When grandma visited us during the early 2000s, she didn’t cook much, but made Canh Rong Biển, Vietnamese seaweed soup, weekly to enjoy with steamed jasmine rice. She loved this soup. I personally thought it looked weird looking at first, with the dark seaweed floating all over the place, but grew to love it because it tastes so good! Seaweed is not a typical ingredient I’ve seen in canh, but I love the taste and texture, paired with the bouncy and delicious ground shrimp in the canh.
I found dried seaweed laver in the dried goods section at my local Asian grocery store. If you can’t find it, you can also find it online as well!
Ingredients:
8-10 cups of water
3 ounces Dried Seaweed Laver, rehydrated
1 pound ground shrimp
Shrimp shells
1 Shallot
3 green onions, finely chopped
2 teaspoons salt, more to taste
1 teaspoon sugar, more to taste
Ground Shrimp Ingredients:
1 pound shrimp, deveined shell-on
1 tablespoon white part of green onion
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Steps:
Ground shrimp – Clean and remove shrimp shell. Aggressively chop shrimp and white part of green onions finely with a cleaver or a large chef knife on a cutting board until the shrimp turns into a sticky paste. Add fish sauce, black pepper, sugar, and corn starch to the shrimp paste and mix well. Set aside.
Make Canh– In a medium stockpot, bring water, shallot, and shrimp shells to a boil on the stovetop. Simmer for a half hour. Remove everything in the stockpot. Shape and scoop the shrimp paste (about 1-2 teaspoons) into a ball and slowly drop it into the canh. Add rehydrated seaweed laver and mix well. Cook for about 5-10 minutes or until shrimp floats to the top. Add chopped green onions, and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Adjust the seasoning of the canh to taste.
Tips:
- Use chicken broth if you don’t have shrimp shell available.
- The dried seaweed laver can be found here
No Limit Cooking 
Leave a comment