Ingredients

• 1.8 kg or 10 pcs yellow tail fish, clean, gutted, and chopped into 3
• 1 lime, strain the juice
• 2 tsp of salt to marinate
• 1 1/2 tbsp of garlic puree
• 1 1/2 cup of red long chilli puree
• 1 tsp of salt or to adjust accordingly
• 1 tbsp of vinegar or to adjust accordingly
• 2 tbsp of sugar or to adjust accordingly (see note)
• 1 tbsp tomato sauce
• oil for deep frying and stir frying

I have been wondering for a long time on how the restaurants do their deep fried fish. I have been experimenting for a long time to get to this point. When my dad came last February, he offered me to cook several dishes for our family dinner on Chinese New Year’s eve and one of them is this dish. I watched him while he pour and rub the cornflour on the fish. He simply poured the cornflour on his hand and rubbed in on the fish, but you could still see the fish skin underneath. After the fish is deep fried, it was crunchy but not the sort of crunchy that I would think the fish should be.

I thought to myself maybe I should go extreme with the cornflour. I usually put the cornflour on a plate and then dip the fish on that. This time I pour lots and lots of cornflour on my hand and rub it all over the fish until the fish turned white. Then VOILA a very nice crunchy fish.

For adding Nutrisari in the sauce, I was told by my sister in law who were told by her aunt. Using Nutrisari, give a punch taste to the sauce and make the colour of the sauce brighter.

Ingredients

• whole medium size snapper, clean and gutted
• juice from a whole lime
• salt to marinade the fish
• corn flour to coat the fish
• 2 cloves of garlic, slice
• 1 small onion, slice
• 1 or 2 long green chilli, slices it
• 1 small tomato, cut into wedges
• half of a capsicum, cut into squares
• half cup of pineapple pieces
• half cup of peas
• 1 sachet of Nutrisari, diluted with 300 ml of water (see note)
• 3 tbsp of tomato sauce
• salt, sugar(I didn’t add the sugar), vinegar to taste
• diluted corn flour to thicken the sauce
• oil for stir frying

I believe that some of you might think that this particular fried rice is too much hassle, because the fish need to be washed, patted dry, and then fried. Not only that, if you live in a small apartment, the fried smell will last for at least two days. Ehmm what was I thinking posted this recipe? Encouraging people not to cook this particular fried rice. To be honest, I actually got the fried teri from my friend, because we got a lot of left over from our charity market. I felt sorry to the fish and then decided to turn them into fried rice dishes. However, I still need to do the frying all over again because they weren’t cooked and crunchy enough.

My tips before you start:

• It is best to have an overnight rice for fried rice (mine wasn’t).
• Always use a generous amount of oil to stir fry the rice so that your rice stays dry and the grain doesn’t stick to each other.
• Although the fish has been washed before they are deep fried, they are still salty. Be careful on the amount of salt used. The taste of the rice should be mild in terms of saltiness, so that when they are combined with the fish, they are kind of balancing each other.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of uncooked rice, cooked (for a better result, store it overnight in the fridge)
• 1 cups fried small fish (you could find a dry small fish pack in Asian groceries store) *see note
• 1 large carrots, slice thinly or cubes
• 250 gr of fish cakes or balls, dice thinly
• 3 eggs
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cloves of shallots, sliced thinly
• 1 or 2 small chillies, sliced
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce (I used Cap Dua Angsa Brand)
• salt and white pepper to taste
• generous amount of oil for stir frying
• spring onions to serve
• slices of cucumber to serve

Preparation time (duration): 15

Culinary tradition: Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I remember when I was little I used to watch those sad Chinese films where the family is really poor and don’t have food enough to feed the whole family, so the mother cook congee instead of rice so that the whole family could have dinner. Anyway, I cook congee not because I don’t have enough rice to cook for dinner, but because my husband loves eating salmon congee accompanied with original crinkles cut chips, and it has been a long time since he had his last one.

Ingredients

• 200 gr salmon fillet, cut into cubes
• 1 cup of rice, washed and drained
• 3 tbsp of ginger, thinly julienne cut
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 cloves shallot, sliced
• water according to your preferences (the more water added, the thinner porridge consistence achieved)
• salt to taste
• oil for stir frying
• diced spring onions to serve
• chopped baby celery to serve
• pepper to serve
• sesame oil to serve
• poached egg to serve

Preparation time (duration): 15

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Cooking western food is never my kind of skill. There always something missing in the taste area, which I never sure what was it. I guess because western food is a very simple dish which made me harder to cook, and I get use to so many herbs and spices in Asian cooking. However cooking western food has making me appreciate the true taste of the protein.

I grilled salmon fillet couples of time already, but I never get the flesh to cook right and evenly. They were always too rare and almost raw in the middle, that I couldn’t even continue eating them. I had to recook them in the microwave to get them edible. Probably it is also because I don’t enjoy eating sashimi and all sort of other raw things (except YuKe; Japanese style steak tartare). The rawness is so unacceptable that my husband (big fan of raw foods) mentioned about how the fish should be cook longer.

In order to practice my salmon grilling skill, I went to fish market and bought a whole Salmon Atlantic. The smallest one is about 3 kg, and the fish is enough for a month menu dinner rotation. There you go, I tried different way of cooking them and I did it. The image shown below is not yet a perfect crispy skin salmon, as you can see some part of the skin in the middle has a lighter colour. Later after I did the meal, I found out that you have to apply pressure when cooking the skin.

