KY cooks – Black Pomfret with sauce recipe

Now that CNY is over, it’s time to get back to do some cooking, and boy did it feel great!

Other than all those pictures and memory of yummy hawker foods in Penang over that period, mom also gave me a fridge full of fish/prawns/pork/chicken all nicely frozen, and they are now sitting in my fridge here in PJ. Basically over the next few weeks, my grocery shopping only consists of fresh vegetables and some spices.

Gotta love mom!

black pomfret with sauce, rice, and some vege

Anyway, today I’m going to share with you this fairly simple recipe of black pomfret with sauce that I improvised from the classic Malay dish that’s often referred to as bawal hitam ber-sos.

You can usually find this dish at Malay restaurants, but it is also fairly common in the repertoire of Penang Nyonya cooking.

Unlike normal pomfret that’s best steamed, black pomfret has harsher and leaner meat that isn’t as flavorful, a stronger tasting sauce makes a good compliment to this fish. So here goes:

oyster sauce, dark soya sauce, and a bunch of other ingredients

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 large black pomfret
• 1 tablespoon turmeric powder
• 1 bulb of garlic, chopped
• 2 small red onion/shallots, chopped
• 1 yellow onion, cut into rings
• 1 green bell pepper, cut into small slices
• 3 chili padi, smashed
• a few slices of ginger
• 2 tablespoon  dark soya sauce
• 2 tablespoon  oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoon soya sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• salt and pepper

this is how you prepare the awesomesauce

You can start frying the fish, and in the mean time, prepare the sauce with another frying pan side by side. They should be done at just about the same time.

cooking instructions (fish):

• generously cover the fish with turmeric powder and salt, leave for a few minutes
• heat up enough oil to cover at least half the fish
• fry fish for 8 minutes
• flip over and fry the other side of the fish for another 6 minutes
• the timing might differ slightly depending on the size of the fish, the idea is to get it to be golden brown

cooking instructions (sauce):

• with mortar & pastel, crush red onion/shallot, garlic, and one of the chili padi
• heat up 3 tablespoon of oil and add fry the resulting pulp until fragrant, about 3-4 minutes
• add ginger, yellow onion, bell pepper, and the remaining chili padi
• add oyster sauce, dark soya sauce, soya sauce , sugar, and pepper
• add 1/4 cup of water
• continue stirring until onion and bell pepper are soft, about 5-6 minutes

fry the pomfret separately, then pour on the sauce

Pour the sauce over the pomfret and consume while hot. Best served with steam rice.

Happy cooking!

KY cooks – Drunken Lala

Drunken lala is a dish that I sorta invented by taking the ideas from drunken prawns and a clam with white wine dish that I had from The Apartment (first introduced by Suan).

I use a small pot to in order to have a steaming effect by closing the lid, as well as be able to retain the Chinese wine as the juice to go with rice. The “sauce” turned out pretty good, it has strong rice wine and seafood flavor as well as a hint of spiciness from chili padi.

The key to this dish is the freshness of lala, I would recommend that you get them from morning market and cook them the very same night. Overnight lala isn’t generally a good thing to consume.

ingredients for drunken lala

Anyway, here are the ingredients:

• at least half a kilo of lala, preferably large size
• ginger – slices
• half a bulb of garlic – peeled
• spring onion – cut into 1.5 inches
• 6-8 chili padi – whole
• a cup of Chinese cooking wine
• pepper and salt to taste
• 2 table spoon of cooking oil

use a small pot to retain more moisture

The instructions are very simple and straight forward, the key is to use a small pot and never a nonstick frying pan lest you want to lose the layer of nonstick teflon.

• heat up cooking oil, and fry ginger and garlic till fragrant
• add lala and fry it till most of them are opened
• add cooking wine and bring to boil
• add chili padi and spring onion, then close lid for 5 minutes
• add salt and pepper to taste
• serve while hot

drunken lala with chili padi & spring onion

And there you go, I paid some RM 15 for these fresh lala at the morning market, but prices are seasonal so your mileage may vary.

Do check out my other recipes, happy cooking!

KY cooks – Asam Squid Curry

Some of my favorite seafood dishes involves squid, and once in a while at mamak nasi kandar places, I’ll be tempted to take one of them big squids, but those things are always so ridiculously priced that I always stopped myself from committing that financial suicide.

Good thing is, squids are actually not expensive as an ingredient to cook. This is my recipe for whipping up some asam squid curry, it is pretty simple and can be prepared in less than half an hour, including cleaning the squid and preparing the home made curry paste.

ingredients for asam squid curry – dried chili, shallots, squid, asam, onion

For the curry paste ( you can skip this portion if pre-made curry paste is used, like one of those from Adabi). This is for portion of 2.

