Fried fish with chili sauce (Thai style)

I've been trying a lot of recipes through the net lately but never really managed to update. So this is one of the most recent recipes I tried, and it is good!

In this recipe, I reduced the amounts of ingredients due to only using two fish fillets. I think I shouldn't have skimped on the garlic though!

How I altered the recipe was using 6 cloves of garlic, 10 birds eye chilies, one red chili and a tablespoon of brown sugar with a tablespoon of Thai chili sauce by Kimball. Used the Tamarind paste and fish sauce as directed. Do not alter the fish sauce and tamarind in a Thai dish: it really changes the taste. The same goes for Malay dishes (as for the tamarind). Learnt it the hard way for other recipes.

It may be a tad hot for some (including me :P ), but it hit my hubby's spot.

What I really should do

So many recipes, so little time!

To do list:

1. Chicken biryani
2. Ayam penyet
3. Pecel lele
4. Plum crumble
5. Nasi kuning

My hubby's favourite version of sambal

Sambal, as I know it, has a few main components:

1. Shallots
2. Garlic
3. Dried chillies (Fresh ones don't sound and taste right to me)
4. Tamarind paste
5. Optional: soy sauce or sugar (strictly for beautiful caramel colour)

Therefore my version of sambal is a bit on the hot and sour side. And this does not fit into my hubby's mindset of sambal.

Finally I got it right while cooking for iftar yesterday. While my head was reeling from who won the 2nd season of Australia's Next Top Model (What?? And Alex is not the winner?) I accidentally put two heaping tablespoon of sugar into my squid sambal.

To me it's a tad too sweet, but it hit my hubby's spot.

My hubby may be a Malay-Javanese-Chinese-Japanese, but he's a true blue Kelantanese at heart.

Hubby's favourite version of Sambal

Blended ingredients:

1. 5 shallots
2. 2 cloves of garlic
3. 1 large onion
4. 10 dried chillies, previously soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
5. 3 fresh chillies

1 teaspoon tamarind paste

Any kind of meats: squid, chicken, prawn, anchovies, eggs

Salt to taste

2 tablespoon of sugar

Method:

Saute the blended ingredients in the wok until it is almost dry, bubbling and oily (What Malays call 'pecah minyak'). Put any kind of meats into your sambal and stir until almost cooked. Put 1 teaspoon of tamarind paste and 1/2 cup of water into the sambal. Stir until it is thick in consistency. Add salt to taste. Then add the sugar.

(My version calls for 1 teaspoon of sugar)

Salmon with Spinach Sauce

This is what I cooked for iftar last week, and hubby was impressed!

2 pieces of salmon
A dash of salt
A dash of black pepper

One small bunch of spinach
1 tablespoon of butter
Half cube of chicken stock
1 cup of water
1 tablespoon of corn flour diluted in small amount of water
1/2 cup plain yogurt


For the salmon:

Sprinkle a dash of salt and black pepper on both sides of the salmon. Pan-fry in a skillet with olive oil. Do not flip the salmon until cooked on one side.

For the spinach sauce:

Melt the butter in a pan and add the spinach until blanched. Add chicken stock with 1 cup of water. Simmer to reduce to amount of liquid to half. Then add plain yogurt. Blend the sauce into a food processor, then pour the liquid into a sauce pan and simmer. Add corn flour as a thickener.

Voila!

Actually the real recipe was to use half of a lemon on the salmon, but I forgot :P. So the slight improvisation was to clean the salmon with some tamarind paste so it won't be too fishy.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

Speaking of Hainanese Chicken Rice (yes I spelled it wrong before), I tried the recipe in The Star Online's Kuali. I had doubts about the chicken as Malays like their chicken fried crisp, but it turned out lovely.

I did omit screwpine leaves (due to my forgetful nature); the rice is still okay without it. But substituting light soy sauce with regular soy sauce is a big mistake! It was still nice but the regular soy sauce drowns the flavour of the chicken. I did not make the ginger dipping sauce due to lack of time.. I might try that next time.

Otherwise if you think this is too cumbersome, try Mak Nyonya's Chicken Rice Sauce. The rice is outstanding on its own!

