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A week ago we bought three garupa fish for something like RM 25 from the Meru Pasar Malam nearby, and since we’re going to have to eat the same fish on three different occasions, it was an opportunity to try out different recipes.

I vaguely remember that we bought some fermented beans (tauchu) over CNY cos my brother had used it as a “secret ingredient” in his version of jiu hu char, so it was time to experiment on a version of garupa with tauchu dish.

raw ingredients – fish, tauchu, onion, garlic, ginger, chili padi

Thankfully, the version I ended up cooking based on what we had in the pantry and fridge ended up rather delicious, so I’m penning it here for my own future reference. As always, you’re more than welcome to try it out yourself, and if you do, let me know how it turns out.

Ingredients:

• one medium size garupa fish (siakap/barramundi should work too)
• a couple of onions (sliced)
• half a clove garlic (chopped)
• an inch of ginger (strips)
• 2 tablespoon of tauchu
• 2-3 tablespoon of cooking oil
• half a dozen chili padi, green or red

sautee everything minus the fish

Cooking Instructions:

• heat up cooking oil and then stir fry everything except the fish
• once fragrant, add 1.5 cups of water
• bring water to boil, then add fish
• lower the heat, let simmer and cover for 10-15 minutes (depending on thickness of fish)
• serve while hot

simmer & steam for 10 minutes and you’re done

As fermented bean is already quite a salty product, salt is not needed in this cooking method. The result is a simple fish dish that brings out the natural taste of seafood while having a sauce base that’s flavorful with a bit of a kick. Goes really well with rice. Will not hesitate to use this recipe again.

Following the previous recipe on soya chicken dish made with Angel soya sauce and Angel Oyster sauce. I thought of trying out a recipe with their Sriracha hot chili sauce. I was browsing reddit just happened to came upon an entry on GifRecipes featuring roast chicken that uses sriracha sauce as seasoning, so I thought, why not try something similar?

So here is my roast chicken with Angel Sriracha hot chili sauce recipe.

Angel Sriracha hot chili sauce, chicken, and other ingredients

Ingredients (main):

• 4-5 tablespoon of Angel Sriracha hot chili sauce
• 3 tablespoon equal portion of brown sugar
• 2 chicken quarter (leg part)
• 1 bulb of garlic (dice)
• capsicum
• 2 red onion
• 100 gram shiitake mushroom (optional)
• 2-3 tablespoon of butter

Ingredients (sides):

• 1 potato
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 slice of pumpkin
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

brown the chicken with butter on a hot frying pan

Cooking instructions (side):

• cut the root vegetables into cubes and put in baking pan
• add olive oil, salt, and pepper
• heat up oven to 200 Celsius and bake for 35 mins

It’s good to start this first and put it in oven, take the additional 15 mins or so to prepare for the main dish and have everything in the oven done at the same time since the chicken will take some 20 minutes in the oven.

mix sriracha hot chili sauce with brown sugar to apply on chicken

Cooking instructions (main dish):

• heat up frying pan with butter
• pan fry the chicken on all sides till skin is slightly brown, remove to oven pan
• next, fry garlic, onion, capsicum, and mushroom
• arrange everything in the oven pan
• mix Angel sriracha hot chili sauce with brown sugar, carefully use the sauce to cover chicken
• place everything in oven for 18-20 minutes at 200 Celsius

roast chicken with sriracha hot chili sauce & sides

Mix all up in a plate and serve!

I found that Angel Sriracha hot chili sauce is probably slightly spicier than those I’ve had before, and that suits me just fine. With brown sugar and oven heat treatment, the sauce gave the roast chicken skin a pretty sweet and spicy note which compliments the meat very well. There’s no condiments on the side necessary at all for this dish. I’m glad that it worked out pretty well.

You can always modify the side dishes a little to suit your need for this dish, give it a try!

