapia to our dinner table, shall we~~

Ingredients:

1 whole big tilapia fish

1tbsp finely chopped ginger,

1tbsp finely slice lemongrass

1tbsp (3-4 cloves) finely chopped garlic

2tbsp oyster sauce (dau hao)

1tsp black or white pepper

½ tbsp sugar

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp cooking wine (any kind)

1 tsp dark soy sauce (nuoc mau)

1¼ cup water 

For the fish, when you buy, some are already cleaned and packed. For some markets that I mostly find are in Asian store where you buy, you can ask fish cleaners or employees to clean and halve it for you. But, like I said earlier, if they don't have the cleaning service, you can just do it yourself at home. However, when you bring it home, make sure you clean it very well again. As I showed in the picture on your left, when you open the fish, you will see the black thing that is attached to the fish. I don’t really know what it is called, but make sure to clean white on the inside. People make a lot of mistake when cooking fish, no matter what they put, they still find a strong fishy smell, well that black part is the reason why as well as the vein that attached closely to the fish bone. So make sure to clean it very well.

Directions:

In a round sauce pan or a pot (big enough to place the fish), heat 1tbsp cooking oil, and add in the ginger and lemongrass. Let it cook until slightly turn golden, then add in your garlic. Make sure you don’t walk away while in the process of frying ginger, lemongrass, and garlic because it cooked really fast. When turning golden color, pour in 1¼ cup water, and add the rest of the ingredients (oyster sauce, black or white pepper, sugar, salt, cooking wine, and dark soy sauce). Bring to a boil; add the fish, and let it cook for 3 to 5 minutes with the lid cover. Turn the fish over, lower the heat, and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and sprinkle any green on top for garnish. Serve it over jasmine rice or fry rice, whichever you prefer. Enjoy!!