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。

Scramble eggs with Shark’s fins and Crab meat ( 鱼翅炒）

First of all I would like to wish all my Chinese readers a very happy Chinese New Year!
May you be blessed, in this horse year, with good health, galloping like a champion horse to a great  height of success!

This year CNY day-1 lunch, my second Sister-in-law has suggested to try out this simple scramble eggs with the luxurious filling of shark’s fins and crab meat as it seemed to be a simple and fast egg dish which was kids friendly!

This Shark’s fin scramble eggs is one of the popular Nyonya cuisine dishes served during Chinese New Year reunion dinner. It is also commonly served in Chinese Wedding banquets where it usually forms part of the hot & cold combination platter served as starter with the name of Four Season.
I happen to bring back a copy of Food Magazine “ Yum Yum” featuring mostly Chinese New Year dishes and we found this recipe in there. On the Chinese New Year Eve night, SIL has briefly glanced thru it but didn’t really remember the all the steps.

The next day, CNY day-1, after finishing our ritual prayer at temple, we went back to dad’s house to prepare lunch. It was too bad that, I forgot to bring the recipe book. Hence, she just had to improvise whatever she couldn’t recall to prepare the dish. In the end, our version turned out to be  more like scramble eggs with veggie instead because we added a bit too much of onion, spring onion and cabbage we could hardly see the shark’s fins in it.

Nevertheless, it still tasted great!


This dish can go with white rice or be wrapped with lettuce or placed in this “top hats” or Nyonya kuih pie tee.

For the recipe of how to make this crispy Pie Tee, do click on the link to one of my favorite food blogger site - Rasa Malaysia.

Our home cooked CNY lunch main dishes, scramble eggs with shark’s fins, braised sea cucumber, mushroom and pork trotter.

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

Tomato Garlic Prawns 鸿运当头笑哈哈(虾)

laughing prawns for an auspicious and happy reunion meal!

10th February 2013
1st lunch of Lunar Calendar year of Snake (农历大年初一）- Part 2

This Snake year, we had our family reunion dinner on the 9th February, the eve of the New Year, at the Penang Chinese Recreation Club (CRC) Restaurant. As expected this reunion package dinner set menu served many auspiciously sounding dishes such as Yee Sang 撈鱼生, Shark’s fins, Steamed fish (nian nian you yu 年年有余（鱼) symbolising abundance in Mandarin, along with Steamed prawns 笑哈哈（虾), with prawns homophonic to “laughter” in Cantonese and last but not least deep fried Nian Gao 年糕 (steam sticky rice cake) as dessert. To me, no matter how lavish and sumptuous the reunion dinner we could have in a restaurant, there was still something missing in it, the “home” feel taste!



Other than Pen Cai as featured in my previous post on our reunion CNY lunch at home, we had another seafood dish in the same lunch menu. My sister Cindy had brought some big prawns. We decided to use some for the Pen Cai and the rest went to this Stir fried Tomato Garlic Prawns, our homemade “laughing” prawns. Prawns in Cantonese as I mentioned symbolises laughter which is another must serve in the CNY menu.



Tomato Garlic Prawns 鸿运当头笑哈哈(虾)

Following was the lunch menu that we served on that day:
Hakka Pen Cai, Teo Chew Steam Fish, Tomato Garlic Prawns and Pig and Fish Maw soup
(Click on the name to bring you to my old posts on these recipes)




The recipe I shared below was super easy. Even if you are a novice in cooking, you should still be able to come up with a very nice and tasty CNY dish in 3 simple steps! The secret is to have this sauce - Lee Kum Kee Sauce for Tomato Garlic Prawns
 

在粤语中的“虾”听起来就像“哈“寓意笑哈哈, 是其中一道不可缺少的新年宴客菜。这一道酸甜番茄蒜茸大虾，做法简单也省事儿，而且红彤彤的很有节日气氛。 零厨艺的你也可在新年家宴上大显身手了来个鸿运当头笑哈哈(虾)！

 

Pulau Aman Mee Udang (Prawn Noodles)

Care to have a bowl of Prawn Noodles?

Following up from our recent trip to Batu Kawan,Seberang Perai to Auntie Chun Li’s house, we found out her house was only 2km away from Jetty Batu Musang, the gateway to Pulau Aman. 