For more about the sauce, check out www.bidorkwongheng.com

Here’s a simple mushroom chicken with oyster sauce recipe that allows you to whip up a comfort dish within 15 minutes or so. Ingredients are pretty simple and straight forward, so is the cooking method, do disregard the cooking wine if you want to have it the halal way.

ingredients – chicken, oyster sauce, mushroom, garlic, ginger etc

Ingredients (fit for 2 pax):

• 3 tablespoon oyster sauce, 3 tablespoon cooking wine, mix in bowl
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 onion, quartered
• a handful of mushroom
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tablespoon cooking oil

always start with garlic and ginger

Cooking Instructions:

• heat up cooking oil and fry garlic & ginger till fragrant
• add chicken and fry till surface is brown (a couple minutes usually)
• add rest of the ingredients, stir fry
• cover up for steaming action for 4-5 minutes
• serve when hot!

end result is a plate of comfort food

This is a pretty simple recipe, and you can also substitute chicken with other white meat as well. I’d usually have this with some chili padi and soya sauce, but whatever rocks your boat!

While fusion food has gotten a bit of a bad rep over the years from many restaurants that came up with dishes that were neither here nor there, I still always applaud those who dare to imagine and come up with something different from the ordinary. Sometimes it is done by mixing ingredients from different parts of the world, other times by turning traditional recipes upside down. Either way, it is one way to ensure that culinary art does not stay stagnant and only look backwards.

glorious miso grilled hake steak with spicy mussel soup

Several days ago I received some fresh ingredients courtesy of the Zealand Trade Enterprises, and as part of the challenge, we were supposed to use them and come up with dishes worthy of sharing. Since cooking is one of my many hobbies, here goes!

For dinner last Friday, I decided to make grilled hake (or any cod, really)  with miso marinate & vege, while the wife came up with spicy mussle soup as a companion dish. Both seafood ingredients were New Zealand products.

Hake steak from New Zealand, miso as main marinate ingredient

I will be sharing the hake steak recipe here:

Ingredients:

• Hake steak (or any white fish, such as cod) 250-300 gram per pax
• asparagus & mushroom (sliced)
• a few gloves garlic
• 2 tablespoon cooking oil

Ingredients for marinate:

• 2 tablespoon miso paste
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 cup cooking sake
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

asparagus and mushroom as sides

Cooking instructions (fish):

• mix marinate in a bowl and apply generously on fish, let marinate for at least 15-30 minutes
• heat up the oven to 175 C
• pan fry the fish for 2-3 minutes
• bake fish in oven for 10 minutes

fish: pan fry before oven, vege: sauteed

Cooking instructions (vegetable):

• heat up frying pan with cooking oil
• fry garlic till fragrant
• add mushroom & asparagus and saute for 2 minutes
• add leftover marinate to the vege and continue to saute for another 2 minutes

Time your cooking of vegetable to coincide with the fish so that they’re both served hot. Enjoy!

spicy New Zealand mussel soup made by Haze Long

Since we lack tomato puree or white wine, the spicy mussel soup involved the use of sake, ketchup, New Zealand mussels, and black magic. My wife made it, so I don’t think I’m qualified to know enough of the recipe to share it here.

Happy cooking! #

I remember one of the dishes I really like as a kid involving squid is the one with some sort of thick dark sauce mom made, so naturally when I discovered that we still had some squid in the fridge, I tried to replicate the dish at home. After a bit of exploring on the web, I think I finally nailed down a version that came up pretty good.

squid with dark soya sauce

Here’s the simple stir fry squid with dark soya sauce recipe, give it a try if you love squid like most of us do!

To be honest, the recipe uses more than just dark soya sauce, naming is just for simplicity sake.

soya sauce, dark soya sauce, squid, garlic, ginger, salt, brown sugar, and pepper

Ingredients:

• 6-8 squids, cleaned (if you want to get fancy, stuff the head back into the body and “stitch it up with a toothpick”)
• an inch of ginger, cut into strips
• half a bulb of garlic, chopped in chunks
• 2 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon soya sauce
• pepper to taste
• a dash of salt
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 3 tablespoon cooking oil

start with ginger, garlic, then the rest

Cooking instructions:

• marinate the squid with sugar, salt, dark soya sauce, soya sauce, and pepper for 30 minutes
• heat up cooking oil
• fry ginger for a 30 seconds, then add garlic until fragrant
• add in squid in medium heat without pouring all the marinate
• cook for 5-6 minutes, then add the rest of the marinate
• serve while hot (add a bit of parsley for photo op!)

It is really a rather simple recipe, I hope you try it. Happy cooking!