This time I tried to use a strainer as my final step in making mash potato. The texture is really smooth, but using strainer is too much work and muscle aching. Next time I’ll just stick to the potato masher.

Ingredients

• 1 salmon fillet, deboned (about the size of your palm)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 lime
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 large size of desiree potato (about the size of your fist)
• 25 gr of butter
• 1/4 cup of mozzarella cheese
• Salad vegetable mix
• French dressing

Instructions

1. In a small pot, boil the potato until cook. Peel the skin and mash it. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add butter and mash it until smooth. Finally add grated cheese and mash it until mixed. (To achieve a smooth mash potato, use a strainer)
2. Wash the salmon and pat dry with paper towel. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Heat olive oil in a pan. Squeeze the lime juice over the salmon. Cook it skin side down on the pan for 5 minutes. (Try putting pressure on the salmon in the first two minutes to achieve even crispiness)
4. Flip the salmon carefully and cook for another 2 minutes.
5. Turn your oven on 180° C and cook your salmon for 3-4 minutes. (Optional, I like mine to be well done. Be careful not to overcook)
6. Serve the salmon with mash potato and green salad.

Cooking time (duration): 15

Culinary tradition: French

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I had a pretty bad experience with bean sprout. When I did catering bussines 4 years ago, a friend ordered Gado-Gado to cater 25 people. I bought all the vegetables including bean sprout one day before the delivery, so I thought it would stay fresh. All other ingredients was fine except the bean sprout. The bean sprout looked like it had been boil with hot water. I don’t understand whether those Paddy’s market merchants don’t sell their produce fresh enough or it was just the summer weather that caused it. They were so languished that I had to rush back to the market the next morning to buy the fresh bean sprout. Later that I know from a home channel “Better Homes and Garden” that you have to put your bean sprout in a container filled with ice water, and it could help them to stay fresh longer. Thanks guys.

Talking about stir frying a vegetable dish with garlic, I really learn a lot from my dad. He could really cook a great vegetable dish. I used to cooked the Chinese vegetable such as Choy Sum, Bok Choy, and any other vegetables by adding water to soften the hard part a little bit. That was the biggest mistake in stir frying the vegetable, because it could turned them soggy and their colour will be not as bright as the fresh one. The secret is to use the generous amount of oil when stir frying, and try to avoid adding water. If you had to add water, add as little as possible.

Anyway, I usually ordered this dish in Chinese restaurant. This dish always goes great with any other main meals accompanied with rice. Mine as showed in the picture doesn’t have prawns, tofu, and salty fish because I don’t have them ready in my fridge and pantry, but bean sprout always taste great with or without them.

Ingredients

• 500 gr of bean sprout
• 1 medium size of carrot, julienne cut
• 100 gr small size prawns
• 150 gr of tofu  (or about 2 standard cubes sold in the market), cut in to small cubes
• 20 gr of salty fish (see note), sliced thinly
• 2 stalks of spring onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 cloves of shallot
• salt to taste
• oil for stir frying

Preparation time (duration): 30

Culinary tradition: Indonesian, Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

It has been a long time since my husband requested for me to steam him a fish. I forgot when was the last time he ask me to do so. So, here it comes my very ‘diligent’ day. I took Nathan for a walk in the mornin,g as I rarely do (usually we go out around noon, so he could meet up with his daddy after work). Our schedule for that day was to go to register for Nathan’s new pre-school, and next destination was to spend some time in the park for a swing and slide. Silly me, it was the first day of school holiday, so the pre-school was closed. So off we went around the block, and I thought “Hmm the fish market is really close by.. why don’t I give them a visit.. It’s been a long time since we had our last fish”. Gosh, I didn’t bring the pram with me and I had to fool Nathan around, so that I didn’t have to carry him. I still had to carry him some time and he is very heavy.

Here we are inside the fish market, and I was looking at a stall full of different varieties of fishes that I don’t really have a clue about. I asked the fish monger to help me.

Me: ” What fish is good for steaming?”

Him: ” This is good.. and this.. and this.. and this…”

Me: “Do you have a fish that look like a kite?” (that is how clueless I am)

Him: “What .. kite??? Sting ray?”

Me: “hahhh???” (I was thinking really hard for that name, can’t remember the name either in English or Indonesian)

Him: “Oh Flounder… we don’t have them today”

Me: “That’s it.. Do you know any fish that’s good for steaming?”

Him: “This one is good (I forgot the name of the fish he told me).. it has the same shape as flounder and the flesh is sweeter”

Me: “Ok .. I’ll take the smallest one please”

Before I steamed the fish, I surfed the web for some information, tips, and recipes. I found the recipe from Kylie Kwong, I did not really follow her recipe though, but I do like her style of heating the oil and pouring them to the fish. So I did it to mine as well, plus I fried the ginger, garlic, and shallot until browned and fragrant with the oil, then poured them to the fish.

Ingredients

• 1 whole fish weigh 500-800 gr, scaled, cleaned and gutted
• 1 tbsp/2 cm long ginger, cut in julienne
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves shallot, sliced
• 1 spring onion, sliced
• 2 tbsp of rice wine
• 3 tbsp of water
• 2 tbsp of light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp of fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp of caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp of sesame oil
• Oil for stir frying

Preparation time (duration): 15

Culinary tradition: Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!