Fish head soup

If I am asked what my comfort food is, that will be this fish head soup. Always this soup, regardless the weather. And if you enjoy Thai`s Tom yum soup, then it`s very likely that you`ll enjoy this as well.
My favorite choice of fish for the soup is Japanese amberjack, called buri here. Buri fish is very meaty and the head part is even full of good flavor with lots of collagen filling up the space between the skins and the bones. And the EYES are really good! I usually save them for the last bits. Just try them and you`ll know what I`m talking about. Am I freaking you out?
Well, let`s pretend that I`m using eyeless fish head for the soup then.

Start with making the spice paste. I used garlic, onion, ginger, chillies, and gochugaru (Korean chili powder).

Now heat a bit of oil on a pan and start sauteing the paste while adding bruised lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, coriander, and cumin.

After stirred the spices for a while, pour in coconut milk and stir again.

Now these are the head and the bony parts of the buri fish. I always, always feel happy when I see these guys at the store.

 Put them in the soup.

I added mushrooms and bamboo shoots too (my favorites), but you can use other ingredients or vegetables too.

Tom yum soup recipe calls for tamarind juice, but since I don`t have any tamarind, I used "Umeboshi", Japanese pickled plums instead. I-heart-umeboshi and I always have to have a jar of it in my fridge. Like nattou, umeboshi is pretty much essential in daily meals. It has deep flavors of saltiness and sourness, which probably the most intense among other pickled food I`ve ever tasted. Mothers (and wives) usually place one red umeboshi on center top of rice packed for bentou that gives a good resemblance with Japan`s national flag.
Not everyone can handle the intense flavors from eating this umeboshi straight (including him), but believe me, adding it to the soup will be as good as spritzing in lemon juice or adding a bit of vinegar.
Now I very much regretted not taking pictures before I chopped them off the seeds, but I hope Google will work for you.

Stir in the umeboshi (include the seeds too), adjust the taste with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar, and it`s ready! And if you have cilantro, chop up, and use it for garnishing. Even better!
The meat is incredibly soft that it practically melts in my mouth. Melts, I tell you. I also remembered telling you before how I dislike the small bones that scatter throughout the fish meat in sardines or mackerels, but this one is different. Most of the time the bones are big enough so pulling off the meat is easy peasy. And even when it`s not, it`s worth the effort!

I actually cooked this last night and while cooking I kept going from kitchen to living room (which is only 6 steps away, lol) only to make sure that I didn`t miss the part where William and Kate kissed. What a beautiful princess she is!!
I told my husband to keep watching and let me know when the kissing part came, but he fell asleep. So I missed The Kiss! How could he fall asleep?!

Ingredients:
Spice paste
Garlic
Onion
Chili
Ginger
Gochugaru (Korean chili powder)

Lemongrass
Kaffir lime leaves
Galangal
Coriander
Cumin
Coconut milk
Umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum)
Salt
Pepper
Sugar (a pinch)
Fish head
Bamboo shoots
Mushrooms

Green curry with chicken meatballs

If any Thai cooks ever read this post, I am sure they will force me to change the dish name. Or at least not calling it "Green curry". Well, until that happens, let`s just call it the way I intended it to be.

I know these green chilies look wrinkly sad, but that`s what I get when I keep them too long in the fridge. It`s alright, though, they`re still green anyway.
Chop up the chilies (remove the seeds if you avoid the heat). If you want the curry to be really really hot (that no one can eat it except you), use bird`s eye chilies. I still have no idea in what way the birds have anything to do with the chili, not to mention their eyes. I`ll stop blabbering now.

Chop up garlic, onion, and ginger too. Place them together with the green chili in a food processor and whiz up.

Not green enough, I know. Not green at all, indeed.

And that`s why I used green bell peppers.
One thing to consider, though. Green bell pepper contains way more flesh and water than chili does. So it seems that you`ll need more bell peppers to get an equal greenness resulted form fewer amount of chilies. My theory, of course, can be ignored. Using green chilies is the best (and original) method, of course.

Green already. I looove this picture.

Set aside the spice paste and it`s time to make the meatballs. You can certainly modify the meatballs ingredients, but here`s what I`ve got in my kitchen.
Minced chicken, dried shrimps, and seaweed flakes. Season with a bit of salt and pepper. What to do next? Oh you know it already. Go dunk your hand in it and mix everything.

I want the meatballs to be chewy, so I added corn starch. To 160 g of meat, I added 2 tbs of corn starch. The meatballs turned out to be a little too firm, so I think I`ll use less starch next time.

Mix, mix, mix, and set aside. Please don`t taste it now.

Place the spice paste you prepared earlier on a pan, add shrimp paste, lemon grass (bruise it first), galangal, and kaffir lime leaves and saute them until fragrant.

Toss in shiitake mushroom slices. Mushroom is almost a must in my kitchen. No wonder my head started look like a mushroom.

One type of mushroom is not enough for me, so I tossed in shimeji mushroom too.

I always use powdered coconut milk and this time I diluted 60 g of it in 500 ml water.

Pour it in and stir.

