Vietnamese Cabbage & Shrimp Soup (Canh Bắp Cải Nấu Tôm)
Canh can be light and savory such as chayote soup (canh su su). Other times they can be bold in flavors such as sweet and spicy tamarind soup (canh chua).
For this soup recipe, I’m making it light and savory with cabbage and carrots and using shrimp as my protein of choice. The large shrimp are butterflied and pounded thin and dread in tapioca starch, which greatly improves the texture of the shrimp.
Once the shrimp are prepped, they are marinated with a bit of sugar, salt, fish sauce, ground black pepper, and of course, chicken bouillon powder (hạt nêm gà), the Great Southeast Asian culinary cheat. You can leave out the bouillon powder if you can’t find any. For me, it completes that last bit of flavor profile that you didn’t know was missing.