recipe - spicy sweet sour fish

Spicy Sweet Sour Fish – a favorite dish in our household. It’s a quick and easy dish that can be eaten on its own or with rice. This is a Chinese dish though I added a touch of Thai to it. The original recipe is from my mom but I changed it by adding a few extra ingredients.

Any fish is great for this recipe especially whole fresh fish. In the Malay language fish is ikan .You can use ikan kerapu or grouper, ikan siakap or barramundi, you could probably use cod or any fish readily available. When using whole fish ask the fishmonger to clean the fish out for you the guts, the scales, the fins. When its all clean make incisions on the fish’s body – careful not to go very deep. Then just dip in salt water for a few seconds.

Me I took the easy way and used fish filet instead. When I made mine I use sutchi filet or catfish as it’s normally known. Over here sutchi filet is sold frozen in packs of three. But let me stress fresh fish is always better .. anyways, it does not take very long to make and it keeps well till the next day so here we go..

Spicy sweet sour fish

Ingredients:-

For the sauce:-

1 – 2 tbsp ground chili paste

2 -3 tbsp tomato ketchup

2 tbsp chili sauce

1 -2 tbsp fish sauce

Salt to taste or not

2 tsp sugar

Water

5 cloves of garlic (diced)

2 inch of ginger (thinly sliced)

2 red chilies sliced side ways

Coriander leaves (chopped coarsely)

1 large white onion (chopped coarsely)**

2 tomatoes (chopped up into chunks)

½ red bell peppers**

½ green bell peppers**

*note: - when it comes to the vegetables you could even try using cucumber. When using a cucumber clean the insides and then chop it up into chunks. Sometimes you even use carrot.

**if it’s a small sized bell pepper, you can use the whole vegetable. When I made mine the bell peppers I had were huge. You can even use yellow bell peppers if you like. Bell peppers are also known as capsicum. If you don’t have white onion, you can use any other onion too.

For the fish

3-4 sutchi filets (or any fish filet)

1 egg

Salt

Water

1 cup of flour

¾ cup corn meal

1 cup breadcrumbs

Method:-

For the sauce:-

1.Heat up about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pot then fry the ginger

and garlic for a few mins. Quickly add the chili paste and keep on stirring

till fragrant.

2. Add in the tomato ketchup and chili sauce followed by the fish sauce.

Then add water. You can adjust the consistency of the sauce by adding more

or less water. If you find the sauce too watery add a little cornstarch. Add in

sugar and stir.

3. After about 5 mins put in all the vegetables except for the tomatoes &

coriander leaves. Let it cook for a few mins before adding the

tomatoes and coriander leaves. Let it simmer on the stove for about

15 mins making sure to keep stirring.

4. Check consistency & taste and voila you’re done. You want a consitency thats

not too thick nor too water just something in between.

For the fish

1. cut the sutchi filet horizontally into about 3 inch pieces.

2. Mixed together salt & water. Beat the egg.

3. In a separate bowl mix together all three dried ingredients and line them

side by side.

Note: - With a big batch of coating, I like to take a little at a time so that I can save the rest for future use – only right yes? :D

4. Heat up some oil for deep frying the fish.

5. Dip the fish into the salt water for a few seconds drain it and the dip into

the egg before coating it with the dried ingredients then fry till golden

brown. I do about handfuls of filet at a time to save time.

6. When its all done you can pour the sauce over the fish and serve. It will

look a little like this.

So happy trying getting fishy and coating!