Sambal Seafood Medley

Happy new Year 2011!

Here's a posting to get me back on track with the theme of this blog, which is cooking.

Sambal tumis with seafood, especially squid is one of my favourite Malaysian dishes.

I managed to pick up some prepared seafood from a local supermarket and thought I'd make some fresh sambal (chilli ) sauce to cook this.

The ingredients for the sauce are red chillies, onions (preferable shallots which I did not have at the time), garlic, toasted belacan (fermented shrimp paste) and tamarind juice.

Its best to pound it manually in a pestle and mortar but I was lazy and used a blender. I added salt and sugar during the blending process.

Then heat plenty of oil in a pan, brown some sliced onions, then add sauce and fry till fragant.

Then add seafood and fry for 3 - 5 minutes. Not too long or it will turn tough and dry, especially if you are using octopus.

And finally here is the dish. Would have looked better with some coriander garnish, but I had none at the time.

Mee Goreng Udang ( Prawn Fried Noodles )

A quick, and simple dish, where the ingredients play a huge part in how good (or bad) it taste.

I had not bought anything to make dinner that night and decided to look around to see what was in the cupboard and freezer. What I found were the essential ingredients for this slight variation of a popular Malaysian mamak (indian-muslim) dish.

The noodles and prawns were fried separately, as the latter were quite big and I wanted to make sure they were cooked properly rather than frying them together with the noodles, and risk over or undercooking them.



Noodles:
I had some instant "straight to wok" noodles for emergencies, but its best to use fresh egg noodles. Not the thin variety.
I also had some sambal belachan frozen in individual portions. These were made by grinding belachan (pungent prawn paste), chillies, garlic and dried shrimps together.

Method:
Fry the paste in oil with sliced onions till fragrant - when the fumes start to make you cough and splutter, then that it the right time to add the noodles!
Sprinkle water so that noodles becomes soft and succulent. Then add tomato sauce, chilli sauce and sweet soy sauce. Add salt to taste.
When nearly done, crack an egg over it. Continue frying till egg becomes brown.
Then its done!




Prawns:
I used peeled and deveined raw tiger prawns (frozen). Fresh is better if you can get them.
Heat 50% butter, 50% oil, then add diced capsicum, curry leaves and garlic. Fry till brown (only takes seconds), then add 1 tsp curry powder paste.
Again, fry till fumes make you cough and splutter, then add the prawns and fry quickly. Add salt to taste. Remove when you start seeing moisture seep out of the prawns. You dont want to lose too much water from the prawns or they will not be succulent and juicy when you bite into them.

Serve noodles, topped with the prawns.

Fish, Veg and Soup, Malaysian style.

To live up to this website's name, I guess I should blog about something actually Malaysian. So I will show how I made a very basic staple Malaysian meal of fish, veg and soup.

For the soup, I just boiled some pork bones which I trimmed off the shoulder steaks which I marinated for Char Siew the next day. After an hour, I added potatoes, carrots, onions, and later on, tomatoes. Only salt, sugar and pepper is needed later on for taste.

For the fish, I use filleted mackerel. This is the closest you get to "ikan kembung" in the UK, which is my favourite fish in Malaysia. I could have cooked the fish whole, but wife and son do not like small bones in fish! For the veg, I bought freshly air-freighted kangkung (water spinach) from Thailand. Outside the winter months, you can actually buy Dutch kangkung here, but they are too thick for my liking.

I simply fry the fish in a non-stick pan. The fish will shed a lot of oil while frying, so there is no need to use too much in the beginning. I continue to fry the skin side in its own oil till it's crispy. Then turn it over and just lightly brown the flesh side. For the veg, I use my own sambal belachan (prawn chilli paste), where all the ingredients are readily available here.

Finally, I garnish both with fried garlic, ginger and shallots.

And dinner is served!