Mackerel Stew with Fresh Tomatoes

Mackerel stew with tomatoes is a simple dish to make, but is a popular dish for Vietnamese people who live around Vietnam coastline. I have an easy recipe to share with my blog followers here to prepare a healthy wonderful dish for a cold winter night. I also still have a lot of fresh tomatoes from my garden, so it will be a combination of large and cherry tomatoes. However, the large tomatoes are most common to use for this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 large mackerel or about 2 lbs.

1 ½ lbs. ripe tomatoes

1/2 sweet onion, diced

2 tbs oil

Spice ingredients:

2 shallots, chopped

1 piece fresh ginger, chopped (2 tsp.)

2 garlic cloves, minced

Stew sauce ingredients:

12 oz. coconut water

1 tbs fish sauce

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tbs honey

Other ingredients:

Black pepper and fresh chili

Chopped green onions (for garnish)

Serve with cooked rice or rice noodles

Directions:

Cut fish into 3 inch pieces. Clean fish well, inside and outside, and soak fish in salted-vinegar water for 20 minutes (this process will guarantee the fish is supper clean and odor free).

 Drain fish and dry well.

Cut the tomatoes if using the large tomatoes, remove the seeds, and then dice the seedless tomatoes and set aside.

Combine stew sauce ingredients and set aside.

On a medium saucepan or any kind of pan with a lid, add oil and pan-fry the fish until brown on both sides; remove the fish from the pan.

Add all the spices and chopped white onions. Stir and cook until fragrant.

Place half of the diced tomatoes tomatoes on the bottom, then place fish in one layer, and finally top with the remaining diced tomatoes. Pour the stew sauce over the fish.

Bring to boil. Cover and simmer for 2 hours. Adjust the seasoning to your liking. Add more water, if needed.

 When fish are done, there will be much more sauce remaining. Add green onion about 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time.