Can I call it green curry now?
Season with sugar (this curry is supposed to be sweet), fish sauce, cumin, and pepper.
Keep simmering while we make the meatballs.

Get the meatballs dough and shape it into (something like) meatballs. You can use two spoons like I did. Or you can place some dough in your fist, squeeze it out between your thumb and index finger and then spoon out one ball at a time before putting them in the simmering curry.

Let the meatballs cook. This is raw chicken we are using, so you want them to be cooked through. To avoid the coconut milk scorches, gently stir the soup without breaking the meatballs. Cook one meatball first, taste it, and adjust the taste of the dough if you need to.
Actually, I don`t really mind if the meatballs end up tasting bland because I think the curry is rich enough to cover the blandness.

One last ingredient is hanpen. Hanpen is a kind of fish cake made from fish and yams with a soft spongy texture that is very similar to marshmallow. When you touch or eat it, you`ll swear it`s a marshmallow. With a fishy taste, though. If you can`t find hanpen at your place, regular fish cake will do just fine.

Cube the fish cake and throw them in. It won`t take long to cook the fish cakes as they`re cooked anyway.

And now the curry doesn`t look that green anymore. It`s yellowish green. Or greenish yellow. Whichever it is, this curry is rich of taste. It`s lightly sweet with a hint of aroma from the green chilies (and bell peppers).And I added fried onion for garnishing. Y-U-M.

Ingredients:
Spice paste
Green chilies
Green bellpeppers
Garlic
Onion

Lemon grass
Galangal
Kaffir lime leaves
Shrimp paste
Cumin
Sugar
Salt
Pepper
Mushrooms
Fish cake

Meatballs
Minced chicken
Dried shrimps
Seaweed flakes
Corn starch
Salt (just a pinch)
Pepper

 

Curry laksa

I guess I haven`t told you that I had a one-year living experience in Kuala Lumpur. It (aka. the food) was awesome! Although Malaysian and Indonesian food basically share similar hints of taste, I kept enjoying new sensation in my mouth when I had my meals from the restaurants and food hawkers. Nasi lemak was my DAILY breakfast for a year. Chicken rice was my lunch. Roti chanay was my afternoon snacks. And curry laksa. And grilled stingray fish with sambal. And SUGARCANE drinks! I happily and undoubtedly gained weight very quick that time.

So, in part of my attempts in rebuilding the Malaysian food fiesta in my life, I made curry laksa. I was lucky to come across a laksa recipe from Almost Bourdaine. I fell in love with her gorgeous laksa photo and decided to give it a try. The thing is, I don`t have some of the ingredients, so I just omitted them. If you never have any laksa before and are curious with the taste, I recommend you to use her recipe for a real reference. But if you don`t mind following what I did, have a look and feel free to make your own version of laksa.

Start with blending garlic, onion (shallot if you have), chili, dried shrimp (mine was Japanese dried shrimp) and ginger into paste.

Saute the paste and add a tsp of shrimp paste (or more, or not at all).

Stir in chili powder, curry powder, coriander, and lemon grass. Smells good already?

Now, throw in boiled and shredded chicken into the paste. Tell you what, whenever I need shredded chicken, my pressure cooker comes to rescue. Just cook the chicken for 20 mins and another 15 mins to release the pressure and break the meat apart effortlessly with a wooden spatula. It`s perfectly shredded. Don`t forget to reserve the stock. It`s precious.

Now pour in the stock through a strainer to filter out the nasties. Yes, I put ginger when I cook the chicken as I always find it gives a wonderful smell.

After the chicken stock, pour in coconut milk. Stir up. Oh, I added some mushrooms here. I have a mushroom addiction too. It`s cute, delicious, healthy, and CHEAP. No reason for not liking it.

Now meet YUBA. Yuba is a dried byproduct from tofu making process, other than okara. From what I read, yuba is formed like a thin film on the surface when the bean is being boiled. It contains the bean fat that floats on top of the water and thus you can feel the oily part of yuba when you touch it.
The real curry laksa recipe calls for tofu cubes, but I happened to have this yuba in my fridge. Why not??

Throw in some yuba to the soup and they will instantly soften like curdled egg white.

Season the soup with salt and pepper and adjust the spiciness. When you`re done with it, turn off the heat and set the soup aside. Now continue with preparing the mee, or mie, or noodle. I used ramen noodles and bean sprouts just like the original recipe.



But  I substituted the vermicelli with this. White konnyaku noodle. Hopefully this will lessen off the calories. Can it??

Arrange egg noodle, bean sprouts, and white konnyaku in a bowl.

Laddle the hot soup, garnish with scallion, and here is the curry laksa. All goodness in one bowl.

Ingredients:

For spice paste:
Garlic
Onion/shallot
Chili
Dried shrimp
Ginger

Curry powder
Coriander
Shrimp paste
Coconut milk
Salt and pepper

Chicken, boiled and shredded
Chicken stock
Shimeji mushrooms
Tofu or yuba
Ramen noodles
Vermicelli or konnyaku
Bean sprouts
Scallion for garnishing