Baked Eggs With Sardines And Cabbage

It was supposed to be a tart.  A dreamy Diana Henry creation of pastry topped with sardines, except that I had planned on adding vegetables and a slice of lemon on the side. As it happened, nothing turned out the way it was visualised in my mind - I didn't have the necessary ingredients on hand.

My plans to go grocery-shopping and to meet a friend to drop off the BBQ set I had given away was thwarted by car trouble. The old sweetheart wouldn't crank up.  There you go, a kink in my otherwise perfect morning.

Baked Eggs With Sardines And Cabbage

So, eggs were used instead and a sunshiny dish was born to bring cheer to an otherwise gloomy-weather day. Someone said it looked like pizza. Surely a good looking one?

Baked Eggs With Sardines And Cabbage
Ingredients:
- 6 small fresh sardines
- 6 eggs
- 1 red chilli (sliced)
- 2 cups sliced cabbage
- ⅛ tsp salt
- Black pepper (several dashes)
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- An 11" round baking dish

Method:
1) Brush cooking oil around the baking dish.
2) Lay the cabbage inside.
3) Beat egg with salt. Pour it around the cabbage.
4) Rub sardines with a bit of salt and place on top of egg/cabbage mixture.
5) Sprinkle chilli slices on top and finish with several dashes of black pepper.
6) Bake at 175C for about 25 minutes.
(Note: Baking time will vary depending on your oven and type of pan.)

1) Lay the cabbage into the dish. 2) Pour beaten egg over.
3) Place sardines on top, decorate with slices of chilli and dashes of black pepper.
4) Bake until the fish is cooked. 5) It's done!

Baked Eggs With Sardines And Cabbage

Best eaten on its own paired with ketchup or sauce of preference.

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Asam Pedas Stingray

There are two common ways that Malaysians eat stingrays. One, in an asam pedas spicy gravy and two, grilled on a banana leaf.  The former is favoured by home-cooks because it's convenient and is a perfect accompaniment for their rice meal. The latter is widely sold in hawker stalls, a street food that is usually enjoyed on its own.

Asam means sour in Malay, pedas on the other hand means spicy. Wikipedia describes asam pedas as a sour and spicy stew that is popular in Indonesia and Malaysia.

"The main ingredients in asam pedas are usually seafood or freshwater fish. They are cooked in asam (tamarind) fruit juice with chilli and different spices."

Asam Pedas fish is typically cooked with bunga kantan (torch ginger) and daun kesum. In the absence of these ingredients, kaffir lime leaves is another great way to go about it.

Those who enjoy an extra kick will add toasted coconut, black pepper and/or additional spices such as turmeric, cumin, fenugreek or aniseeds. The variations are too many to mention.

Asam Pedas Stingray

How I cook asam pedas is always a simple affair mainly because I don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen on work days, nor do I wish to fork out too much on a regular meal. Special occasions are a different story, of course!

Asam Pedas Stingray
Ingredients:
- 320g ikan pari slices (stingray)
- 5 ladies finger (halved or whole)
- 2 medium tomatoes (quartered)
- 1 red chilli (julienned)
- 4 kaffir lime leaves
- 1 medium onion (chopped)
- 1 garlic clove (chopped)
- ½ thumb ginger (chopped)
- 2 tbsp dried red chilli paste
- 1 tsp tamarind paste
- 2-3 tsp brown sugar
- Salt to taste
- Cooking oil
- Water
- Oven-grilled slices of red chilli for garnishing (optional)

How-to:
1) Heat some cooking oil in pan.
2) Saute onion, garlic and ginger for a bit.
3) Add tomatoes, kaffir lime leaves, chilli paste and tamarind paste. Stir to combine and fry it for a bit.
4) Then, add the ladies fingers in. Stir to coat.
5) Add about 1½ cups water. Simmer until the ladies fingers are cooked. Then, season with sugar and salt.
6) Add the fish and slices of red chilli. It's done when the fish is cooked. Optional : Garnish with grilled slices of chilli.

Best eaten with white rice.

1) Gathering the ingredients. 2) Chopped and ready to be cooked!
3) Add the paste after sauteing the onions and garlic. 4) Add the vegetables.
5) Finally, add in the stingray!

Asam Pedas Stingray

Enjoy!

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Spicy Green Chilli Pan-Fried Fish

This is the kind of food that we readily eat using our hands. It's an urge that is typically present when faced with a dish of spicy food that is meant to be had with rice. At least, that's how it is amongst my Malaysian friends and family. Sometimes, with a second serving of rice. There is nothing strange about it. It is a deeply satisfying way of appreciating food we love. You could say it's the finger-licking way!

For everything else, we'll gladly pick up the eating utensils.

I used quite a bit of chilli for this recipe and it is every bit as spicy as it looks.

Spicy Green Chilli Pan-Fried Fish

Spicy Green Chilli Pan-Fried Fish
Ingredients:
- 660g patin fish (freshwater silver catfish) or to preference (sliced)
- 12 green chillies (deseed, sliced)
- 1 large onion (roughly chopped)
- 3 cloves garlic (smashed)
- 3 lemongrass (1 smashed, 2 sliced thinly)
- 2 handfuls of fresh coriander (roughly chopped)
- 4 calamansi (juiced)
- ⅔ cup cooking oil
- ¼ cup water
- Salt to taste

How-to:
1) Blend green chillies, onion, garlic, sliced lemongrass and fresh coriander together with water, into a rough paste (not too fine). Keep aside for later use.

