Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Assam Fish

Dont know why, dah sampai mood nak memasak aje pulak. I have been eating home cooked meal for the past 3 days. These few days I feel soooo malas to eat out and felt sick of restaurant food.

It all stemmed from this article I read in the paper few days back, about the alarming number of Malaysian contracting TB, and all sort of other diseases which is usually a norm in poorer country. In that article, they blamed it on the rise of foreign workers who never had any compulsory jabs like us in Malaysia. The article was also suggesting that most of these foreign workers 's heatlh screen is also questionable - since it is a known fact that some of these foreign worker were not even legal and came in through tongkang and what not.

As many of our restaurateur today employ foreign worker ( whom may have been infected by these diseases) , we the customer of course also are exposed to it - since they prepared the food we are eating, etc etc.

After reading that article I became wary of eating out, takut + rasa geli nak makan pulak when thinking about it.
So today, I plan to cook again. The menu today, ikan siakap.
The fish is not exactly fresh, dah ada lama dalam fridge tu, so I cant exactly make steamfish as I normally would. Nak makan macam kari2 or gulai2, macam dah boring pulak cos had those 2-3 hari ni.

Then, ,teringat la pulak Nyonya assamfish, so as usual - googled it on the net.

I found a few recipes that look promising:


RECIPE NO 1

Ingredients
Kurau (Snapper) Fish Cut or Stingray, deep fried until golden brown.
Tamarind Juice from a table spoon of tamarind paste, add water to bring out the juice
Sugar to taste
Salt to taste
Blend
Shallots, 5 pcs
Fresh Kunyit (Turmeric), 1" (You can also use turmeric powder, 1 table spoon)
Fresh Chillies , 5 pcs (or chilli powder, 1 table spoon)
Belachan, 1"x1/2"x1/2"
Serai (Lemongrass), 2 stalks

Methods
Heat up 3 table spoons of oil in hot wok and sautéed the blended paste until fragrant. Add a cup of water and bring to a boil. Add tamarind juice, sugar and salt to taste. Put in the fried fish and let it cook for a short while. Serve dish with steamed white rice.



RECIPE NO 2

Ingredients
3 mackerel
5 tbsp paste from Mom's Chili Prawns
1 rounded tbsp tamarind (asam pulp)
water
sugar
salt or light soya sauce

Methods
1. Clean the fish and season it with salt or light soya sauce.
2. Prepare the tamarind marinade: soak the tamarind pulp in 120 ml of warm water for 5 minutes. Squeeze the seeds and fiber with your fingers to extract as much juice and flavor as possible. Strain and discard fibers.
3. Heat wok with oil till hot, stir-fry the chili paste for a minute medium heat till fragrant.
4. Add water to the paste, stir to mix it well.
5. Stir in the tamarind juice (according to your taste of sourness).
6. Season it with light soya sauce or salt and a little bit of sugar .
7. Put in the fish to cook when you are about ready to serve dinner. This is to avoid overcooking the fish. The fish is cooked once its eyes popped.
8. Serve it with rice and a plate of vegetables by the side.



RECIPE NO 3

Ingredients
# 1 ikan siakap (800g)
# 60g dried chilli paste

To blend:
# 20g turmeric (kunyit)
# 20g galangal (lengkuas)
# 30g lemon grass (serai)
# 10g shallot
# 10g garlic

Cut into small pieces:
# 20g ladies fingers
# 20g eggplant
# 20g onion
# 20g tomato
# 10g belacan
# 20ml assam jawa juice
# 1 lime (squeeze for juice)
# salt and sugar to taste

Method
Clean the fish. Heat wok with a little oil and add all the blended ingredients, chilli paste and belacan. cook for five minutes. Add assam jawa juice, lime juice and cut vegetables (ladies fingers, eggplant, onion and tomato).

Steam ikan siakap until cooked. Pour the assam jawa juice on the fish. In a medium hot oven, bake the fish which has been steamed earlier for two to three minutes so that the sauce is absorbed into the fish. Serve fish with hot rice.



p/s tak jadi masak... makan kat usop je in the end. Will update once tried

0 comments: