A Steaming Kitchen

STEAMED SEA BASS WITH COLOURFUL FLAVOURS

Had some friends for dinner on the weekend and promised them for Malay food, a new entry in my kitchen. A typical characteristic of Malay Cuisine, as they say, in culinary world, a dish with a distinct blanket of oil as a drape  and rich dark colour. And here I would be unfair not to mention the aromas and appetising taste with all fresh ingredients and spices pounded and married together.

I needed a balance with that amount of spice and richness to serve for the dinner and chose the Cantonese style steamed fish with light flavours but added lot of colours to marry with the theme and not make my Sea Bass feel out of place on the colourful table. I was a bit apprehensive too. as this was probably the first time I was going to experiment to this extent with my friends. Generally, I go safe with my Indian palette and its S and R who are frequent guinea pigs for my experimentation. Of course, my gang in Sydney would oppose, they had their share of being guinea pigs few times too. But I am happy to declare the menu was hit and thanks to my friends, they did really push me to play up with more cuisines in future.

I must say it was a good idea to go and fetch some fresh fish for this dish too. I was friendly with my uncle at the market and he butterflied the whole Sea Bass very carefully. This is a good idea if you want to make your fish the show stopper rather than just have the whole fish. And its so convenient to slice and plate to individual plates, and not to forget that the juices penetrate to all the muscles of the fish uniformly.

To place the butterflied fish on the steaming dish, just press a bit on the spine and spread the wings ( sides of the fish- I call it wings here as it is acting like a butterfly. If you are not lucky enough to the get the fish pre-cut as a butterfly , then the process would be clean the gut of the fish. Then cut along the spine, from head to tail, and loosen the fillet on each side of the fish. To a go step ahead use your knife and a bit of skill ( not actually , a lot of skill) and slit near the bone on both sides to take off the bones. This is a complex cut. I do not want to scare you..you may go along with this recipe even without the butterfly cut, if that's going to a big issue. Just take a whole fish and clean the gut and descale etc and start over with the process. Butterflying is just a better edge over the dish.

OK now time for noting the ingredients I used-

 For the fish
1/  Whole sea Bass
2/ 1 inch Ginger - thin sliced
3/ 1 inch Ginger - Juliennes
4/ 3 Garlic cloves - thin sliced
5/  2 stalk Spring Onion- Juliennes
6/  2-3 Red chili Julienne
7/ A stalk of Lemongrass, crushed
8/  A quarter of capsicum-  very small diagonal cuts
9/ Coriander leaves chopped
10/  4 Tbsp Cooking Oil

Sea Bass waiting to be steamed with all the colourful flavouring mates

Sauce-
1/ 6 tbsp water
2/ 2 tbsp Light soy sauce
3/ 3 tsp Sesame oil
4/ 2 tsp Oyster Sauce
5/ 2 tsp Dark Soy Sauce
6/ Chinese Wine -1 tsp
7/ Crushed Coriander root- nice wash and clean the root and crush it rough with the back of the knife
8 / 1/2 tsp Ground white pepper

Ginger Oil-
Deep Fry some ginger julienne in oil. This should be done just before serving the hot steamed fish. Pour the hot sizzling ginger oil on the fish and sprinkle the crispy ginger. I promise you this will enhance the whole dish to another level.

What happened in my kitchen-

1. Place the butterflied fish on a steaming dish. Hide some ginger and garlic slices underneath the fish and some of the greens and reds on top of the fish. Season the fish with salt. Not too much as my sauce will be salty from Soy sauce. Feed the fish with the lemongrass stalk and push it till the stomach. My photo will help you to know what I mean. Steam the fish for 15 minutes. My fish was too big for my steamer, so what I did was, wrapped the fish with foil leaving lot a space within. So not a tight wrap but  let it balloon up. I cooked my fish in a hot oven for 15 minutes. But ideally the taste and texture is much better if you can steam.

2. While the fish is steaming prepare the sauce. Add all the ingredients of the sauce in a saucepan, cook until boil. On the other hand prepare the ginger oil.

3. Key point is everything should be done simultaneously as you would need all in the same temperature zone.

4. Take the fish out and take out all the ginger, garlic, lemongrass and spring onion as they  have given up their flavours to the fish already. Pour some of the sauce over the fish. Sprinkle some greens and reds on the fish and pour the rest of the sauce. Bathe the whole fish generously with the sauce. Finish up with the ginger oil.

5. Serve hot and enjoy with rice.

Entry to Malay Cuisine

Nasi Lemak 

This is my first trial with Malay Cuisine and yes it was quite successful and welcomed into my family's dinning table palate. I must mention that there is lot of resemblance with Indian spices. There are lot of new flavoured veggies which I got introduced too, like the Galangal ( called Blue Ginger in Singapore), Pandan Leaves etc. 

This dish Nasi Lemak is a lovely flavoured rice infused with coconut milk mainly and other flavours like Pandan Leaves, Ginger, Galangal, Lemongrass. Though all of them are probably optional and the main ingredient is Coconut milk and the Pandan leaves commercially, but I have used other flavours too. But we need to be careful with our Indian instinct not to overpower with too many flavours and transform the Nasi Lemak to Biriyani or pulao. Also another catch here is the high cholesterol coconut milk ..yes once in a while its ok. traditionally, this is served with fried peanuts, Ikan Bilis(salted fried small fish) and fried egg and of course fried chicken. I have omitted the Ikan Bilis and the fried chicken. Instead I served this with another Malay Chicken dish Ayam Pangaang and also some healthy salad and stir fried veggies. After all I am trying to role model my son R , a right balanced diet. 

