CRISPY FRIED FISH WITH SAMBAL AND A GREEN MANGO SALAD

I can think of no other way of preparing these tiny, fresh, slender, skinny, yellow tail scad fish (ikan selar kuning) than to deep fry them to a crisp so their bones become dry and brittle, so you could snap them, savour their sweetness, bite their paper thin crisp gills, their lips, their little tails and devour each whole leaving very little of their remains behind. Like a cat would. It's totally fulfilling and lip smacking satisfying.

Especially if you have hot, steaming white rice, and heady luscious condiments like sambal belacan and a sour spicy green mango salad right next to you. Quite the complete rustic meal. Nothing fancy. The whole meal set covers the 3 food groups. Fried, boiled and raw.



There are usually 2 sizes of this fish sold at the market but for deep frying to a crisp, the 4 1/2 or 5 inch ones are the ones to go for. And if you get the fishmonger to clean them for you preparing them for frying would be a breeze.

The secret or not so secret of frying fish to a crisp would of course be very hot oil, a nice crisp forming batter and patting down the fish with some paper towels before coating and frying them. And don't over crowd the pan or wok either or you'll bring the temperature of the oil down and your fish will not be as crisp as you would like them to be. The tumeric used in this batter is typical of Malay fried foods and it gives off a lovely earthy flavour.

We had a wonderful (ok.... unhealthy) dinner tonight and my daughter who complained recently about having missed most of the foods that I blg about was licking her fingers clean, smacking her lips and she went mmm...

Here's the recipe for the fried fish.............


For the amount of batter in this recipe you would be able to fry about...

8 - 9 small fish, gutted, cleaned and patted dry
3 tablespoons of cornflour
2 tablespoons of tumeric powder
1 tablespoon of salt
2-3 tablespoon of water

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Mix the above ingredients to a thick but slightly loose paste. Drop in the fish that has been patted with kitchen paper towel of excess moisture into the paste/batter. Use a spoon or spatula to mix and coat the fish into the batter.

Heat up a deep wok until hot then pour in enough oil for deep frying and when the oil is very hot drop the fish in a few at a time as long as you don't over crowd the wok. Fry until a golden brown and crisp. Continue with the next batch and drain them on paper towels to rid of excess oil. Serve hot.

Please note that this is not a batter where you dip the fish in and fry them. I t is more of a coating batter where the fish are put into the bowl and mixed aroudn until they are coated. So you will not be getting half a bowl full of liquid batter from this recipe.

Sambal Belacan.........


I inch square piece of dried shrimp paste, roasted in a dry pan
4 large red chillies
a few bird chillies if you like
juice of 2 or 3 kalamansi limes (I didn't have these so I used the bigger limes, which are not as nice, in my opinion)

Pound the chillies quite finely using a little salt as an abrasive in a pestle and mortar (or mortar and pestle, whichever came first). Add the toasted shrimp paste and pound again until you get a nice fiery red and moist paste. Scoop the luscious paste into a small bowl and squeeze lime juice over. Mix with a spoon. It's ready to be served.

Green mango salad.......My MIL's version....


3 mediun sized green mangoes, peeled and shredded or grated coarsely
1 cm x 2cm piece of toasted shrimp paste
2 large red chillies
some bird chillies if you like
salt

A handful of roasted and crushed peanuts (I didn't have this)

Put about a tablespoon of salt in the shredded mangoes and mix them well. keep aside for about 15 minutes to allow the juices from the mango to exude and to reduce the sourness. After 15 minutes use your hand to squeeze teh mango pulp as dry as you can. Then place the shredded mango into a colander and run some water through to rid it of excess salt.

Pound the chillies and shrimp paste in a pestle and mortar until quite fine but not too fine. Mix the paste with the rinsed shredded mangoes well until evenly distributed. Scatter some crushed peanuts over the top and it's ready to be served.

Serve the fried crispy fish with the sambal belacan and teh green mango salad. YUMMEE.

A MALAY BEAN SPROUT SALAD - KERABU TAUGEH

This is a Malay salad recipe that is one of my favourites. I love the combination for the dressing which happens to work superbly as a dressing for a bowl of boiled, fat and juicy cockles as well....absolutely mouth watering. However, if you would like the best of both worlds the combination of cockles and bean sprouts and the dressing makes a fantastic seafood vegetable salad and in my opinion it is salad heaven.

I just can't describe how much I love this dish. Unfortunately I could not get any decent cockles at the wet market today so I had to settle for a just a lovely bean sprout salad.

The dressing is made up of typical South East Asian ingredients. Tamarind juice for the sourness, lime juice for it's tanginess, a pounded golden coconutty paste (kerisik) for body and sweetness and chillies for some spiciness and bite. A totally absorbful, if there is such a word, and clingy dressing. The bean sprouts take in the flavours well and if I had used cockles the dressing would just coat, enter its crevices and cling to those succulent, juicy morsels.


Here's the recipe..........

180 gm of bean sprouts, tailed if you're feeling up to it, washed and drained.
3 limes
1 Tbsp of tamarind paste
2 large red chillies
3 bird chillies (optional)
5-6 shallots, sliced finely
1 cup of freshly grated coconut or 2/3 cup canned dessicated coconut
salt

Place the grated coconut into a small to medium pan and dry fry or roast until it turns a dark golden brown. This takes about 7 to 9 minutes over medium flame. Watch it carefully because the coconut can burn easily and keep stirring to allow the coconut to brown evenly.

