Otah (Asian style fish pate!)

ingredients:
500g white fish
1/2 cup coconut cream
2 whole nutmegs
1 small piece balanchan
1 tbs chilli powder
1 inch piece of ginger, (around the size of a thumb), minced
1 inch piece of galangal (blue ginger), minced
1/2 cup of shallots
1 tbs rice flour
1 tbs oil
1 tbs sugar
1 egg

method:
preheat oven to 200 C.
Blend all the ingredients in a food processor.
Grease a baking tray and spread otah mixture on it.
Bake for 20-30 minutes.
Serve as an appetiser or with coconut rice (nasi lemak).

comments: My mom first tried this recipe last year...and I remember my younger sister, coming home late at night and after tasting the otah, said to me, "Ting ah! Donno which restaurant Ma buy this otah from...it's very very good leh!!"

When I told mom about my sister's comment the next morning, she positively glowed with pleasure. I think the recipe my mom used was from a 25 year old newspaper clipping. My version is not as mouth watering as my mom's...perhaps it's due to the substitution of onions for shallots...or maybe, food always tastes better when you don't have to prepare it yourself!

Bean curd ala shark's fin!!

ingredients:
silken tofu 1 pack
crab meat, fresh or canned, 170 g
oil 2 tbsp
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp ginger, finely chopped
1/2 cup chicken or fish stock (can replace with the liquid from the canned crab)
dash of pepper
dash of sesame oil
2 tbsp corn flour mixed with 4 tbsp cold water
chopped coriander leaves
chopped spring onion

method:
drain and flake crab to remove any bony tissue. Reserve liquid if using.
heat the oil in a small pan and gently fry onions and ginger for a minute or so, stirring, until ginger starts to turn golden and onions are softened. Add stock and crab meat and heat through.
Season with pepper and add cornflour mixture.
Stir over medium heat until sauce boils and thickens. Add tofu, spoon sauce over and heat until just it is to come to a boil.
Taste and add salt if necessary. Add dash of sesame oil, top with coriander and spring onions.
Serve with rice.

slightly modified from Charmine Solomon's Chinese Cookbook

comments: this tastes like sharkfins!!! ha....just the sauce..cos of the starch and crab meat....!!
Very easy and yummy...oh and do not substitute the crab meat with crab sticks, flavours are too different.....i got my can from Coles...new product apparently. :)

Teriyaki Salmon

ingredients:
4 alantic salmon bones
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp minced ginger
4 tbsp mirin
3 tbsp light soy sauce mixed with 1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp grated daikon/ raddish
1 tbsp thinly sliced spring onions

method:
1. Add oil to heated pan. Wait for oil to heat up before adding ginger. Stir fry quickly til it's light brown.
2. Add salmon to pan. (temperature should be quite high and there'll be some lovely sizzling). Fry for abt 1-2 minutes and flip.
3. Drizzle mirin over the salmon. (more sizzling and smoke!)
4. Wait for mirin to reduce before adding the soy sauce-sugar mixture.
5. Cook for another 2-5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.
6. Serve with raddish and spring onions.

comments:
Yet another ingredient which i had to frantically find, or in this case, improvise a recipe for!!! I saw bags of salmon bones going for 5 bucks at central market and thought that they were greal deals...i remember having a very flavourful salmon head shabu shabu a few years ago and thought that i could use the bones to cook stock...however, internet research advised against using salmon bones for stock as salmon is a fatty fish and the stock will be too fishy.....then i posted a question on makansutra and received a couple of suggestions...one was to cook the stock with spring onions and mirin to lessen the fish smell...i tried that..and the stock turned out a little sour (perhaps it was the white wine i used???)...and then i thought that i could cook the salmon in a similar fashion as unagi...and i am elated to report: it works!!! Very very well!!!

By the way, i got the bag of salmon bones at the fish shop near Baker's delight... and there were around 14 fish bones..wow..it's really a good deal, huh??
4 were baked in a salted-mirin and lemon dressing and 4 went into the stock with the flesh reserved for making salmon sweetcorn sushi..the next time, i will just make teriyaki with the lot!

And i also learnt something new today....daikon is the same thing as raddish...what my mom calls 'bai luo bo' (white carrots)..
:P

OH! Please do be careful of the small bones...(speaking from painful experience, the best thing to do when a bone gets caught in your throat is to eat some rice or bread to try to bring the bone down. And go to ER if it's still there!!)

Tagliatelle in Saffron and Mascarpone Sauce with Prawns

Ingredients for 6:

600g Tagliatelle
2 onions
1 Garlic clove
2 tb Olive oil
1 pinch Saffron strands
200ml dry white wine
500g Mascarpone cheese (can be substituted with cream cheese)
36 small/medium prawns, around 300g
Salt and pepper
1tbsp fish sauce (optional)
1 tbsp light soy sauce (optional)
1 tsp dried dill
1 handful torn fresh basil leaves to garnish


Method:
1. Cook the pasta according to package instructions. (Pasta is done when it's still very firm to the firm. It will continue to soften after the water is drained.)

2. Finely chop the onions and garlic. In a large frying pan heat the oil, add the onions and garlic and fry for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add the saffron, then half of the wine and finally add the Mascarpone cheese. Simmer gently for a few minutes, add the remaining wine, prawns and dill. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add fish sauce and light soy sauce if you like.

4. Drain pasta, add sauce and garnish with basil leaves.

recipe modified from here

Comments:
This is a once in a while dish...and i m slightly embarassed to confess that i cannot resist bargains..i saw the mascapone cheese going for one-sixth of its regular price and grabbed two tubs...
and when i reached home, i realised..."shucks!! What am i going to do with 500 g of 35% fat cheese!!!!!????"
(do the math...it's around 175g fat..!!!) First thought was tiramisu...but i really don't like sweet stuff and would feel so guilty eating it...and a brief, ok, not so brief, search on the internet yielded a few interesting sounding recipes...and i tried the one above...cos it had...saffron!!! Ever since tasting a very interesting prawn saffron avocado soup that Moa made, i have been quite intrigued with the spice...it's touted as the world's most expensive spice and for good reason...it retails for more than its worth in gold and thank God, that you only need a pinch for most recipes...but i think it really adds body and complexity to a dish...or perhaps it's just the psychogical effect of paying more and expecting more??? haha...
AND it has some health benefits to boot! (I'm really interested in 'protective foods'..the practical side of me likes to eat food which taste great and is also good for you..) According to wikipedia, it's apparently good for gastrointestinal ailments, wound healing (you bathe in saffron-infused water!), coughs, scabies, depression and is also anticarcinogenic! haha...sounds like a wonder drug!! But with all things, it can be toxic if used in excess..but i guess its hefty price tag is a good deterrant..
:)

oh!! and here's a picture of Moa's soup....yummm....

Salmon fettucine with mandarin orange ginger paste

:) own concoction...no recipe cos it wasn't that fantastic...the salmon was too fishy....but the madarin orange peel ginger paste idea pairing was interesting....might try that again as a topping when baking some other fish...
Just take fresh mandarin orange peel, chop it up with a roughly equal amount of ginger as fine as you can and add a teaspoon of olive oil...