Special Salt Stir Fried Salmon

Even if you don't like fish, you gotta like this! I usually eat another version of this at our fave chinese restaurant and apparently never crossed my mind to try and replicate the dish. I guess it was easier to eat there!!

Then one day, with all the exhausted salmon recipes I had done and with even more salmon fillets left in the freezer, a spark of idea came to me, why not make that dish at the chinese restaurant, the one we ALWAYS order. I mean, it seems enough, although they always use rings of squids, sort of like fried calamari without the marinara dipping sauce.

So I lightly battered the salmon pieces and deep fried them quickly to get the crisp coating. And then add them together with the other veges that I had quickly flash fried on high heat. The verdict, the little picky eater loves it! He can't get enough of it, in fact, that was the only thing he ate, he didn't even want his rice!! LOL it was so funny. Ethan kept asking me if it was chicken and I told him yeah and now he's totally obsessed with it. He would point to a dish, asked if it was chicken and asked if it was crunchy crunchy (I nicknamed the battered fish "crunchy crunchy"). HA HA HA! What a laugh! So now when he's doubtful of a particular food, I would just tell him it's crunchy stuff and his whole face lights up and grabs the food and starts chomping it down like there's no tomorrow! So much for honesty...:) Hey, at least that gets him to try out different food without pre-judging them...which he tends to do!

Speical Salt Stir Fried Salmon (Please don't ask me why they called it that way, they just do, and I'm only the translater)
Ingredients
-Salmon fillets, rinsed and pat dried
-1 Large white onion
-some Green Onions
-Jalopenos/dried red chillis, totally optional but gives a great flavor to the food
-Salt and Black Pepper to taste
-Dash of Five Spice Powder, again, very optional

Batter
-Glutinous Rice Flour
-Ice water

Method
-Add enough flour and water to make a thin batter. Too thick and you get a thick coating.
-Slice the fish and lightly season them with salt, pepper and five spice powder(optional)
-Slice the onion and green onions and jalopenos (optional). Or break up the dried chillis(optional)
-Heat oil for deep frying the fish or use a deep fryer. Done when the batter is cooked. Set aside.
-With a little oil in wok on high heat, add sliced white onions and jalopenos till slightly smoking (open the windows for better ventilation or else you would be choking along at this moment).
-At this point, add some salt and pepper and stir.
-Add the cooked batter fish and give it a quick whirl.
-Ready to serve.

Notes: There's no measurement for the flour and water coz it depends on what kind of batter you want. You can change how thin or thick the coating would be with a regular spoon, the amount of coating on the spoon when dipped into the batter will give you an idea what it would be on the fish. I used Glutinous rice flour coz that keeps the fish real crispy without being heavy. The thinner the batter, the crispier it is. All has to done in a high heat to try and imitate what most chinese called "wok breath". This dish needs that! But due to the limited heat factor with regular home stove, it's impossible to replicate that unless you get a commerical stove top with at least 300,00 BTU...;) But that's ok...you use what you got and PRAY for the best and so far, this dish's still good...:)

Sambal Dried Shrimps

Inspired by Ching of Little Corner of Mine, I've decided to make Sambal Dried Shrimps with a recipe given to my husband by his family. I had failed miserably before and daren't try it again.

It was so long ago that I had since tasted this sambal that for the love of it, I couldn't remember how this sambal was supposed to taste. There I was, stirring and stirring, getting my husband into the kitchen to keep tasting just so I could get the flavors right! It was just too funny!! And all my husband would say that he thinks that it needed more sugar. Ok...if any one who knows Ed, he's a sucker for sweet stuff, so I was doubtful to trust him......

In the end, I decided it was just enough sugar, I don't want to turn this dish into dry fried sugar with dry chillis which was what we would end up with if I didn't put an end to his "I think we need more sugar".



With all my greediness, I ended up with more sambal than we really can consume. So went into this baking frenzy to use as much of it as possible. As you can see, I made some Sambal Dried Shrimp Pao/Bun. It was actually pretty good. The down side to all these, my little boy couldn't eat any of it, it was just too spicy for his palate. Oh well.....nevertheless Ed ate all up!!! :) Good for him!

Fried Fish

So simple yet so complicated. Getting the right fish fried at just the right way is one of the toughest thing to master for me. Probably for some people is a breeze but for me is like attaining one of the highest level of cooking skills!! I know I know...might be exaggerating a wee bit here but just think about it, if you overfry a fish, it's nothing but a chewy fried bit of leather!

