Nyonya Fried Fish with Chili Lime Sauce 娘惹酸柑辣椒煎鱼

 

Are you bored with just plain deep fried fish recipe? Looking for some extra flavour to spice up the dish?

Sharing below is a simple Nyonya fried fish with mixture of lime juice ( I used Calamansi juice), bird’s eyes chili and seasoning sauce to zest up the flavour.

After cleaning the fish, do make sure to pat dry the fish with paper towel to avoid water splashes in hot oil.

Once pat dry, marinated the fish with a bit of salt, pepper and dash some corn flour to coat the fish before deep frying it in a hot oiled  wok. Deep fry the fish until crispy texture on the outside but still moist inside. Please refer to this post for ways of deep frying fish.

The Calamansi I used here were plucked freshly from my own garden. The same applied to the bird’s eyes chilies harvested from my neighbor's garden.

You can refer to my green hopes to find out some of the plants and vegetables that I had successfully planted and grew in my tropical garden.

However, it was sad to note since my return Malaysia, I did not have any luck in the growing of bird’s eyes chili in my Malaysian garden. The glorious story of my green fingers in the planting of bird’s eyes chili from frozen seeds in Auckland was long gone.

If you can’t get Calamansi, which I reckon is not easily available everywhere, you can use lime or lemon to get that sourness required in the sauce.

Instead of pouring the sauce on the fish, you can also make it as a dipping sauce.  This will favour those who can’t take spicy dish, where they still get to enjoy the crispy fried fish.

 

RECIPE

 

Ingredients:

Fish – 2 medium size whole fish (the smaller the fish easier to deep frying in getting crispy texture)

Dash of salt, pepper and corn flour to marinate

Sauce

Juice from 4-5 calamansi lime

(to your liking on sourness, reduce quantity if using lime or lemon which bigger size)

 

4-5 bird’s eye chilli, sliced thinly

 

1 tsp. of sugar
1 tsp. dark soya sauce

1 tbsp. light soya sauce

( This 3 seasoning can be replaced by Indonesian sweet soy sauce – Kicap Manis ABC being used then no sugar and dark soya needed)

 

1 tbsp. oyster sauce

1. Deep fried fish in hot oil till crispy and dish up and set aside on a plate discard any excess oil from frying pan with paper towel.
2. Heat up wok in low heat, add in seasoning sauce and sugar, let it dissolve then add in bird’s eye chilli stir and off heat.
3. Add in calamansi lime juice and mix well, and taste. Adjust the seasoning accordingly.
4. Pour the sauce over the deep fried fish and serve hot.

娘惹酸柑辣椒鱼

主料：
鱼 - 2个中等大小的全鱼（较小的鱼更易油煎至口感松脆）
盐，胡椒粉，玉米/太白粉腌

酱料
酸柑汁4-5酸柑粒（根据自己对酸味的喜好）
4-5辣椒仔，切成薄片
适量，糖，老抽，生抽， 蚝油

1. 在热油中煎鱼，直到香脆盛起，用纸巾吸收任何多余的油后备用。
2. 用小火烧热锅，加入调味酱和糖，让它溶解，然后加入辣椒仔炒匀。
3. 熄火加入柑酸柑汁拌匀，口味测试，相应地调整调料。
4. 倒入辣椒仔酸柑酱在煎鱼上，趁热食用。

Turmeric Fried Fish 黄姜煎鱼

Crispy Nyonya fried fish

This is one of the common deep-fried fish dishes that you can easily find in economic rice (mixed rice) stalls or small eatery shops in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. With its crispy and crunchy texture, it is one of the kids’ favourite pick too!

As you can tell from its name, the main spice used in this recipe is turmeric powder which is also one of the most important spices used in curry. This spice is easily available in any Asian grocery shops. Back in Auckland, I could conveniently find it in big chain supermarkets like Pak'nSave, New World, and Countdown at their spices counters.

This recipe may seem simple with only a few ingredients and steps to follow, however it may not be as easy to master as you think, especially on the deep frying part!

The key to fry crispy and crunchy fish is to have the fish fried in HOT oil. If the oil is not hot enough, you may experience:

1.       Fish sticking to the pan/wok problem ruining the presentation

2.       Too much oil absorbed by the fish resulting in soggy, greasy fish.

So, how can we avoid this? How to test whether the oil is hot enough? The following steps are what I usually do to test the temperature of the oil. I use a chop stick or skewer and dip into the centre of the wok. If little bubbles are visible, as shown in the following photo, the oil is hot enough and ready for deep frying. 