While it is still hot or warm pound the roasted/fried grated coconut in a pestle and mortar until it becomes a thick brown paste and the oils exudes. Scrape it up and put it in a medium bowl.

Pound the fresh chillies and bird chilies, if using, until it is quite fine or pasty and throw that into the bowl too. Mix the tamarind paste with 2 tablespoons of water and strain and pour that into the bowl as well. Squeeze the limes, discard the seeds and pour that in as well. Stir the mixture until it is well combined, add salt to taste and adjust sourness with extra lime juice if necessary and sweetness with a tiny sprinkle of sugar if you like. Mix well.

Add the raw bean sprouts, sliced shallots and boiled cockles if using and toss well incorporating the dressing into the vegetables/cockles well. Taste for salt again and adjust. Serve slightly chilled or at room temperature. YUMMMMM.

SRI LANKAN SALAD MOJU

Thank god I have something to blog about. Finally. I was getting a little desperate and was considering taking pictures of my cat.

This is a dish where I had scrutinized the tv, furrowed my eyebrows and pricked my ears up just to get at that little bit of ingredient that I kept missing on AFC because some people were having a cross fire discussion on either side of me, quite loudly, or someone called out for me at that very crucial moment, quite loudly, or the surat khabar lama man (old newspaper collecting man) announced himself, quite loudly.

And what made it totally weird was that it each happened at the exact moment that particular ingredient was being thrown in and mentioned by the Sri Lankan chef while Bobby Chin chatted into his ear, quite loudly, which blurred out the word of the ingredient that he was mentioning anyway.



Finally though after watching the show once again (again) (thank God for reruns) I finally caught the word. And it was just a spoonful of plain old sugar...

Then I became puzzled by the word moju......I just had to know what it meant. This is a brinjal moju, then there is also the fish moju. I googled but I couldn't find the meaning for the word anywhere. Feeling a little frustrated I finally requested my son to enquire the meaning from his Sri Lankan friend and it turns out that moju simply means pickle or something like a pickle. And that makes sense because this dish uses vinegar and is sort of picklish in flavour.



The ingredients that went in made this dish very enticing. There were so many flavours folded in. It has cinnamon, garlic, ginger, a fruit pickle, pepper, vinegar, fried dried anchovies (ikan bilis)and mustard seed paste. The last was a very intriguing ingredient because I have never used pounded mustard seeds before.



Although sauteed mustard seeds taste pleasantly nutty with an almost groundnut flavour, roasted/sauteed and pounded mustard seeds however gave off such an unexpected and astonishing albeit familiar aroma that it took me quite by surprise and it was quite a while before I could place my finger on that very familiar smell. Finally after taking it all in I realized that it had the exact same aroma as dry fried grated coconut which had then been pounded to a paste. Exactly.

I then tasted it and it was simply good. I loved it. I couldn't wait to get to the end of this dish because it looked terribly appetizing and saliva inducing.



So here's the recipe.....

4 small brinjals
3-4 whole green chillies
5-6 shallots peeled and left whole

2 pips garlic, peeled
1 inch ginger, skinned
1/2 inch cinnamon
ground black pepper
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp sugar
1 or 2 tbsp of mango chutney (or other fruit chutney)
1 -2 tsp rice vinegar (I used apple cider) or you clould use tamarind juice (yum)
2 tbsp or sauteed mustard seeds pounded to a paste

a handful of dried anchovies fried to a crisp (optional)

Pound garlic, ginger and cinnamon bark in a pestle and mortar using some salt as an abrasive.

In a medium bowl put in the ginger/garlic paste, add tumeric powder, some ground black pepper mango chutney, vinegar and the lovely mustard seed paste. Mix tehm all around and add some pepper or cayenne pepper if you like to spice it up.

Cut the brinjals into thickish strips (very much like chunky fries) and deep fry the brinjals, shallots and whole chillies in hot oild briefly just until the brinjals turn light brown. Drain
of excess oil and put them into the bowl of dressing.Add the fried anchovies and mix them up like you would salad. Adjust flavours by adding a little more salt,vinegar or chutney to your taste. Serve. YUMMM

BEST BLOG AWARD FROM TRACIE

Well it looks like July is an award month for me. I just got a Best Blog Award from Tracie of Bittersweet Flavours. Thank you so much Tracie dear. Love it! My second in a row. It is really a neat feeling to get to know so many wonderful and generous people through blogging. And I don't even have to step out of my house! It's amazing. One more reason to keep on blogging.

I'll have to pass this on to five more great blogs and make 5 more people real happy.

As always there are rules..........

1. To accept the award, post it on your blog and thank the person who granted you the award with his or her blog link.

2. Pass the award to 5 other blogs that you have discovered and think are great.

3. Remember to contact the blogger to inform them that they have been awarded.

Ok now...this award goes to

La Table De Nana
Elin of Elinluv's tidbit corner
Jennifer of Maple and Cornbread
Jenny of Picky Palate
Lori of Lori's Lipsmacking Goodness