Ingredients:

• 8 shallots
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 8 dried chili (fresh red chili would be ok too)

grind your own curry paste – with dried chili, garlic, and shallots

Ingredients:

• 4 medium to large size squid (clean but leave head intact, I take out the eyes and beak too)
• 2 small red onion, sliced
• 3 table spoon of oil
• 3 table spoon of asam
• 1.5 cup of water

fry the curry paste, then squid, finally add asam water

The cooking method:

• mix water with asam
• heat up cooking oil and fry the prepared curry paste till fragrant (1-2 minutes)
• add squid and sauté for 2 minutes
• add onion, and cook for another minute or so
• add asam water (strain away the asam seeds)
• bring to boil and ready to serve

squid curry for two, yummeh

The result is a pretty yummy squid dish for two, add another plate of vegetables and it’s a balance dinner to go with rice already. Check out my cooking session for more recipe.

Cheers and happy cooking!

KY cooks – Really Easy Curry Fish Head recipe

Curry fish head is one of the Malaysian delicacies that is pretty tough to find anywhere. While most of us consume this at restaurants, it is actually pretty simple to prepare them yourself, and here’s the recipe that I hope you find useful, especially for those who are reading this outside our beloved country.

I like my curry fish head with plenty of vegetables – and here I put tomato, bell pepper, okra, long bean, and brinjal, but if you can generally substitute them as per your liking.

I also use a pre-packaged curry fish paste to keep it simple, but for those who wants it more “authentic”, you can prepare the curry paste yourself by blending curry powder with shallots & garlic, for example.

Anyway, here goes!

plenty of vegetable makes this a complete meal

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of fish curry paste
• 1 brinjal – chopped into chunks
• a bunch of long beans – chopped to 3 inches in length
• 10-15 shallots – whole
• 2 tomatoes – cut into 6 pieces each
• 1 bell pepper – slices
• 6 okras – halves
• 1 fish head (grouper or red snapper preferred) – cut into chunks
• 1 lemongrass – whole, flattened
• 1 packet of santan (coconut milk, even better if you have fresh ones)
• salt to taste

fry the chili paste and vegetable first before adding fish

Instructions:

• heat up the wok and fry the sambal paste till fragrant (1-2 mins)
• add brinjal, okra, eggplant, and bell peppers, continue frying for another 2-3 minutes
• add fish head and enough water to almost cover everything
• bring to boil and then add tomato and lemongrass
• add the santan
• simmer the whole thing until everything is cooked (around 10 mins)
• add salt to taste, and serve while hot!

add tomato, then coconut milk

The result is a huge portion of curry fish head that can feed a small family. Just add rice and it’s a complete meal by itself already. Total cooking time should not be more than half an hour too so there’s plenty of time for you to play with your kittens.

Haze and Vinn liking the curry

Cheers and happy cooking!

KY cooks – Steamed Haruan with Chicken Essence

Haruan fish (common snakehead) is often “prescribed” to those who are recovering from external wounds. Since Haze is recovering from her ankle fracture and subsequent surgery, her mom brought us a haruan fish and some herbs for the exact purpose.

We had initially been told to boil the fish with herbs (and maybe add some salt) and be done with, but that would be boring and not terribly palatable. I remember having a dish of awesome steamed haruan at Yap Yin at Seri Kembangan, so I thought perhaps we could prepare it in a similar way. This is my version of steamed haruan with chickene essence.

preparation – cleaning and cutting the haruan

Ingredients:

• haruan fish (duh)
• garlic and ginger
• salt to taste
• some chinese herbs (optional)
• a bottle of chicken essence
• parsley for garnishing

and a bottle of chicken essence for extra goodness

Instructions:

• clean the fish throughly, haruan can be very slimy
• slice the fish deeply as shown in the photo so that it is faster to cook and much easier to eat
• cut ginger into strips and garlic in slices
• rub some salt onto the fish
• place everything on the plate and steam the fish together with a bottle of chicken essence (open it first or risk explosion, *gasp*)
• steam in medium heat for about 15 minutes, then stop the fire and rest for 4-5 minutes
• add garnish as you please, I find a little bit of parsley does the trick
• pour the chicken essence on fish before serving

Haze and KY enjoying yet another home cooked dinner

The result turns out to be quite lovely, the chicken essence does add quite a different dimension to the fish, providing a bit of savory taste to counter the fishiness of haruan. Try it.

Happy cooking!