Hot oil

 Another phobia that keep cooking novice from attempting to deep fry is the fear of being splashed by hot oil. So, to prevent this from happening, I do the following:

1. Keep the fish DRY – pat dry the fish with paper towel after cleaning and scaling

2. Coat fish with a layer of thin corn flour/flour to further absorb the moist and keep the fish skin in place

3. Slowly slip the fish into the wok from the side, no dropping from high heights and keep a distance away from the stove once the fish is in the wok.

4.  Face out the pan/wok cover to act as shield from possible oil splash once fish is added into the wok/pan.
 

Above are some of the methods I used. However if you are health conscious and not in favour of deep frying but still wish to try the taste of this Nyonya Turmeric fish, you can go for oven grill instead but you may not be able to taste the same crispy texture as in the case of deep frying.

Turmeric Fried Fish 黄姜煎鱼

Thai Style Deep-fried Fish Fillet 泰式脆鱼条

With a week of Raya holiday at home, I decided to spend some time to tidy up my photo folders and blog posts which was long overdue in my “to do” list.  I was surprised to find this blog post left in the folder yet to be published. It was over a year old post which I wrote in the final week in Auckland in March 2011.

Last Thai in Auckland

With our fridge sold in preparation for our repatriation to Malaysia, I had to do marketing on a daily basis. This morning when I saw fish fillet was on special, I bought a piece for dinner meal.  But without a fridge I had problem to keep the fish fresh until dinner time. To prevent the fish fillet from turning bad I had to marinate it first. To come up with deep fried ideas, I went through series of Hawkers delights cookbooks I had and spotted this yummy Thai recipe from Yummy Yummy Hawkers’ Fair by Chef Phang Fah.

The original recipe called for sweet basil leaves, which I didn’t have. Too bad basil was one of the herbs that was not available in my garden that I could harvest easily.  Without basil leaf, I substituted it with fresh flat-leaf parsley. I knew with this substitution, it would change the flavour of the dish. Basil has a sweet spicy flavour and was stronger but parsley was lighter in flavour. Nevertheless, I was glad the deep fried fish fillet turned out tasty.

For a true Thai flavour, next time I would give the original recipe a try.

SUPREME PORK CHOP 猪扒王

Oriental Pork Chop

This is a Chinese style pork chop which I adapted from Hawkers’ Fair Simplified. This is one of my family’s favourite dinner dishes. The name is called pork chop but I found it tastes even better with pork loin,the meat is tenderer and juicier. If using pork loin I usually omit soda bicarbonate as tenderizer.

To keep the pork chop crisped, pork chop can be deep fried first and only have the source poured on it when serving.  

SUPREME PORK CHOP 猪扒王



Deep Fried Wontons 金元宝炸云吞

Chinese New Year Dishes – Part 6（年菜之六）
This was my last CNY dish prepared on Thursday 17^th February "Chap Goh Meh". After our heavy "Chap Goh" lunch sharing, I was saved to prepare dinner as there was still pretty much left over food especially sweet and sour fish.

However, to add some lucky chime to our dinner I had fried some wontons. The shape of the deep fried golden color of the wontons resembled gold ingots (Yuan Bao元宝) widely circulated during the Ming Dynasty. It was a great auspicious symbol of wealth. Best of all, this snack was so simple and flexible to make. Other than the normal mince fillings you could opt for any ingredients which you could find in your fridge! J If you wish to eat healthier, you can make the wonton soup instead. Check out my previous post on this.

金黄色的炸云吞外形元宝状可是新春佳节好意头的吃食，云吞馅料除了肉馅你也可随意添加，看看冰箱有什么就放什么。皮脆馅鲜超好吃！

Deep Fried Wontons 金元宝炸云吞- Featured in Group Recipes 20/02/2011

Check out the step by step in folding wanton into Gold ingots shape.

