Corinne Trang

In Vietnam, the markets offer only the freshest in produce, meat, and seafood…

Outdoor markets in Asia are remarkable. Not only is the produce beautiful and crisp, but the meat is some of the freshest I’ve encountered.  And when I say fresh, I mean the animal has been slaughtered that morning, and makes for a beautiful array of glistening pieces including all cuts and offals like hearts, kidneys, and livers of the highest standard on display. And since refrigeration is a luxury most people can’t afford, everyone goes to market three times a day, cooking the food fresh at every meal.

Going to market in every city I visit is one of my favorite pastimes, and every time I’ve gone back to Hanoi, Vietnam, I’ve always stayed at the Metropole  Hotel with that in mind. Built in 1901 and French Colonial in style, it is centrally located and near outdoor markets I’ve enjoyed visiting time after time. On one occasion, while strolling through the market aisles lined up with vendors selling fresh produce like beetle nuts, dragon fruit, and water spinach, for example. I came upon a fascinating young woman, probably in her late twenties to early thirties. Her long silky black hair caressing the back of her charcoal gray ao dai (a traditional dress), she was known as the eel lady. Squatting low, she balanced herself on her feet leveled flat against the ground. Directly set in front of her was a round green plastic container full of live eels submerged in water. Customers lined up for her and as soon as I saw her knife skills, I immediately understood why. In one swift move, she could kill an eel, by cutting off its head, butterflying and removing its guts and central bone (sliding the blade straight down just behind the bone) in less than 30 seconds…no exaggeration! I had never seen someone move so fast with a pairing knife before. That day, I had enjoyed my eel cut up in 2-inch long pieces, marinated in a combination of garlic, lemongrass, fish sauce and palm sugar, wrapped in thin layer of pork fat, and grilled on a small charcoal brazier until the skin crisped on the outside. It was served with the ubiquitous table condiment called nuoc cham, a sweet, sour, and salty, lime and fish sauce based dipping sauce slightly bitter with garlic and spicy with red chilies.

While I love eel, it is not something I have cooked often.  They can be quite nasty and hard to deal with, as I quickly found out one day. Upon my return to New York City from Hanoi, fresh in my mind was the delicious herbal-infused tender eel I’d had and now craved. After a few days, I decided to go to Chinatown where I knew I could buy eel fresh out of a tank. The fish monger in Chinatown had a slightly different approach to killing them than the Vietnamese woman did. Picking it up by its head, squeezing its jaws to prevent it from biting, he’d quickly flip it around and slam its head against an ice block. Cutting the eel open, he’d gut it before throwing it in a bag with ice. What happened moments later, I would never have imagined. While walking home from Chinatown, I noticed that the bag was moving and that a small head was trying to bite its way to freedom. “How is this possible?” I thought, holding the bag at arms length in front of me for the fear of getting bit. I’d replay the whole episode in my head…”he slammed its head and gutted it. Surely it’s dead!” Now I just wanted to get home, so in a cab I went and rushed.

When I got home, the eel was moving and clearly annoyed. After all it had been messed with and was now missing its organs. Not knowing how to deal with it, the only thing I could do was throw the bag and its nasty content in the kitchen sink. As the eel started crawling out of the bag, I decided to beat its head with the handle of my cleaver, quickly cutting it off while it was still somewhat numb…it kept moving. Horrified, I was determined to kill it again. Remembering the Vietnamese recipe, I decided to chop the eel into 2-inch pieces, but the pieces kept bouncing stubbornly. It wasn’t until I had removed the central bone from each piece that they finally ceased moving. So how do you kill an eel? Cut off its head and remove its central bone immediately.

Does anyone know how to kill a chicken?