We decided to take a ferry excursion trip to take a look at this small island. The island was merely a 10 minutes boat ride from Batu Musang Jetty, at RM6.00 per adult and RM4.00 per child for a two-way fare.



Nothing much of sight seeing to expect from this small Malay fishing village island. We expected to finish venturing the island within 2 hours. The absence of good beaches on this island was made up by the fresh seafood available.

 

At the beach the main activities we saw along the beach were clams digging and fishing.

This island was well known for its giant mantis prawn and the island was famous for its “Mee Udang” (prawn noodles).


There were a few Mee Udang restaurants on the island, the famous one was Restoran Terapung Pulau Aman. which was the one we patronized that day.



A plate of normal Mee Udang priced at RM6 and special with extra prawns priced at RM10.

 

While we had spicy mee udang, we ordered Prawn fried rice for Ming Ray.
 

Sun, Sea,Sand and Thai food

Escape to Koh Lipe

This year instead of our yearly routine family island trip to Redang Island, we decided to try out new island since we noticed Redang island was getting overly crowded and so commercialised that the nature of the island was deteriorating quickly each year and it was no longer as secluded as our past experience.

A few years ago, we started to hear about Koh Lipe, one of the islands in the Tarutao National Marine Park located in the Andaman Sea, off the coast of Satun Province of Southern Thailand. At that time the island was still pretty deserted and the accommodation choices were limited, not so suitable for family with small kids. Last year when JS’s Canadian residing sister and hubby spent a holiday there and came back with good comments highlighting to us that the island had since been developed with various choices of lodgings from budget to lavish to accommodate family travellers, it prompted us to reconsider this option again.

With the island only a stone’s throw from Langkawi Island in the North of Malaysia and within easy reaching distance in the high season from May to October, we decided we would give it a try this year. Hence we planned the trip to coincide with our half marathon race at Penang Bridge International Marathon on 18th November which was also in the North of Malaysia. We made the journey to Langkawi island the day after we completed the race by travelling on a 3 hours ferry and spent a night at Langkawi. The very next morning, we embarked on another 45 minutes high speed boat ride at Langkawi Telaga harbour across the Andaman Sea to Koh Lipe.

Telaga Habour @ Langkawi

The weather in Koh Lipe for the 4 days we were there wasn't very good but we had luck. Weather was sunny on the day we arrived, 19th November. Our resort was located at a pristine beach (Pattaya Beach) just next to Satun Immigration Check point.


I was thrilled to find out the resort was well above my expectation, with modern air-conditioner, water heater for shower and satellite TV channels (albeit only one channel HBO in English, the rest in Thai). The power supply wasn’t stable and we experienced frequent power trips but overall I would say it was very decent accommodation for family stay.

Bundhaya Resort

 

We spent 4 days 3 nights with 2 full days of chartered snorkelling trip on our own.

On the 2nd day of the trip, when we started our first daily boat trip, it was a gloomy morning. But luckily the weather slowly cleared up as the trip went on. We had good time the whole day. Sunlight could be better for underwater photography in the morning but in the afternoon it was excellent. At the first snorkelling spot we anchored, it was really wavy; I hesitated to dive in. But once we got in the water, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the underwater world we saw. Lots of sea anemone and soft corals, I would say much healthier marine life than in Redang that we admired so much before.

Anemone and clown fish

That night, it rained heavily from 3am. It was still drizzling the following morning at 8:30am when we were about to start our second daily boat trip. The weather looked really bad out in the sea, with many patches of dark clouds in different parts of the horizon, some of which were heavy rainfall we could tell. The only spot that was still clear with sunshine was the first spot we were heading towards, Koh Hin Sorn. It was a 45 minutes boat ride and we were traveling in the only sunny spot in the entire horizon, really weird! Throughout the entire morning, as we moved from one spot to another, we were chased by rain clouds left, right and centre. The good thing was that it was never really windy and the sea remained calm all the time.

Rain cloud

 
We had light drizzle for a short while having lunch on the beach of an uninhabited island but other than that we had pretty good sunlight surprisingly the whole day. Near Koh Hin Sorn somewhere in the middle of the sea, we saw the best snorkelling spot - a site with patches of stunningly colourful and healthy soft corals. It was wavy and the current was strong but we still spent a lot of time there enjoying the rare underwater sights.

