Pan Fry Norwegian Mackerel

Fish is fast to cook & taste great with simple seasoning. Let's Pan Fry Norwegian Mackerel. If you use Japanese style soy sauces, it will taste very close to teriyaki. If you use Chinese style soy sauces, it will taste so classic & old school just like how my grandma fry it. Simple yet delicious.

Ingredients:

Cleaned Norwegian Mackerel (dry the fish with paper kitchen towel)

Salt (not too much as we will flavour with soy sauces)

Pepper

Soy Sauces

Frying oil

Method:

1) Season the fish well with pepper & salt.

2) I am using very little oil to quote the base of the non stick pan. Hot the pan with medium fire.

3) Slide the fish with skin side down. Let it simmer with medium fire for 2-3 mins.

4) When flesh starts changing colors & texture. You can see the fish became more solid & the flesh will turn white instead of semi-transparent. Turn the fire over. Let theother side simmer for another 2-3 mins.

5) When the fish is almost done, last in a dash of soy sauces (roughly about 1 tbsp)

6) Quickly flip the fish to coat it with soy sauces in the hot pan, off the fire & we are done.

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Stir Fry Drunken Prawn Chinese Style

After Chinese New Year, no doubt I have put on some weight. That is very common when you have no hesitation to munch on the delicious cookies. It is Okay. Just need to do the Korean famous aerobic dances to burn away the calories.

However, I am very happy  this new year. We have great family gathering, we have more little babies to join our family this year. By itself, it was already a very good news.

We can't do without prawn in CNY, almost every Chinese family will cook a prawn dishes in their reunion dinner. It has a prosperous meaning - Siao Ha Ha which means laughter.

I choose to cook this Stir Fry Drunken Prawn Chinese Style. Super simple & fast to cook.

Ingredients:
A:
400g fresh prawn (wash & peeled,remove the green/ black intestines by slitting a cut behind)
1 tbsp of sliced gingers
1 tsp of sliced garlic

B:
1.5 tbsp of Xiao Hing Wine ( or Chinese Rice Wine)
1 tsp spoon of soya sauces
0.5 tsp of Chicken stocks (optional)
250-300ml water
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper

C:
1tsp goji berry
1tsp spring onion

Method:
1) 1tbsp of oil to heat up the wok, add in the garlic  & ginger, add in the prawn, stir fry for 20 secs.
2) Add in the premix ingredients B into the prawn mixture & simmer it for 2 -3 mins with medium high heat.
3) Last in the goji berry & spring onions for 10 secs.
4) Serve immediately with steamed white rice.

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Spicy Stir Fried Sambal Prawn Malaysia Style

Most Malaysian who love spicy food & seafood will enjoy this cuisine- "Sambal Udang". "Sambal Udang" means chili sauces + prawns = perfect combination. It goes really well with rice. My sister can eat two big bowls of rice when I cook this. This is a "short-cut" method by using the spicy seafood sauces that I have bought from the mushroom farm in Tanjung Sepat.  You can buy any ready made Sambal sauces for seafood from the store. And I will also attached a simple Sambal sauces recipes that you can make from scratch. Ta-da.......................looks delicious?

The secret sauces:

Super Fast Stir Fried Sambal Prawn for 2 servings:
Ingredients:
350g prawns (washed, cleaned, peeled)
2 cloves of garlic sliced
1 big red onion sliced
2 tbsp of sambal seafood sauces
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
1/4 cup of water
Decorations: sliced chili (optional)

Super Fast Method:
1) Heat oil to brown garlic with the sambal seafood sauces, let it simmer for a while about 1 min & you can smell the spiciness in the air.
2)In the prawns & sliced red onion, stir fry for 1 mins, then add in 1/4 cup of water let it simmer with high heat for 2 mins with lid on. Then, sauteed it for a while until the water is fairly dry. Prawn cooked very quickly.

Alternatively, you can make your own sauces from scratch.

