Pan-Fried Spicy Fish with Cilantro Sauce

I remembered growing up in Malaysia, we would go out to the sea with the local fishermen. Most of the time, when they hauled in a catch, they would cooked some for us onboard. It was quite an experience to see the different types of fishes of various colors and sizes in their nets. The fish was so fresh that you don't need much seasonings to taste its delicious flavor and freshness. Fish that you buy in the supermarkets nowadays are either pre-thawed or frozen. I normally steam the fish that I buy from Chinatown, and the ones from the local supermarkets, I would normally seasoned it well with spices and compliment with a sauce. The other popular preparation is to wrap it with banana leaves after stuffing it with spices and grill it over the stove.
Ingredients:
1 sea bass, or trout (cleaned and gutted)
1 tsp. turmeric powder
1 tsp. curry powder
salt and pepper
2 tsp. plum sauce
¼ cup cilantro
oil for frying
Method:
1. Washed fish and pat dry. Mix spices in a bowl. Season fish with salt and pepper and then rub spices outside and inside of fish. Set aside.
2. Heat a frying pan with oil on high heat. Gently lift fish to pan and fry on both sides till cooked on both sides on medium heat. Let fish cook slowly on one side before turning over. The spices makes the fish blackened. Remove and drain on paper towels.
3. Blend cilantro and plum sauce till fine. In a small saucepan, gently heat sauce and thicken with some cornstarch. Serve fish with cilantro sauce.
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Fragrant Mango Prawns

I like this mango and prawn combination because it has a sweet and tangy flavor. I marinated the prawns with pepper and a little egg white to give it a crunchy and smooth texture.

Ingredients:

½ lb. prawns, shelled

1 firm mango, peeled and slice into bite-size

1 sprig spring onions

2 tsp. cornstarch, diluted with some stock

1 egg white

¼ cup chicken stock

1 pip garlic, minced

cilantro for garnishing

salt and pepper

Method:

1. Washed and rinsed prawns until water is clear, pat dry and season with pepper, some salt and half of the egg-white. Covered and set aside in the refrigerator.

2. In a hot pan, heat some oil and fry garlic till soft but not brown. Add in the mango and fry for about 5-8 minutes. Remove on to a plate.

3. Drain the prawns to remove egg wash. In same pan, heat 1 Tbsp. oil on high. Toss in the prawns to cook, add the mangoes, spring onions, cornstarch mixture, and half of the stock to simmer slightly. Add more stock if mixture is too thick. Season to taste and serve.
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Chinese Fish Salad/Yee Sang

 

"Yee Sang" (鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng) in Cantonese means raw fish and this salad is another auspicious dish to present on the 7th day of Chinese New Year. It is an assortment of shredded vegetables, raw fish (sashimi), tossed with a sweet and tangy dressing served on a big platter. Generally, the tradition is to stand around the dish to mix, blend, and gently lifting the ingredients up from the bottom using a pair of chopstick. "Lo hei" (撈起 or 捞起), literary means prosperity and an increased in abundance. Normally, I would prepare and season the raw fish (sashimi) myself, but this time I ordered the sashimi from our regular Japanese restaurant instead.
Note: If you decide to prepare the sashimi at home, be sure to buy it from a reputable market as it has to be very fresh and of good quality. You cannot go wrong if you purchase it from either Berkeley Bowl in the East Bay, or from a Japanese grocery market. I packed the fish in ice pack to keep it fresh. Wash the fish well and pat dry. Season and rub fish with salt and some brandy. Wrapped in plastic and keep refrigerated for later. Before serving, rinse well with boiled drinking water.
Ingredients: (4-6)
20 or more pieces of fresh salmon or tuna (sliced thinly, and chill it refrigerator)
Dressing:
2 Tbsp. plum sauce
2 Tbsp. hoisin sauce
3 tsp. honey
2 tsp. sesame seed paste
¼ cup lemon juice
sesame seed oil
Garnishing:
1 radish, peeled and shredded
1 large carrot, peeled and shredded
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
1 small papaya, peeled and shredded
½ pomelo, cut and remove the rind around the segments
½ cup roasted peanuts, chopped finely
2 tsp. roasted sesame seeds
cilantro, chopped
3 slices ginger, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red chilli, sliced thinly
½ cup thin rice sticks noodles or vermicelli, break in half
cooking oil