The corals garden

 


Our auntie remained on the boat while we snorkelled and she would only get down when we were on beaches. Sometimes she fed fishes with some left over rice from our lunch packs. Surprisingly, she seemed to enjoy very much too for the 2 days of boat trips. I reckoned she must be one of the oldest Asian tourists at the Island.

Ming Ray was impressive for his age to say the least. He handled the current and wave so well it seemed like second nature. He had totally no fear even when he choked at times and at places where we had a bit of concern. He had so much fun we almost always had to reprimand him every time we wanted to move to the next spot as he was always unwilling to get back on the boat. It's very difficult to find good mask/snorkel/fin set for his age. The set JS got him was not very good in quality but he still managed to handle well.

On the second day, he just ditched the mask for his swimming goggles instead as the mask just kept leaking due to poor workmanship. This was also the first time he used a snorkel. And for a first timer, he could skin dive to a depth of 13 feet to mess with things underwater quite naturally with his snorkel and still managed to clear his snorkel easily when resurfaced. We were a bit stunned with his ability to be honest. Whenever he found something interesting in the water he would be so proud and excited to show to me and JS.
 

Ray the Stingray 

Other than snorkelling, we had great dinners every night. Seafood was fresh and relatively cheap. And for a family who loves Thai food, it was just great.

BBQ fish, Thai fish cake and squids

Besides the food, we enjoyed so much with the drinks too. We enjoyed fruit shakes every day. They came in a wide variety of fruit choices including mango, banana, watermelon and coconut. Not only it satisfied our taste buds but kept us cool for the day, a big thumb up

We left Lipe to return to Langkawi in the morning of the fourth day. We were drenched by heavy rain when we were boarding the boat. Our luggages were also wet. Nevertheless we were pleased it didn't happen to us during our 2 days of snorkelling trips. The high speed boat left the rain behind within 10 minutes of the boat ride. Turning back we could see Lipe totally devoured by rain clouds. We left with a pleasant memory of the experience we had on the island, some serious sunburn marks on our bodies, the kind blessings of the weather and dozens of great photos for sharing here.

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.

Teochew Style Steam Fish 潮州式蒸鱼

年年有余(鱼) To be abundant, to be plentiful year after year

I know this post comes a bit late since Chinese New year was over for 2 weeks now, better late than never I guess. J

It is customary for Chinese to have a feast of symbolic dishes to welcome the Lunar New Year. There are a few “must serve” auspicious-sounding dishes during the Chinese New Year Eve "Family Reunion Dinner". Other than the usual chicken, duck and pork, fish is one of them that plays major role in festive celebrations.

Fish in Mandarin 鱼 is pronounced as “Yu".  A homonym of fish, is the word abundance/surplus (余). Hence it is a Chinese ritual to serve fish during the reunion dinner to signify a wish for abundance and plentiful harvest year after year年年有余 (nian nian you yu). In addition, the fish is to be served whole, with head and tail attached, symbolizing a good beginning and ending for the coming year.

For this dragon New Year, it was our first CNY since we got back from Auckland. We were delighted to have a bigger group of 30 family members in celebrating reunion dinner. We joined my dad along with all my brothers and sister and her in-law Lee’s families’ to dine at Red Rock Hotel, Tian Tian Restaurant.

The following were some of the signature New Year dishes we had from our 8 course sumptuous reunion dinner.

Prosperity salmon Yee Sang

Braised abalone, sea cucumber, mushroom and broccoli

Last but not least the FISH!

Soya sauce steamed grouper

For the 2^nd day of CNY, my 2^nd sister-in-law suggested to have simple homemade family lunch at home.  In view of the fact that during the first few days of Chinese New Year, dining out was very difficult because many restaurants were close for the New Year break, I gladly supported her idea and contributed my help in the kitchen.

The following was one of the dishes that I helped my sister-in-law to prepare. Steamed fish in Teochew Style, a favourite steam menu I often cook at home.

Teochew Style Steam Fish 潮州式蒸鱼

Assam Sambal Seafood Curry 亚参三巴海鲜咖哩

Wanna a bowl of Nyonya curry to spice you up?

As promised, here is the recipe that will spice you up using the Sambal Belacan Chili paste prepared in my previous post.