Hainanese Chicken Rice (by Amy Beh)

Ingredients

For the rice
3 cups (600g) Thai fragrant long grain rice
2 tbsp chicken skin with fat
2 tbsp water
2cm piece ginger, lightly smashed
2 cloves garlic, lightly smashed
1–2 tsp salt or to taste
3½ cups or enough reserved chicken stock (or water with 1 tbsp chicken stock powder added to it)
2 pandan or screwpine leaves, shredded and knotted

Pak Cham Kai (Chicken steeped in stock)
1 whole chicken
Enough water (for boiling)
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, crushed
4–5 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly smashed
1 tsp salt

Chilli garlic sauce for dipping
10 fresh red chillies
2cm piece ginger
4 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp salt
Juice of 2 calamansi limes
2 tbsp reserved chicken stock

Ginger sauce for dipping
75g ginger
6 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
Juice of 2 calamansi limes
2 tbsp preserved chicken stock
Light soya sauce for chicken
1½ tbsp garlic oil
1½ tsp sesame oil
5 tbsp light soy sauce
1½ tbsp sugar or to taste
3 tbsp water

Garnishing
Fresh coriander leaves
Sliced spring onion
Sliced cucumber

Method

To prepare the rice, wash it in several changes of water until the water runs clean and clear. Heat wok and add chicken fat and 2 tablespoons water. Bring to a low simmering boil until oil is released from the fat. Add ginger, garlic and fry well. Remove and discard the chicken fat then add in rice and salt to mix. Stir fry briskly for 1–2 minutes. Transfer all the ingredients into an electric rice pot. Add water or chicken stock and pandan leaves. Cook until rice turns dry and fluffy. Stir through just before serving.

To prepare the chicken, bring enough water to boil in a large pot. Put the chicken into the pot. Lower the heat and cook for 10–15 minutes uncovered. Turn off the flame and cover the pot. Allow the chicken to cook for 20–25 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot and immerse it in a basin of cold water for 5–6 minutes. Next, take the chicken out of the basin of cold water and drain on a colander to dip dry before cutting up into serving pieces. Arrange in a serving plate and garnish with spring onion and coriander leaves and cucumber slices.

To prepare the chilli garlic sauce, blend all sauce ingredients in an electric blender. Adjust seasoning by adding salt and sugar to taste. Use immediately or store in a sealed jar until required. For the ginger sauce, combine all the ingredients in an electric blender and whiz. Serve immediately or store in a sealed jar until required. Next, combine all ingredients for the light soya sauce in a small saucepan. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves then set aside to cool before use.

Beef Paprik

Cooking to me has always been a dreaded necessity. When I was a student in UK, good food meant edible food.

But since I am married 5 months ago to a husband with fantastic cooking skills - he conducted cooking classes for his staff at his previous workplace - I had to step up my game.

I surfed internet sites and have several cookbooks. Somehow you know how things turn out just by reading the recipe, especially those from Internet, so I tend to improvise. It's difficult to keep track of my improvised recipes, so I guess a blog should do it!

My first recipe is Beef Paprik, a staple Malay hawker dish that hails from Southern Thailand. I read the recipes in Trymasak and Mesra.net and made some improvisations -- Hubby said it's just like dining out! I cooked it yesterday and ate it along with leftover chicken from my Haianese Chicken Rice along with a glass of fresh watermelon juice.

Beef Paprik (Daging Paprik)
Blended:
4 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
1 cm ginger
7 pieces of dried chilli (already cut to pieces and immersed in hot water)

200g beef - thinly sliced and marinade in 1 tsp of salt

1/2 large yellow onion - sliced
1 carrot - chopped
Some broccoli
2 green onion - chopped
6 bird chillies - mildly pounded
6 kaffir lime leaves
1 lemongrass (mildly pounded at the roots)
1/2 cup of water

Some salt
1 tbsp chilli sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tsp thick soy sauce (or regular soy sauce)
(optional: 1 tsp cornstarch in water)


Some Thai basil - chopped

1. Heat oil in wok. Stirfry beef until half-cooked.
2. Put blended products into wok - stirfry until fragrant. Add carrot and broccoli and mix until half-cooked. While cooking, add some water.
3. Add beef and green onion into wok along with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Stir until well done. Add some cornstarch and water to thicken the sauce.
4. Serve with Thai basil.

For this dish I did not have enough shallots (only one left!), so I used the other half of large yellow onion to blend. It made the sauce thicker -- so if you think that your sauce is not thick enough, do add some cornstarch with water. Please do not go overboard with the oyster sauce and soy sauce -- it will turn out to be just like Malay/Chinese version of stirfried beef in soy sauce.

Our Beef Paprik is probably in our lower intestines, digesting merrily, so no pictorial evidence for now..