Method:
1. Season the papaya and radish with a little salt and put in separate bowl, set aside for about 5 minutes. Squeezed out most of the juices and put aside. Colored half of the radish and papaya in red.
2. Heat enough oil on high in a small saucepan, when it's hot turn to medium heat, then add in a small amount of rice sticks to oil to puff up the noodles. Use a sieve or slotted spoon to remove it quickly when the rice sticks has puff up and white in color. Drained well on paper towels. Remove and discard used oil.
3. Heat the same saucepan with 2 tsp. oil and brown slightly the ginger and garlic. Remove and set aside. In a bowl mix the hoisin sauce, plum sauce, honey, sesame seed paste to a smooth paste.
4. In a another clean saucepan simmer ingredients for the dressing on medium heat, stirring to remove lumps. Add 2 drops of seseame seed oil, lemon juice and season to taste. Add a little more honey or lemon juice if needed. The taste should be sweet and tangy.
5. To assemble: In a large platter, arrange the ingredients, garnishing, and put the raw fish in the center of the platter.

6. Mix in the dressing, ginger and garlic oil, peanuts, and sesame seeds. Using a chopstick mix and blend in the ingredients. Serve immediately.

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President's Day Salad

I brought in a basketful of leafy lettuce from the garden this morning. These were last year's crop and they must have reseed again--perfect for a colorful salad.
Ingredients:
½ cup baked Kabocha, cut into bite-sized

1 small fillet of salmon

1 medium-sized tomato, sliced

1 small bunch of leaf lettuce

½ tsp. light soya sauce

sesame seeds for garnishing

Dressing:

¼ cup olive oil

1 tsp. brown rice vinegar

1½Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

½ tsp. dill

salt and pepper to taste

pinch of sugar

Method:

1. Cut fish into 1-inch strips, season with pepper and soya sauce. Heat pan with oil and cook fish on both sides till brown.

2. Mix the ingredients for the dressing and refrigerate to keep cool.

3. Washed and tossed dry salad greens and arrange on a plate. Add the cooked fish, tomatoes and Kabocha on top. Garnish with sesame seeds and serve with dressing.

Juice 5: J. Buchanan

We bought a juicer online and it was awesome--the mechanism is one gigantic screw attachment! Not only that it squeezes out more juices, it is quieter and faster. Most importantly, the attachments are less bulkier and compact and it is easy to clean after juicing. All you need to do is pour some water into the reservoir. Both John and myself will be doing experimenting with different fruits and vegetables. We are now in juice heaven! Instead of making several posting of juices, I've included some of my concoctions based upon my likes and dislikes. Most importantly, I recommend fresh organic produce and buy from your local farmers.

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped pineapple

7-8 ripe strawberries

2 medium apples, washed and cut in chunks

2 thin slices of ginger, skin removed (optional)

Method:

1. Juice all the ingredients and serve immediately.
You might like also like these:
Variation 2:
2 medium sized apples
2 medium sized carrots
1 tomato
1 cucumber
Variation 3:
2 apples
1 small bitter gourd
1 cup milk
Variation 4:
2 oranges
2 cucumbers
3 slices ginger
Variation 5:
2 apples
1 cup pineapple
1 cup watermelon with rind

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

                           

Strawberries, chocolate, and flowers reminds me of love and romance on this Valentine's Day! John and I decided to stay home instead and watched a movie after dinner. I prepared his favorite chicken satay and he made truffles. In addition to that, we picked up some sushi from our favorite Japanese restaurant.

Ingredients:

Fresh strawberries, green leaves left on

¾ cups. semi-sweet chocolate

1 tsp. shortening

Method:

1. In a saucepan over low heat or in a double boiler, melt chocolate and shortening. Stir constantly until it becomes a smooth mixture. Next spear strawberries with toothpicks through the top and dip fruit into the melted chocolate.

2. Place on a pan lined with waxed paper or simply stick the toothpicks into a piece of styrofoam to harden. Refrigerate for up to a day before serving. Tips: I place the toothpick between the prongs of the fork to harden.