Ingredients I used-

Rice- 2 cups ( wash thoroughly)
Coconut Milk- 1 small cartoon
Pandan Leaves - about 5 ( wash them nicely and make a knot as shown in my garnish or even tearing them will do)
Galangal- 1 inch and chopped roughly big chunks
Ginger - crush with the back of a big knife..this will help to marry the juice with the rice while boiling.
Lemongrass Stalk- 2 - crushed again...remember to take out the outer skin.
Cinnamon stick- 1 whole
Nutmeg Powder- 1 tsp (to give the magic fragrant).
Water- 3 and half cup
Fried Peanuts - a handful.
Some sugar and salt to do the Tender Love and Care to the Nasi Lemak, which would go according to your taste.

How I made it-

1. Add water to the washed rice in a pot. Pour the coconut Milk and mix.
2. Throw the knotted Pandan Leaves, smashed ginger, Galangal and Lemongrass and the cinnamon stick.
3. Now add the salt and sugar and sprinkle the nutmeg powder and stir.
4. Now let the rice cook on low fire. Soon the whole house and kitchen will wear the lovely aromas of coconut milk, pandan leaves and lemongrass.

Infusion in process-all the flavours and aroma

5. Just before the rice gets well cooked, uncover the pot and take out the whole herbs and ginger etc. Stir the rice well and let it cook till done.

6. Serve the rice in a pot and garnish with the Pandan leaf and lemongrass stalk.





I fried a egg and served with some cucumber slices, red onion slices, chopped chillies and a swirl of dark soy sauce.

Eggey Times

Eggs--How do you like your eggs? If some one asks me this question..the immediate honest answer would be..whatever way you cook them. Indeed when I was a child I would have said not boiled though! But soon when I went to my PG days in Delhi, I found the chatpata ( spicy) way to even make the boiled eggs devine..just add some chopped onions, chillies, coriander leaves and chat masala..and MAGIC done!! And they actually became my favourite when the dubba (tiffin carrier) food used to bland and watery...I know not everyone who is reading this can actually visualise this..and cheers to the ones who can relate to this..Now this blog is about eggs and omlettes and..but definitely not Dubba food..will write another one on it sometime definitely. 

I even used to crave for eggs and eggs when I had the little one tucked in me. OMG..typing away at my workdesk ..and seeing all kinds of eggs in front of me. But honestly there were no eggs even at the premises. One day I actually called up S and said I need to have eggs badly!! And poor him, could not even react much, thanks to my baby in me..Best period in any woman's life and the best excuse..I am pregnant and blame the little one being created.

And to my shock when R was 1 year old, we found out that he has egg allergies and the rule was no eggs at home. Both S and I were waiting for the day when R would grow off his egg allergy and we could introduce him to the eggie world which he really missed out (specially on the birthday parties). The first reaction on the eggs challenge test few months ago, after he tasted a bit of the boiled eggs was 'Mumma this is so creamy buttery' and I must honestly admit that the boiled egg he was having did not even have salt, leave alone butter or anything else. So I opened my kitchen doors to eggs and a new addition to my breakfast table were eggs..oh my my!! Both S and I were delighted to see our little one enjoying his newly discovered food..

Todays's post was supposed to be Omlette curry ...kind of right! Just realized that I have not yet mentioned anything about Omlette..okay we all know Omlette ..I can go on and on if you don't stop me..but you know what! Omlette curry ( or rather what we Bengalis call it Omlette'r Jhol) is such a dear dish for me..I used to love when ma ( mum) cooked this for dinner with fulko roti ( Indian bread). It is actually quite a regular dish in the menu like Egg Curry.

So here goes how I made it and yes R loved it..I added more chillies to the leftovers and had it with bread the next day!!!

What I used

 6 Eggs

2 medium sized onions - chopped fine 

Tomato  -2 chopped fine

Ginger grated - 2 tsp
Garlic Grated- 2 tsp
Chopped Green Chillies- as much spicy as you want or as little.
Coriander Leaf- Chopped fresh and green
Cumin seed- 1 tbsp
Bay Leaf-2
Turmeric Powder-1tsp
Cumin powder- 1 tsp
Coriander powder-1tsp
Chilli powder-1 tsp ( I did not use it though)
Garam Masala - 1tsp
Salt and Sugar to taste
I used Mustard oil to cook this to bring that special aroma..If you want some other oil, go for it.

How I cooked--
1. Whisk the eggs as briskly as you can with half of the chopped onion, chopped chillies and coriander leaf. On a hot pan of shorsher tel (mustard oil---uuuu I love the aroma) pour the egg mixture and make fatty omlette. I generally repeat this process twice so that I have 2 golden omlettes.

2. Cut the omlettes into few square cubes.

3. Now I add some more oil to the pan and wait till it smoke and then throw in bay leaf, cumin seeds. When the seeds splutter, I add ginger and garlic and saute till the kitchen is filled with the fresh garlicky aroma. Then I throw in the rest of the onion and saute till pink. Now tomatoes, are ready to be mashed with the onions on the pan.

4. Then I mix all the spices in little tiny bowl with water ( this is a trick mum taught me and it does wonders if I am cooking in less oil , the spice gets cooked quickly and nicely..I should have a click for this in my next post). In goes the spice and salt and sugar to cooked mushy tomato onion mixture. Then I cover it for about 5 mins with some more water and let it cook.

5. In goes the Omlette slices and cook for another few minutes untill the gravy is ready and bubbly.

6. This is the time to add the pinch of garam masala and coriander leaves. I garnished with some red split red wax chillies.