Species sheet · The Edible River
Striped snakehead
Lying in the mud, waiting for the rains.
- Braised in fish-sauce caramel in a clay pot (cá lóc kho tộ)
- In sour soup with pineapple and tamarind (canh chua)
- Grilled whole over embers
- In French
- Poisson tête-de-serpent
- Scientific name
- Channa striata
- In the water
- An ambush hunter of the swamps, paddies and canals of South and Southeast Asia, able to breathe air and bury itself in mud when the water is gone.
- Season & buying
- Year-round, farmed or wild-caught; in Vietnam and Thailand you pick it live from a basin at the market.
- Common length
- ~50 cm
- How to identify it
- Long body, flat head with snake-like scales
Brown flanks marked with dark chevrons
Long dorsal and anal fins, rounded tail
On the plate
White, firm, mild flesh, few bones, a texture close to poultry.
Avoid: Cooking it without scraping and rinsing it well: the slime on its skin leaves a muddy taste.
In the Mekong delta it is skewered on a bamboo stick, covered with rice straw and set alight: the straw cooks the fish and the charred skin is scraped away.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