  

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Chocolate Truffle Trifecta

In this installment, in deference to Valentines day I am providing three truffle recipes. These are the real truffles, which is that soft center that you find inside those hard shelled store bought things. After making these you'll understand why they do that, but it is the center that is the true chocolate decadence. A truffle will start to "melt in your hand before it gets to your mouth", giving you every incentive to get it in your mouth as quickly as possible.

The recipes are: Chocolate-Cayenne, Chocolate-Fennel-Anise and Chocolate-Grand Marnier
These three recipes here are based on a basic truffle recipe with flavor variations, you may want to start there if you are comfortable with what a store bought truffle tastes like, but if you are looking for a little adventure, I hope this sets you on a path exploring some unexpected combinations.

Let's start with base ingredients, the chocolate, a typical truffle recipe starts with semi sweet, but I wanted to try to tow other variations, bittersweet and pure unsweeted chocolate. The recipes are presented in their order of most familiar to flavor to more shall we say, adventurous flavor, but perhaps you are the best judge.

The chocolates: (semisweet, bitersweet, unsweeted)

Let's start with the Chocolate-Cayenne

Ingredients:

4 oz bar of semi-sweet chocolate

2 oz water

3 oz heavy whipping cream or creme fraiche

1 1/2 Tbsp of unsweeted butter

1 Tbsp confectioners sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder for forming and coating truffle balls 

(these 6 ingredients comprise the basic truffle recipe, you are welcome to start with this alone)

1/4 or 1/2 Tsp of Cayeene Pepper (yes the hot pepper)

Method (making the chocolate truffle mixture)

1. The first step is to melt the chocolate in a double boiler on the lowest heat setting. First place the 2 oz of water in the double boiler.

2. Next add the chocolate, breaking it to mangaeable chunks to allow them to be covered in the water. Whisk continuously until the mixture is fairly smooth. Add butter in small chunks (about five pieces) melting each chunk prior to adding the next piece.

3. You may notice that the oil form the butter does not incorporate with the chocolate just yet, that's okay.

Slowly pour in the cream and whisk until the mixture is uniform.

4. Add the sugar and whisk until completely incorporated (at this point you have the standard truffle mixture and you can skip the cayeene if you like just plain decadent chocolate ) this process will also apply to the other two recipes in this post. Add 1/4 tsp of cayeene and incorporate into the mixture bump this up to 1/2 tsp if you would like a bit more kick.

Chilling the mixture:

1. If you are making more recipes, transfer the mixture into another bowl, cool to room temperature and then place in the refridgerator or freezer. The freezer will likely make the mixture a little firmer than you want for the forming step, but it is likely that your refridgerator is not set low enough to firm up the mixture enough for easy handling. I prefer the freezer and then monitor the firmness.

Forming the truffles:

1.You want the mixture cool and firm enough to form but not so firm as to make it hard to handle. I like having a flat baking tray that I throw in the freezer to cool it down. Place about a 1/4 cup of cocoa powder to start in the baking sheet once you have removed it forom the freezer, take your truffle mixture and  scoop about a 1 1/2 tsp dollop of the micture out, working with your fingers, form into a ball or cube and drop into the cocoa powder.
2. Roll the dollop around to form a rough ball and make sure it is covered with cocoa  powder. Place the finish ball in a small candy size paper cup. Work quickly, as the truffle mixture warms up quickly at which point it has the consistency of  warm peanut butter. You may need to chill the mixture from time to time depending on the room temperature and how quickly you work. When you are done place the finished truffles in the refridgerator to keep them cool and firm. Remove only when ready to serve.
You might like these variations:
Chocolate-Grand Marnier
4oz bar unsweetened chocolate
1 oz Grand Marnier (steep with orange extract and leave overnight)
3 oz water (add additional water and 1 Tbsp. at a time till mixture is smooth)
2 tsp. orange extract
6 tsp. confectioners sugar
Chocolote-Fennel-Anise
4 oz bittersweet chocolate
1 oz Vodka (steep with star anise and fennel and leave overnight)
1/4 tsp. star anise extract
2 tsp. ground fennel
3 oz thick cream
1 1/2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tsp confectioners sugar
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