The following version of seafood curry is more like the Nyonya style where Assam was used instead of coconut milk. Assam in English means tamarind. With tamarind as one of the ingredients, you can expect this is a sour and spicy curry. J

Once you have this ready homemade sambal chili paste stocked up in your pantry, whenever you yearn for curry, you can have it in less than 30 minutes and without the concern of unhealthy preservative in the food.

This round of seafood curry, we used squids and prawns.  Basically you can use any seafood to your liking. For fish you can check out my previous curry recipe Assam Stingray which also used the same homemade chili paste.

Let’s cook healthily and eat healthily!

Peninsula Malaysia East Coast Road Trip and the Underwater World of Redang Island

Food, sea, sun, sand and underwater vacation

Our 2 years of oversea life in Auckland, made us miss the warm sea and beach in Malaysia even more. There were many nice beaches in New Zealand too but the water was too cold for us.  Even during summer months, there was only 1 month (between February and March) when the water was warm enough for us to swim in but it was still pretty chilly as compared to the warm sea temperature in the tropical region.

After settling down, the very first plan we made was to go for warm island beach vacation during the upcoming school holidays which Ming Ray had been longing. We teamed up with my ex-colleague Jenny and her family to the East Coast of Peninsula Malaysia on a road trip covering Cherating and Redang Island trip from 6^th to 11^th  June .

A bunch of 4 adults and 3 kids had a blast.  Not only the children got to enjoy the awesome snorkeling experience of seeing colourful underwater world, we also got the chance to taste the delectable Terengganu local delights, especially the seafood.    

After 3 hours of driving from Kuala Lumpur, we put up at Cherating and checked in Holiday Villa for our first night. We had our first sumptuous seafood dinner at a renowned restaurant in a nearby town, Kemaman.

Early next morning we departed for Kuala Terengganu jetty to catch our boat to Redang Island. It took us just over 3 hours to reach there. We spent 4 days 3 nights at Laguna Redang Resort. The package offered by this resort was pricier than most other resorts but we found it quite a good value for money especially when we were travelling with children, comfortable lodging and well equipped facilities were our main priorities. In addition, the varieties of the buffet meals had made us come back with extra kilos J

After the return boat trip from Redang Island we took off around noon and we made an impromptu lunch stop over at Pantai Penarik when JS spotted a restaurant full of patrons.

We were surprised by another mouth watering meals at the restaurant specialty the batter-fried seafood and Terengganu local delicacies of keropok lekor (fish sausage) and Sata (grilled fish in banana leaves).  Only when I got back home to search the Internet did I realize that this shop was one of the must tries seafood restaurant at Pantai Penarik. 

The most tiring part of our journey was our return trip from East Coast to Penang Island via Gerik Highway. We traveled in 2 cars; it was a long hilly and dreadful 7 hours long distance drive. Gratitude should be extended to both drivers –our beloved husbands.  Halfway thru the journey, the weather turned bad and visibility was down to less than 50 meters in foggy and rainy conditions in some parts. Along the way, we spotted more than 4 car accidents with the victims’ cars skidded into the side drain, really terrifying.

With the rainy weather we didn’t manage to get a good look at Tasik Temenggor which is another beauty along this highway. Due to the road condition with no lighting at night, our drivers decided to make best use of the daylight by driving non-stop till night fell so we skipped dinner and went straight to Penang. Finally at 9.30pm, we reached Penang and got to enjoy Penang hawker dinner delights albeit a tad late.

Food adventures

Kemaman specialty – Stuffed Crabs @ Tong Juan Restaurant

Eat all you can buffet meals @ Laguna Redang Resort

Lunch @ Pantai Penarik, Terengganu

During our stay in Penang, we put up a night at Jenny's house and the following day, she brought us to her brother in law's Hakka Mee Restaurant for lunch. Thanked to her that we got the chance to enjoy famous Kampar Hakka Mee, homemade fish balls and Yong Tau Fu.  

Kampar Hakka Mee, fish balls, deep fried fu chok (bean curb sheets) and steamed herbal chicken

 Beach

White sandy Pasir Panjang beach

Laguna Redang Resort beach front

Underwater world highlights

Yin the mermaid?

Close encounter with X'mas worms

Surrounded by a school of hungry fish

Ray: Let me hold the bread, I want to feed the fish!