4 Bawang Besar (Is it Red Onions?), 2 Bawang Putih (White Onions?), Ginger & Soaked Lada Kering (Dried Chilli) all blended together. Heat up the unforgiving amount of oil, and of course, throw all the blended ingredients in. Before throwing them in though, mum said that the Melayu style of cooking, will normally have Serai (Lemongrass) & Lengkuas (? - photo to your right), heated together with the oil. It's just to invigorate the senses.
Afterwhich, stir in the blended ingredients. You can leave the 2 out if you don't feel like it. Totally up to you. Mum's of the Boyanese descent but she's really a Rojak at heart when it comes to cooking. If you know what i mean... :) Anyway, at this point, if you decide to have Chicken instead of Fish, you should stir them in as well. Coz you need more time for the Chicken to cook as compared to our dear Fish friends.
So we closed the wok to allow everything in it gargle to its heartiest content with the occasional stirring. The occasional stirring is a must, coz we don't want the dish to burnt. With that occasional stirring also comes the neccessity of stirring in half-cups of water. It's just to jel the ingredients well. The scent of this mix, was filling up the whole house by then. Again, run the fun if you don't want the smell to stay in the house for long.
See the smoke that fills up the photo? Well, after the occasional stirring... and occasional add-ons of water to keep the gravy watery instead of pekat, we added Air Asam. Apparently, according to mum, it's to give the dish a hint of sourness? And if i don't have asam, i can always squeeze some Lemon in. I guess, it's also the defining factor to hide the fishy smell coz i know some people do not like eating fish coz of the smell. So after all of that, it was time to place the Ikan Merah in. Closed it off, Heat it, Stir... Let is simmer, and a little while later? Done :)
Ready for lunch or even dinner, there we have it :) You can have this dish for about up to 2 or 3 days but you must heat it occasionally so that it doesn't go bad. Actually, you should refrigerate it before going to sleep, so that you can heat in the morning. Heat it up and you can even have it with your warm French loaves for breakfast. Just like dipping your chips in its salsa.
It may look really hot & spicy but that taste is normally determined by the Dried Chilli. This time round, the dish is not as hot & spicy as it looks. I think, but i may be wrong, the more dried up the Chilli is, the spicier a dish will be. Guess in this case, the Chilli ain't all dried up lah.
Best eaten hot (or maybe warm), i had this with Rice. What else right!
No comments:
Post a Comment