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| Sorry for the iPhone photo. I don’t always bring the good camera to work |
This recipe is based on one for Gulai Ikan from Charmaine Solomon’s “The Complete Asian Cookbook.” I was in the mood for an East Asian green curry fish dish (yes, my cravings are just that specific) but I didn’t have all the ingredients, namely curry leaves. Plus, I was working with Grace brand Pure Creamed Coconut, which comes in a box and is basically super concentrated coconut. It’s pretty good, but I find the texture a bit mealy. Thus, the straining, and thus the most silky, delicious curry sauce I’ve ever made in my life. Just a warning, you will end up with a whole pile of dirty dishes and this isn’t really the quickest thing to make.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb basa fillets, cut into manageable chunks
- 1/2 package of Grace Pure Creamed Coconut (cut it lengthwise so you get the oil as well as the meaty part)
- 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 2 tsp fresh ginger, roughly chopped
- 1 jalapeño, deseeded and roughly chopped (less if you want, but these aren’t really that spicy)
- 1 tbsp coriander
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp fennel
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 2 strips lime rind
- splash of fish sauce to taste
- chives, chopped
Let’s do it!
- Simmer the creamed coconut in 1.5 cups of water until it’s completely dissolved.
- If you’re using ground spices, great. If not, buzz all the spices in a spice grinder (I almost exclusively use whole spices. I hear they keep longer.)
- Simmer the coconut milk, onions, garlic, ginger, jalapeño spices and lime rind for about 10-15 minutes to cook the vegetables and let the flavours meld.
- Add fish sauce to taste.
- When the flavours are to your taste, run the mixture through a very very thin drum sieve. This is an annoying, laborious process. It requires using a ladle to stir and push as much of the sauce as you can through the sieve. The sieve I have has holes just about big enough for baking powder, but not granulated sugar. I don’t know where my mom got it from. Possibly an Asian housewares store.
- Lay the fish fillets on a heated saute pan and pour the sauce over it.
- Simmer until the fish is cooked, about 4 minutes per side.
- Top with chives.
Lunch it up!
I served this with sauteed kale and cabbage and brown rice. And it was INCREDIBLE. I packed the rice with the veggies and the separately so that the rice wouldn’t soak up all the sauce. I heated them together.