Homemade sambal seafood sauces (Malaysia style) recipes:
Blend the below in blender with some water (minimal)
20ea of dried chili (cut the dried chili by using a scissor & pre-soak a while will help it to blend nicer)
10ea shallots (cleaned)
2 cloves garlic
1 knob of ginger

3 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 tsp of sugar
Pinch of salt

Method:
1)Heat the oil, pour in the blended chili paste in the oil let it simmer for a while with medium small heat. You can see the chili paste being heated in the oil. Keep stirring so that it will not burn. Then, add the sugar in with a pinch of salt.
2) You can add the prawn, red onion & water to let it simmer for a while to become fairly dry.

Tips: You can also add 20ea of petai in this recipes. It taste great too.

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How to Gut a Markerel?

A lot of people think that gutting a fish is very difficult. Actually it is not as complicated as you think. Let us show you how to gut a Markerel. Markerel is quite an easy fish to handle if you want to make fish paste especially in oriental cooking. You can get quite a lot of flesh from this fish. It can be made into fish cakes or stuffing.
1st thing 1st, we got to prepare the tools & wash the fish clean with tap water. Use a paper towel to dry it.

2nd- Cut the fins off.

3rd- Slice from the back of the fish.

4th- Slide the fillet knife from head until the tail.

5th- Now, do the same on the fish belly.

6th- Slide the fillet knife from the end of the tail.

7th- Continue to separate the flesh from the fish bone.

This is how it looks like.

8th - Do the same on the other side of the fish

9th - Use a spoon to remove the flesh from the fish bone. This is a very effective way.

10th- It is all done. Left the skin & bone behind.

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Steam Fish with Tofu & Salted Vegetables

White Pomfret by itself is very delicious. Well, today I am going to show you how to make a 2 in 1 dish. On a busy weekday night, this is a quick meal to serve. Please defrost the White Pomfret in the chiller over night. After a day work & back to home in the evening, the fish is almost done defrosted. You can steam it straight away. You can also prepare the sliced gingers, pickled shallots & salted vegetables the night before. Please soak the salted vegetable at least 15 mins before slicing it.

Ingrediant:
Fresh White Pomfret
Sliced ginger
Sliced salted vegetable (from Asian Store, remember to soak)
Sliced pickled shallots
1 box of soft tofu
Pepper (Salt is not needed because we have salted vegetable already)
1 Bird eye chilies (optional)
Some spring onion to garnish

Method:
1) Marinate fish with white pepper. Lay it on a plate.
2) Lay the cubed soft tofu, ginger, salted vege, pickled shallots, bird eye chilies on top of the fish. There is no bird eye chilies on the pic because I am out of stocks. You can garnish it with spring onion.
3) Steam it accordingly. The bigger the fish, the longer you need to steam it. Observe & make your best judgment.

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Easy Stir Fry Prawns with Soy Sauces

This is a simple recipes to for stir fry prawns. It is good if the size of the prawn is big, this mean less peeling during eating. I know it is quite messy to peel the skin off but you must keep the skin in tact when come to stir fry prawn. It will make sure that the flesh is still juicy. The outcome is the stir fry prawn is much more delicious.


Ingredients:
Fresh Big Prawn ( about 8ea-10ea)
Sliced Garlic
Sliced Ginger
Pinch of Salt
Oil for frying
Premix Sauces: 1tsp of soy sauces + 0.5tsp dark soy sauces +1 tsp oyster sauce + 4 tbsp of water +1tbsp of Chinese cooking wine

Method:
1) Heat oil in a wok or pan, in the garlic & ginger.
2) In the big prawn, stir fry for half a min, then in the sauce & cover with lid.
    Use high heat on this stage for 1-2mins.
3) Prawn can be cooked rather quickly, it will turn red when it is cook. Keep an eye on it. Serve Hot.

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Flower Crab - How to prepare ?

My friend bought us some flower crabs. These are local caught flower crab. You can only harvest 30% meat from these crab. They had less meat proportion to their body weight. But the plus point is the flavor of the flesh is more intense.  By the way, this is the first time we process the crab. Got to use some brain juices to crack the puzzle.How to "gut" the crab?? Hm.......
First thing first, wash the crab with brush & water. You can see in the below pictures, we are preparing to use the Chinese big knife to smash the crab clamp later. You can twist the arms or legs for bigger size crab. However, we just kept it intact because the size is not big.

