SWEET AND SOUR SAUCE FISH

Sweet and sour fish is a very common dish served at home and at the restaurants.  Of course, there are various ways of preparing the sauce and various types of white meat fish are used.  I always prefer to cook with fish fillets as I am afraid of fish bones. 

This is a tasty dish and the sweetness of the sauce is acceptable to me.  Some sauce can be overly sweet and I feel the quality of chilli sauce and tomato sauce does contribute to the overall taste of the sauce.

Anyway, I happy with the taste and it is great with the addition of capsicum, zucchini, tomatoes and onions.

This recipe is adapted from Amy Beh’s recipes on Sweet and Sour Sauce Fish.

Ingredients

300 gm white fish fillet slices

1 Bombay onion - cubed

1 tomato – cubed

½ green capsicum – cut into diamond shape

½ red capsicum or 1 red chilli – cut into diamond shape

½ zucchini – seeded and cubed

1 stalk spring onions – cut sections

Enough oil to fry fish

Seasoning

3 tbsp tomato sauce

2 tbsp chilli sauce

Dash of salt and pepper

50 ml water

1. Marinate fish slices with dash of salt and some beaten egg.  Coat with some cornflour before frying.
2. Heat up wok, add in oil and fry fish fillets until golden brown and cooked.  Dish up onto serving platter.
3. Remove excess oil.  Using the same wok, fry onions, capsicum and tomatoes.  Pour in the seasoning, stir fry to mix.
4. Add in zucchini.  Bring sauce to boil until  thick.  Dish up on to fried fish.  Serve immediately.
   
   
   
   

THAI GREEN PAPAYA SALAD

Thai Green Papaya Salad aka Som-tum Koong Sod in Thai is a very popular salad in Thai cuisine.

It may look difficult to prepare but in actual it is not so if you are able to separate the salad ingredients well.  The dressing is easy to concoct and the remaining ingredients is not difficult to assemble.  I prepared this salad using a home grown green papaya from my mum’s house.  It is a seedless small papaya, the size is just nice for making this salad.

The salad ingredients are crunchy and the dressing is not overly sourish, sweet or savoury. Appetisingly good to serve with rice.  The prawns can be replaced with crabmeat.
Recipe adapted from Healthy and Easy Thai Cooking [my this month's selected cookbook for Cookbook Countdown Event #10]

Ingredients For The Salad

1 cup green papaya – skinned an shredded

½ cup shredded red carrot

2-3 long beans – cut 1 inch length - smashed

1 tomato – diced or 5 cherry tomatoes – halved

7-8 prawns – boiled

2 tbsp dried prawns – rinsed, fried and pounded

2 tbsp fried crispy peanuts

2 red chilli – seeded and chopped

4 pips garlic – smashed and chopped

Dressing [combined]

2-3 tbsp gula Melaka

2-3 tbsp fish sauce

2-3 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp thick tamarind paste

1. Combine dressing ingredients and set aside.
2. Mix shredded papaya, carrots, long beans, tomatoes, chilli, garlic and prawns in a mixing bowl. Mix in dressing, toss well to combine.
3. Lastly add in dried prawns and peanuts.
4. Dish up on serving platter, garnish with extra dried prawns and peanuts.
   
   
   
   

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Kitchen Flavours and Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray

MUSHROOM AND CHICKEN IN SOUP

This is a dish that you can prepare in thick sauce or slightly soupy.   It has a combination of various ingredients with proteins and fibre all in a platter.  Serving this with some plain white rice makes it a complete One Dish Meal.

Ingredients

1 chicken whole leg – deboned and chopped bite size pieces

100 gm fresh large abalone mushrooms – cut thick slices

4-5 young corn – cut sections

1 stalk leek – cut slantwise

Some red carrot slices

6 slices ginger

Some chopped garlic

1 tsp sesame oil

Sauce Ingredients

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

Dash of pepper and salt to taste

Some water [for thick sauce] or 2 cups water [for soupy]

1. Marinate chicken pieces with dash of salt, msg and pepper.
2. Heat up a non-stick wok, add in sesame oil, ginger and garlic.  
3. Fry until aromatic, add in chicken and stir fry until aromatic.
4. Add in mushrooms, carrot and seasoning ingredients.  Transfer fried ingredients to a claypot [for soupy version], add in water.  
5. Bring to boil until ingredients are cooked through.  Lastly add in leeks, bring to a quick boil and serve immediately. 
6. For the thick version, add in water, bring to boil until ingredients are cooked, then add in leeks.  Stir fry until leeks turn bright green.
7.  Dish up to serve immediately.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

YUM PLA TU-NA [THAI TUNA SALAD]

Thai Tuna Salad aka Yum Pla Tu-na

This is  another simple yet awesome Thai salad with  canned tuna.  The third recipe using canned from this cookbook. 

You may think it is difficult to prepare with a long list of ingredients but in fact most of them are easily available in your home kitchen.  Initially, I didn’t intend to prepare this too when I saw the ingredients.