To get the fish all crispy on the outside and yet tender and moist in the inside is not an easy task! Most fried fish are either over-fried, where the fish is all fried to the point of no return and the fresh fish flavor is all gone, or under-fried, where the fish is not crispy but all soggy with oil! GROSS! I believe that the "right" way to fry the fish depends on the type of fish used, I usually get the best results with fresh catfish. Oily fish, I believe, works well fried too, altough I've yet to try any of those since they can get pretty pricy (at the market) and personally I feel it would be wasted to fry it!

I fried this piece of cod steak seasoned with some salt(sparingly) and black pepper. And also drizzled a little hot oil blended soy seasoning on top of the fish and green oinions to finish the dish. And since I was deep frying, I thought I could also used up some of the Holland red peppers that I had in the fridge. I sliced them up vertically and just put them in the oil before I fried the fish so to give the fish a little spice (at least I thought it would but it turned out that the peppers ain't even spicy at all, they were sweet peppers!!)

The results were pretty good...I came pretty close in achieving that crispy outside and tender moist inside! The main thing is to eat it while it's still hot!!! :) And as for those peppers, they were better left as it is, just looking pretty, coz they were rather chewy and pretty much tasteless! The soy blend was good coz it gave a little sweetness and "smoothness" to the fish and especially to the spring onions. I also added some thinly sliced matchstick fried ginger as garnish as well. I kinda cheated in this recipe coz I used a deep fryer instead of pan-frying it. I find that oil controling is a pretty essential part of getting the "right" fried fish. My temperature used was 275F-280F and that's after "experimentating with various fish, at different sizes and different temps, I find that this was the "best" one for this particular slice of fish that I was working with. I think it also depends on the deep fryer as well...;)

Recipe
Ingredients
-Fish, as fresh as you can get them
-Salt and Black Pepper
-Rice Flour, 1 TBS
-Plain Flour, 2 TBS

Recipe for Hot Oil Soy Seasoning
-2 TBS Oil, vegetable or peanut
-1 TBS soy sauce
-1 TBS sugar

Method
-Clean the fish and then pat it dry with some kitchen napkins.
-Seasoned the fish sparingly (coz additional soy will be added to it).
-Dust it with rice flour and plain flour combination and dip it slowly in the heated oil for deep frying.
-Fried till cooked, takes about 8-10mins, depending on the size of the fish (so I just set the timer just in case I forget!!)

Seasoning
-Heat oil in a separate pan and the rest of the soy and sugar in another. When the fish is done, place on a plate, and place green onions on top(if used) and then add heated oil followed by the soy mixture.
-Serve and eat while hot!

Okra & Indian Fishhead Curry

I saw these wonderful organic okra/ladyfingers at the store and I knew I can't pass them up!! They are so green, unblemished and seriously tender!!! You have to love these little morsels! I bought them even though they weren't on my list, I just had too!!! hehehe...ok...the greedy me taking over! I know exactly what I was gonna use them for...;)



Oh yahhhhh....my all-time fav, Indian Fishhead curry. I didn't have a gigantic fish head but I did have a regular size whole red snapper. All I did was use the upper half of the fish and viola, fish head curry! It was close to my fav Indian restaurant back home but of course, it's never the same...heheh...

Recipe
Ingredients
-1/2 red snapper
-3 heaping TBS of fish curry powder (I used the Baba's brand)
-2 TBS tamarind (fresh kind and mix it with 1/2 cup of water to get solution)
-4 medium tomatoes, quartered
-Okra/ladyfingers, as many or as little as you like
-2 sprig Curry Leaves, just leaves
-2 cardamon pods, clightly crushed
-1.5 tsp fennel seeds
-1.5 tsp mustard seeds
-1/2 can coconut milk/cream
-2.5 cups of water

Method
-Mix Fish curry powder with some water to form a thick paste.
-Mix the fresh tamarind with some water to form a tamarind solution, discard seeds and pods, just use tamarind solution.
-Add some oil (I used vegetable oil) in a pot/wok and place the fennel seeds and
mustard seeds into it and heat it up slowly with medium/medium low heat till they popped.
-Then add the cardamon seeds and fry around till fragrant.
-Next, add the paste (if it starts to burn, lower your heat a little and add some coconut milk to it to prevent burning)till fragrant.
-Add the curry leaves and tomatoes and stir.
-Then add the tamarind solution with the coconut milk and let it come to a slight boil and add in the rest of the water (less if you prefer less gravy).
-Bring it all to a boil and then add the fish and season it with salt.
-When the fish is about done, add the okra (they cook pretty fast so always add them last).
-Now if you like it a little thicker still, add a little more coconut milk/cream
to finish the dish.


Note: For those who likes it a little more sour, just add more tamrind solution or even some lemon juice would do the trick. Again, everything is an approximate..:) enjoy playing with your taste buds!