We can still recalled he told us, look for the triangle flap on the crab belly. He is right there is a triangle flap. Can you see it?

Open the triangle flap; use force to tear open the body. It was pretty easy to handle because the crab was small.

Lastly remove the spongy gills & small paddles. Then use a knife to chopped the crab into two.

Use a spoon to scoop out the roe (crab butter). You can keep it or discard it depending on your preference. Those thing are quite high in cholesterol but taste freaking good. Eat sparingly.

For fresh crab, just steam it with some salt or can cook with plain rice porridge (flavors are better with the crab roe).

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Perak - Kuala Sepetang Seafood

Last June school holidays, we went to Kuala Sepetang which is very near to Taiping (Perak). This place is not known to many people outside Taiping, unless you are a makan kaki ( gastronomist) . It is actually a fishing village which is located at the northern part of Malaysia.
This is a very old fishing village, you can see from the simple & humble terrace houses. It was noon when we reached there. Yeah, you can see the sun is bright like a giant spot light. It was lunch time, so we went straight to the Kedai Makanan Tepi Sungai ( direct translation: Restaurant next to the river). It is just next to the river, you will know why later. A pretty straight forward name isn't it?
It is a double storey shop, you can actually see the fishing boat is docking down stair.
You will need to walk up stair to the 1st floor. The restaurant is located just up stairs. The catch of the day is waiting for the customer to make their choices. You can pick any seafood you want & get the kitchen to cook.
These little fish looks fresh? Yup....they taste great. We picked those for our lunch.
I can still recalled the prawn mantis swimming lively in the tank.
Below is the view that you can enjoy while having your delicious meal. The river bank is wide, there are a lot of mangrove around.

By the way, it was full house on that weekday afternoon. This restaurant is quite happening even located in such a location.
These were the simple fried little fish. Fresh, crispy & price is very reasonable  (RM10 only). You can't get this price in Kuala Lumpur City (KL) though. It was the appetizer.
The soy sauces fried prawn were excellent too.

The winner is the sweet & sour crab. You MUST order the crab when you visit this place.  These crabs were in  medium size but they are so fresh & delicious. They taste even better than the live meat crabs sold in the KL city.  We don't really quite mind the mess because it is really worth it. Probably because any sea creatures that caught between the sea & river taste better.

The salt & pepper prawn mantis takes the 2nd place. It was a surprise that our bill was RM92. My sister insisted that if we ever go for a north bound trips, we must drop by this place.

Finally, we left the peaceful Kuala Sepetang with a full tummy & sleepy eye. After having such heavy meals, most of us fall asleep inside the car except my husband because he needs to drive.

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Tom Yam & Chawanmushi (Japanese Egg Custard)

My confession, I use short cut in my cooking especially when I need it ASAP like yesterday. For a modern working mummy with kid, ready made sauces is always handy e.g. you need to ready the dinner in 30 mins. With these 'tools', I mean the ready made sauces, you can do it. To me, it is just another version of Asia comfort food. There is nothing wrong to cook like Nigella Lawson.

Choose your favorite brand - Tom Yam Sauces.
Tom Yam is my favorite Thai cuisine.

Just prepare some fresh big prawn + squid & tomato. Cook according to the instruction. That's it.
To make it more presentable especially if you have guests. Add in some vegetable like tomato, big red chili & peppermint for decoration. You can add some lime juices for more sourish tom yam. Tom Yam is good when serve with fragrant jasmine rice.

My kid always like the surprise on the dining table. She enjoyed everything, but still need more training to take spicier food.

The below is an authentic recipes for Japanese Egg Custard:
85g chicken breast (no skin)
4 big prawn (peeled, deveined)
4 button mushrooms

Stock:
450ml dashi (see recipes in Japanese style soup -Dashi soup)
0.5tsp salt
1tbsp mirin
1tbsp shoyu
3 eggs beaten

Mix the stock ingredients together, let the stocks settle down a little. The mixture shouldn't has any bubble or foam so that the egg custard is smooth.

Divide the prawn, chicken, mushrooms or even crab sticks into 4 bowls. Pour in the custard mixture & steam for low heat for 25 min. Cover the bowls with foil while steaming.



It is best serve hot.

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