DEEP FRIED WONTONS Ingredients: 1 packet of wonton wrappers (square ones) ½ small bowl of water (use to seal wanton skin) Fillings: Minced pork/chicken, prawns ( you can replace with veggie fillings) Spring onions – finely chopped Light soy sauce to taste 1/2 tsp. sesame oil 1 tsp. corn flour or potato starch (to soften the mince) Sprinkle of pepper Garnish: Cucumber/tomato – slice into thin pieces and place around the plate Methods: In a bowl, combine minced pork with the marinade ingredients. Mix them well and set aside. Place a wonton wrapper on the palm of your hand. Place ½ tsp filling in a corner of the wrapper, fold up to make a small triangle. Fold the triangle to the middle. Turn wonton with triangle face down and moisten the left corner edge of the wrapper with water. Overlap the right end corners to left moist corner and pinch the ends firmly to seal it creating a nurse cap looks.（refer photo） Once completed, place them on a plate, cover with a dry towel and set aside. The wontons can be prepared in advance covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated, rest at room temperature before frying. Heat up oil in a wok over medium heat. Frying in batches, slowly slide the wontons into the hot oil and fry until golden brown. Remove and drain oil on paper towels, transfer to platter and garnish with cucumber slices. Serve hot as finger food with chili or mayonnaise sauce as desired. 金元宝炸云吞 材料： 馅类：半肥瘦肉，鲜虾肉，青葱(剁碎) 适量生抽（酱油）, 麻油（1/2茶匙），太白粉，胡椒粉少许 先将肉碎和虾碎加油，酱油等配料一起和好搅至胶，加入葱碎再拌和。 包法： 把一块四方的云吞皮放好，在角落放半茶匙肉馅。 对上把皮和肉包上行成小三角形，成三角形的面皮后再次折上 在左上角边皮粘上少许的水，然后将右端角重叠到左角压一压贴起来，造一个护士帽状（参考附图）就形成了元宝状的云吞。 一旦完成，放在盘子里，盖上干毛巾，备用。 你也可预先准备后用塑料包装和冷藏，在油炸提前拿出稍至室温。 把油烧热后，才把元宝状的云吞一个个的平放到油里（让它保持不变其原来的形状）炸至金黄色即可.

Crispy Dumplings (Kok Chai) 油角仔

Chinese New Year Dishes – Part 4（年菜之四）

Last Thursday (3^rd February) was the first day of 2011 Chinese Lunar Year, the beginning of the Rabbit year. First day of Chinese New Year （年初一）to me is a very special day, because I was born on this day too! When I was small, my mum used to celebrate my lunar birthday together with family reunion dinner on this day. I always like to think that when the whole world is celebrating CNY, they are celebrating my birthday too! J

I was disappointed, but expected, to note Chinese New Year was not observed as public holiday here. It was a normal working for JS. After a long summer break, Ming Ray began his first school day of year-2 on this day too. With them away, we weren't able to have much family celebrations, but I still followed the Chinese culture, by giving Ming Ray a red packet "Ang Pao" before sending him to school. However, thanks to my ex-computing cooking group, I still had an enjoyable CNY lunch sharing cum a small birthday celebration on this day after all.

This time the lunch sharing was organized at Vera's house. Like the past lunch gatherings, other than each cooking member bringing a plate for lunch, the host would also give cooking demonstration on her specialty. To celebrate CNY, Vera had shown us the making of Kok Chai (油角仔) which was a "must have" snack during Chinese New Year in her home town in Hong Kong. This little crispy dumpling has peanut as fillings, it is also called peanuts puff. The deep fried golden colour and shape of the puff is similar to gold bullions and a symbol of wealth.

这是香港人过年必有的小吃，油角仔，因为包的是花生馅所以也叫花生角仔！ 金黄金黄的油角，像铊铊黄金锭，很有新年好意头！

Crispy Dumplings (Kok Chai) 油角仔 - Featured in Group Recipes 11/02/2011

Commercial made mini Kok Chai - CNY gift set

Sharing the highlights of our lunch sharing and cooking demostration.