2) Rub the fish with salt and calamansi juice. Heat oil in pan. Pan-fry the pieces until cooked and lightly browned on both sides. Remove fish from pan. Keep aside for later use. Leave the oil in the pan. Do not switch the heat off.

3) Pour the blended ingredients into the same pan with the smashed lemongrass. Stir-fry until most of the liquid is gone and the paste is a thick glossy shade of faded green. Season with ½ tsp salt (to preference). Stir to combine.

4) Finally, lower the heat and gently fold the fried fish into the gravy. Dish out and serve hot.

Best eaten with hand .... I mean, rice.

1) Pan-fry the fish. 2) Keep fried fish aside for later use.
3) Ingredients to blend. 4) Blended chilli ingredients.

Note: I doubled the amount of coriander (not shown in picture above). 
You may use red chilli. I decided to go with all green in the end.

1) Stir-fry blended ingredients in a lot of oil.
2) Cook into a thick glossy paste of pale green (where most of the liquid has evaporated).
3) Season with salt. Stir well, then gently fold fish in.

Spicy Green Chilli Pan-Fried Fish

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Soy Sauce Steamed Fish

I gushed about steamed food the other day. This is one of my favourite ways of doing it - a simple steam that takes only minutes to prepare. You will have time to stir-fry another dish on the side while waiting for this to be done.

Notice that this recipe is quite alike the steamed egg dish I made the other day? I have flavoured this in a similar fashion, except that it has been made more exciting with rice wine and a flourish of garnish.

Steamed Fish

Ingredients:
- 1 medium Dory fish fillet
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 ½ tsp rice wine
- 1 tsp sesame oil

For the garnish:
- 1 stalk fresh coriander (roughly chopped)
- 1 chili (sliced)
- 1 large thumb-sized ginger (julienned)
- Cooking oil

1) Place fish onto steaming plate
2) Pour soy sauce mix over
3) Place into steamer (I use a wok)
4) Chili and ginger for garnish

How-to:
1) Mix light soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil together in a bowl.

2) Place fish onto steaming plate. Pour sauce mixture from note 1) over fish.

3) Place into steamer and steam until cooked.

(I use a wok. Place a steaming rack stand into the wok. Place the steaming plate on top. Add water below and turn the heat up. Steam covered. Once the water comes to a boil, lower the heat and continue steaming until fish is cooked.)

4) Heat oil in pan. Fry chili and ginger until crisp but not burnt. Garnish steamed fish with crispy fried chili and ginger, and some fresh coriander.

Soy Sauce Steamed Fish

Yum!

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Baked Fish with Kiwi in Sweet and Sour Sauce

The Asian Seabass - Baked and smothered in sweet and sour Kiwi sauce

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about one of my favourite food, the Thai-inspired Deep Fried Fish in Three-Flavoured Sauce.

I did say that "it would be a matter of time" before I fire up my own stove to recreate a similar dish. It's happened sooner than I thought! And being me, I changed the recipe a little here and there for convenience sake and to suit my visual needs. I've got to go, "Whoa! What a sight to behold!"  ..silly as it sounds.

Finally, I couldn't decide if it could be called the "Three-Flavoured Sauce Fish" although technically, my version also passes for sweet, sour and spicy.

The original recipe calls for crisp fried fish... but my fish was way too large to fit into my electric pan so I did away with that step. I marinated the fish with some salt and black pepper, and popped it into the oven instead.

That's my baked fish - Asian Seabass / Barramundi !

For the sauce? A simple mix of Tesco's sweet and sour sauce with lots of cut ingredients. Typically, this recipe should include cubed pineapples but I figured a kiwi fruit would be more exciting.  It was a wonderful swap. I so loved the vibrant colour it added into the dish and how the sauce evolved into something that is very much alive in yummy flavour!

Here's how I did it, the recipe and how-to.

Ingredients:
- One whole fish (Seasoned with salt and pepper and baked, or deep-fried if you prefer)

(Estimates for a 12-inch Barramundi fish - adjust accordingly)
- 2 cloves garlic (chopped)
- 2 medium red onions (chopped)
- 1 lemongrass (sliced thinly - peel/cut away the dry parts of the stem, use only the soft middle part)
- 2 tomatoes (cut into cubes)
- 1 kiwi fruit (cut into cubes)
- 1 red chili (seeded and chopped)
- 1 green chili (seeded and chopped)
- A handful of fresh coriander (roughly chopped)
- 2/3 cup sweet and sour bottled sauce (or combine sweet chili sauce with tomato ketchup)
- 1½ tbsp corn flour (mixed with water, into a diluted paste)
- ½ cup water (more or less)
- Cooking oil

The Ingredients

How-to:
1) Heat oil in pan. Fry garlic and onions (not all) until lightly browned.

2) Add lemongrass. Give it a quick stir and then, add the tomatoes and chilli. Pour in the sweet and sour sauce and some water. Mix well and let it cook awhile until the tomatoes look smashed. Add water if it gets too dry.

3) Add the remainder of the onions and the kiwi fruit. Stir quickly (that is, don't let it cook), to coat it with the sauce.

4) Lift  the pan off the fire and pour in the corn flour mixture. Give it a quick stir. The gravy will thicken slightly, giving the sauce a gooey shine.

5) To serve, plate the fish and pour the kiwi sauce over the fish. Garnish with fresh coriander. 

Last in! Kiwis and Onions - to keep the crunch and freshness

There you go - Baked Barramundi with Kiwi in Sweet and Sour Sauce!

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