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Welp, it’s been almost three years since I last have an entry on cooking, I guess it’s not better time than now to put in one of my favorite dishes mom used to cook when I was a boy – Nyonya seafood curry with salted fish bone. This really came about because I managed to get some really big whole salted fish from the Filipino market in Kota Kinabalu.

ingredients for seafood curry pot

As the name of the dish suggests, this is a classic Penang style Nyonya dish. Unlike normal curry dish, the presence of salted fish bone gives it a better taste character that’s much better than salt ever would. It is also a dish that has pretty much everything in it – vegetable, seafood, santan, and with steamed rice, makes a whole meal.

blending onion, ginger, garlic

Anyway, here’s the ingredient list of the version mom makes:

• 1 KG prawns and/or other seafood (mussels for example)
• 2-3 pieces of salted fish bone (kurau fish preferred)
• 1 clove garlic
• 1-2 onion
• 1 inch ginger
• 1/2 dozen cili padi
• spring onion
• curry paste (best if you can get them from morning market)
• 1 tomato, 1/2 dozen lady’s fingers, 1 brinjal
• 2 packets of coconut milk
• 3-4 spoon cooking oil

“tumis” chili paste with oil, and then add seafood

Cooking instructions:

• clean and soak salted fish bone for 10-15 mins
• grind up onion, ginger, garlic, and cili padi to a paste
• heat up oil and fry the paste for a minute
• add curry paste to the mix, stir for another minute
• add salted fish, seafood and stir until slightly fragrant, perhaps a minute or so
• add vegetables, stir for another minute
• add santan, bring to boil for a couple minutes
• cut up spring onion and add to the mix (for looks only lah)

add vege and santan next

Remember to serve this with a nice plate of steamed rice, low carb diet be damned.

viola, it’s all done, seafood curry with salted fish bone

I promise to not let another 3 years passed before putting up another recipe on this blog, and this is in fact, the 100th. You can find more of my simple recipes here.