CRISPY DUMPLINGS（KOK CHAI） Credit to Vera on recipe sharing Ingredients: Pastry 600g high ratio flour/Cake flour （Chlorinated or high ratio flour, also known as Hong King flour, is special cake flour that is able to hold large amounts of liquid. This gives the cake produced a very soft crumb and a light, moist, fine texture.  They are also sweeter, have greater volume and a longer shelf life than cakes made with standard flour - extracted from Bake Info If cake flour not available, you can also try to turn all purpose flour into cake flour using following method. I extracted this from Joy the baker. ) 120 gm. margarine or butter or lard 120g cold water 2 large eggs Filling: 300 gm. roasted peanuts – panfry skinned peanut, then remove the skins and chopped fine 80gm. roasted sesame 200 gm. caster sugar 20g shredded coconut Oil for deep-frying(2 liters ) Method: For pastry: Using the food processor/bread maker, put margarine, flour and eggs and water into the machine until it becomes a dough. Rest for 30 minutes to allow dough fully absorb the oil, egg and water. For filling: Mix all the ingredients together. To make the puffs pastry: Use the pasta machine to roll pastry or hand roll using rolling pin into a thin sheet and use cookie cutter to cut into 1 3/4 - 2 inches rounds. Put in 1/2 tsp of filling into the center of cut pastry and wrap up filling. Pinch edges neatly. Heat up oil to 170 ℃ for deep-frying peanut puffs and fry till golden brown using medium heat. It takes about 8 minutes.Remove and leave them on cooling rack. our Hong Kong born host - Vera Let it completely cool before storing into containers. Tips: Don't knead the dough too long will make dumplings skin not crispy but chewy. Rest dough for 30 minutes to allow dough fully absorb the oil, egg and water. This will make crispy dough skin when deep fry. 油角仔 皮材料 : 600g低筋麵粉 120g菜油或豬油 120g水 二粒蛋 餡材料 : (份量隨個人喜愛) 80g芝麻 (用慢火炒香待涼) 300g有衣花生 20g椰絲 200g砂糖 做法 : 用白鑊炒有衣花生, 去衣, 待涼後捣碎，(有衣花生不易炒燶) 將花生,芝麻及糖拌勻，備用。 將麵粉篩入大碗中，加入菜油(猪油)，拌勻 逐少加入水 ，搓和成耳垂般软的面团，用濕布蓋住休息半小时。 在台上灑上麵粉，取出一小份粉糰，用麵棍壓薄，用杯子印成小圓模取起小圓模，包入適量餡料，對摺成半月形後再用力壓實.  用手指拉出邊位再屈摺入, 每摺入一次就再拉出一次直至尾部為止，收口鎖邊 （Crimping）。 烧热油后約170 ℃，转中温，炸到金黄香脆(約八分鐘)。放涼架或用廚房紙瀝乾油份待涼即成. 貼士搓粉糰時不能太用力，搓至粉糰有筋性，油角便不鬆化；搓完更要靜置半小時，讓其完全吸收豬油、蛋汁及水，炸起來才鬆化。

Penang Loh Bak (Sausage Pork Roll) 槟城五香卤肉

Nyonya Cuisine – Part 3


 Loh bak (Sausage Pork Roll) is another famous Penang Nyonya food. It is also one of the Penang well known hawker delights easily available at many Penang street stalls or night markets sold as finger food. Usually they are sold in a combo platter of loh bak which includes, prawn fritters, fried bean curd (taukua) , five spice hard boiled eggs, century eggs, and slices of cucumber.

Recalling my school days, I used to eat Loh Bak as supper after late night shopping with friends at night markets. We used to order a combo plate and sit down to share this little snack before heading home. To many Penang families, it can also be served as an entree in a multi-course meal especially during festive celebrations or sometimes even wedding dinners.

I'd been thinking of making this for quite a while now; I had even bought the bean curd sheets but just had not got the right time to make it. With Auntie Lan , our Nyonya expert around, how could we not ask her to make this Nyonya dish while she's still with us? J So, again let me feature my guest chef showing off her Nyonya cooking skills.
However, we were unable to come out with the same loh bak taste as back home. This was because I couldn't find one of the main ingredients that's called Sengkuang in Malay or "bangkuang" in Hokkien which was a kind of sweet root vegetable. When I wrote this post, I tried to Google for English name; it gave me a Spanish word Jicama and Yam bean. I was surprised to read that some refers to it as turnip. I guess for our next trial we can either use water chestnuts or opt to use turnip as replacement.

My auntie said you can also make this into vegetarian version by replacing the meat with Yam. Vegetarian Loh Bak （斋卤肉）which has another name "Huang Jiang" in Teochew is one of the many vegetarian dishes prepared by her during the 1^st day of Chinese New year. This day is also regarded as vegetarian day and following the Chinese customs we are to start off with vegetarian meals.

Penang Loh Bak  槟城五香卤肉