Dai Grilled Fish

Dai Grilled Fish

　　Dai Grilled Fish, also known as Dai-style roasted fish, is a traditional dish from the Dai ethnic group. Most Dai villages in Xishuangbanna are located near large and small rivers. Both Dai men and women enjoy catching and eating fish—there’s even a saying that “a meal is incomplete without fish.”

　　After the fish is prepared, it is seasoned with scallions, ginger, garlic, chili powder, lemongrass, hog plum leaves, wild coriander, salted fruit, and bird’s eye chilies. The fish can then be pan-fried, deep-fried, steamed, boiled, grilled, pickled, or smoked. Among these methods, the wrapped grilled fish, bamboo tube grilled fish, roasted fish, sour fish, fish sashimi, and “stinky” fish are particularly unique in both preparation and flavor.

　　It has two distinctive features: first, the fish is clamped with slices of locally grown green bamboo and roasted over an open flame, which gives it the aroma of grilled meat along with the fresh fragrance of bamboo; second, the dish uses lemongrass and cilantro, both abundantly found in the tropical rainforests of Xishuangbanna, lending it a uniquely aromatic lemongrass flavor. Its most special element is the unique Dai dipping sauce hidden inside the fish belly—“tomato nam prik.”