Asam Pedas Fish

I have seen my sister cooked asam fish from scratch and it was quite a tedious effort.  First she must prepare the paste by pounding with a pestle, the following ingredients in a mortar.  That is because we did not have an electric grinder:

Garlic
The white part of lemongrass
Shallots
Dried chillies
Belacan or prawn paste (we knew what she was going to cook when we smelled that)

Then she has to prepare the following ingredients to be added to the dish:

Okras
Tomato 
Daun kesum 
Tamarind pulp

You can watch how it is cooked from scratch in this video.  This cook used more flavouring ingredients in her dish.

So, I am glad I found this Asam Pedas Ikan ready made paste from Mak Nonya.  You can learn how to use the paste from their website.  

Asam Pedas Ikan can be cooked stir fried or steamed.  So, what type of fish are suitable for steaming?  I like the suggestions shared at Mira Gas.  The fish should have less bones and do not have a strong fishy odour.  These are what they recommended:

cod fish
grouper
snapper
sea bass
tilapia
halibut
salmon

If you are steaming a whole fish, look out for fish that has clear eyes, firm flesh and red gills.  However, if you are worried about the muddy flavour or fishy odour of other type fish you use, you can remove it by coating the fish well on all sides with any of the following:

-lime juice
-vinegar
-tamarind juice

You can also remove the odour by soaking the fish in diluted saltwater or rice washing water for about 15 minutes before rinsing it with clean water.  I prefer to rub the fish all over with coarse salt and rinse it off after 15 minutes.

This is how the ingredients are prepared to be steamed:

As I did not boil soup for the day I decided cook the dish by stir frying it.  I used siakap by cutting it into three sections.  I made some changes to the standard instructions given.  I sliced my onion thinly and fry it with garlic oil before adding the paste to fry.  As I do not want to break up the flesh of the fish as I stir fry the vegetables, I added it to cook only after I have poured water into the wok.  The fish will be infused by the flavours of the paste as long as it is completely immersed in the sauce as it cooks.  

Pan Bread Pizza

Since I bake my own bread, I am never short of bread but I am short of ideas of how to serve it till I came across this recipe for Pan Bread Pizza.  Check out how it is make by watching this video.

I have also seen how it is made on Facebook.  The cook turned the bread over to brown the other side before adding the tomato sauce and toppings.  As I prefer my bread fried crispier, I have decided to change the instruction as follows:

I should be able to figure out what other kind of toppings I can use to make my Pan Bread Pizza.

Roasted Chicken

Recently, I visited Giant supermarket and managed to buy a roasted chicken for RM10.  Usually they are selling at RM19.90 each.

When I eat roasted chicken, I remove the flesh with a fork and knife so that the bones and skin from the chicken are clean enough to be used for boiling soup.  

This is how I make soup stock out of the carcass.

-place carcass in a pot.
-add enough water (or soup) to cover it to boil for at least half an hour.
-sieve out soup stock and discard carcass. 

I can use the soup stock to:

-boil porridge with meat from the roasted chicken and flavour it with soya sauce/oyster sauce, garlic oil and white pepper.
-add it to the soup I boil for the day to enhance the flavour.

Recently, I cooked my bell pepper dish again and had some leftovers.  

I decided to mix it with some meat from the roasted chicken.

I did not want to heat it up to eat by microwaving or airfrying it as they may become dry.  So, I decided to make puffs out of them.  This is how they turned out after airfrying under setting for making pies.

 

Kawan is my go to brand for puff pastry.

This time I rolled the pastry up with too much ingredients that, after airfrying them, some of puffs opened up where the ends meet. 

Note:  The next time I made it, I placed half a slice of cheddar cheese on the pastry sheet before adding the ingredients to roll up and airfry.  It tasted even better.

Shortcut for cooking curry ayam

I was looking for curry paste to buy at a supermarket and I came across a Malay lady who was also at the same aisle.  So I asked her which curry paste she would suggest that I buy if I want to make chicken curry.  She suggested that I buy Mak Nyonya Instant Chicken Curry Sauce and that is the only sauce I have been buying since.

If you follow the cooking instruction from Mak Nonya, this is how the paste is used:

-Sauté Instant Chicken Curry Sauce together with 1kg of chicken until aromatic.
-Add in 200gm potatoes and 300ml water, bring to boil.
-Add in 200ml coconut milk and simmer over medium heat until chicken are tender.

It is as shown in this video.

This is my shortcut way to cook it with my airfryer.  

I usually use drumsticks to cook the dish.  Once I have cut them up, I will store them covered in a round metal container.  When it is time to cook, I just take the container out from the freezer, remove the cover and airfry it.  The chicken will not be tender enough after I have airfried it.  After airfrying, do not pour the meat into the wok to saute with the curry paste.  Pick each piece up to add as there will be scums in the container.  After airfrying the potatoes, they will be slightly brown but not soft enough  Simmering them with the coconut milk will do the job. 

Whenever coconut milk is required, I usually use the one from Kara.  But now that I buy my groceries online, I tend to choose whatever is on offer, as long as I am comfortable with the brand of the product.

While I fry my curry paste with garlic oil to make it more aromatic, the cook in this video added shallots and curry leaves before adding the curry paste to fry.  Other than potatoes, she also add carrots, brinjals, onions and long beans.  Instead of cooking the chicken curry in a wok or pot, she used a pressure cooker.  She shared that it will take 15 minutes to cook it in a pressure cooker and 20 minutes in a pot or until potatoes are soft. Check it out.

You can also read how I used to cook curry dishes in an earlier posting at the following link:

Shortcuts for cooking a curry dishes

Substitutes for Potatoes

Do you know that if you run out of potatoes, you can use green bananas as substitute?  You can learn how to cook green bananas by watching this video.

This is a simpler version which is like how you would cook your potatoes but I would rather boil my potatoes in my ABC soup.  Makes me wonder how it will affect the soup flavour if I use green bananas.  I will let you know if I try this experiment.

I would just add butter and not cook the mashed bananas further if they are still hot.

I saw another green bananas recipe on Facebook. Instead of boiling the bananas, the cook grated them.  These are the ingredients required based on the video shared:

I did a search for other substitutes and discovered the following sites:

10 Healthy Alternatives To Mashed Potatoes

9 Low Carb Potato Substitutes + 50 Ways to Use Them

For days, when your bananas are too ripe for the above recipes, you can make pancakes out of them with eggs.

These are the ingredients for making these pancakes.