Anyway, I am glad I went ahead to buy a green mango and a pack of crispy fried peanuts to make this salad.  It is really nice to me and I enjoyed it very much.  The green mango is crunchy and tasty infused with the dressing sauce that is savoury and sourish.
Recipe adapted fromHealthy and Easy Thai Cooking [my this month's selected cookbook for Cookbook Countdown Event #10]

Ingredients

150 gm canned tuna in brine – drained off liquid

1 small green mango – skinned and finely shredded

5-6 shallots – thinly sliced

4 pips garlic – chopped

1 cm young ginger – finely shredded

½ red carrot – finely shredded

3-4 small chilli – finely chopped

Some chopped coriander and spring onions

Some crispy fried peanuts

Dressing Ingredients [combined]

2-3 tbsp fish sauce

3 tbsp lime juice

1 tsp each of sugar and honey

1. Combined the dressing ingredients in a big bowl.
2. Prepare the other ingredients as stated above.  Add in to the dressing sauce.
3. Toss well and dish up to serve.  Garnish with crispy peanuts.
   
   
   

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Kitchen Flavours and Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray

THAI STIR FRY TUNA WITH BASIL LEAVES

Reading through this book, I came across 3 recipes with canned tuna.  It never came across my mind that canned tuna can be used for stir fry and salads [thought it is awesome as filling for baked buns].    The first I tried was Nam-Prik Pla-tu-na [Tuna Salad] which was easy and good.

Thai Stir Fry Tuna With Basil Leaves aka Phad Ka-prow Pla tu-na.  This is the second recipe which I tried.  It is also very easy to prepare yet awesome.  Simple ingredients and seasoning yet this dish is very appetizing with rice.   Do add lots of chopped garlic if you like but I added tomatoes and onions too which you can omit. 

 While preparing this dish, I learned that fresh Basil leaves must not be left to soak in water.  It will turned dark like what you see in the picture.   Just rinse under running water before cooking, this is the advice from my neighbor who gave me these Basil leaves.

Back to this dish, it tasted savoury, sourish and has the refreshing sweet  aroma of the Basil leaves.  Overall this is a nice dish.
Recipe adapted from Healthy and Easy Thai Cooking [my this month's selected cookbook for Cookbook Countdown Event #10]

Ingredients

1 canned tuna in oil – drain away the liquid

2 tbsp chopped garlic

2 tbsp chopped red chilli [I added 2 small green chilli]

1 tomato – cut wedges – optional

1 onion – cut wedges – optional

1 bunch Basil leaves – use the leaves only

1-2 tbsp cooking oil

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tsp sugar

Some extra sliced red and green chillies

1. Heat oil in wok, sauté chopped garlic until aromatic and golden.
2. Add in tuna flakes, tomatoes/onions [if using] and chillies,  stir fry to mix.
3. Add in seasoning and 2 tbsp water.  Bring to boil and lastly add in the basil leaves. Toss well and dish up to serve with steaming hot rice.
   
   
   
   
   
   

I'm linking this post with Cookbook Countdown #10 hosted by 

Kitchen Flavours and Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray

BLACK PEPPER SAUCE FISH FILLET

I not good at eating fish especially those with bones.  The best option to enjoy fish is to choose  fish fillets or meaty fish with minimal bones like shark fish, stingray, Spanish mackerel, salmon, cod fish etc. 

This fish dish  with black pepper sauce suits me well.  The spicy nice of aroma of black pepper coupled with the other accompaniments and fried fish fillets is awesome.  I can enjoy my plate of rice with this alone.  You can reduce the spiciness by adjusting the amount of black pepper used but the portion here is acceptable to me.

This dish is quick to cook if you have a microwave oven.  My friend's way is to pre-fry a big portion of the fish fillets ahead of meal time or even days before and then store them in refrigerator.  Reheat the fish fillets while she cook up the sauce, toss well and dish up to serve.  Really quick way.  I know many of my neighbours are doing this but I haven't tried as I don't have a microwave oven.

Ingredients

200 gm fish fillet - sliced thickly and marinate with dash of salt, pepper and sesame oil then coated with 1 tbsp each of cornflour and rice flour

50 gm green capsicum - seeded and cut wedges

1 red chilli - seeded and cut diamond shape

1 onion - cubed

1 tomato - cubed

a few slices ginger

2 pips garlic - sliced

1 stalk spring onion - cut sections

Sauce Ingredients

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce

dash of msg or 1/4 tsp sugar

50 ml water

1. Heat up enough oil to pan fry fish fillets in batches until cooked and golden brown, dish up on to serving plate.  You can deep fry fish fillet, too.
2. Remove excess oil.  Using the same wok, saute ginger and garlic until aromatic, add in onions, tomatoes, capsicum and chilli.  
3. Stir to mix well, pour in sauce ingredients and bring to a quick boil or until gravy is slightly thick. 
4. Lastly add in spring onions, pour over fried fish and serve immediately.  You can return fried fish to wok, toss well and dish up to serve.