Cantonese folks believe that the best way to savor the sweetness of fresh fish is to do the least to it.  A classic case of less is more.  “7 minutes” is the magic number to cook the fish.  Regardless of amount.  You want it just flaking, and not tough.  You can control how much oil you want to add.  This recipe makes a small jar of shallot oil that you can use many times over.

Chef’s tip: Invest in a steamer rack, like the picture below….for a grand price of $0.69.  You can find the racks in many of those houseware stores in Chinatown, typically hung outside the shop….as if in marketing terms, an impromptu purchase item.  Go figure.    Just place it on a big pot, wok or saute pan with a cover, add some water till it comes up to the height of the steamer, use a heatproof dish and you would have outfitted your kitchen with a steamer capability.

Ingredients:

2 shallots, sliced thinly
1/2 cup canola oil

8 oz soft, white fish (rock fillet, red snapper, sea bass)
1/2 inch ginger, peeled, julienned fine
1 Tablespoon light soy sauce
1 sprig green onions, green part only, julienned
1 sprig cilantro

To make the shallot oil:
1. In a small sauce pot, heat canola oil.  Add sliced shallots and fry till light golden brown.  Remove from heat and the shallots will continue browning to a deep brown.
2.  When cool, transfer oil and shallot crisps to a glass jar.  Shallot oil can be kept for a couple of months in a jar.
Preparing the fish:
3. Bring a wok of water with a steamer rack to boil.
4. Smear a heat-proof deep plate with a little of the shallot oil.  Place fish on the plate.  Top with ginger strips.
5. Place in steamer and steam under boiling water for 7 minutes.
6. Remove plate from the steamer, drizzle with 1-2 Tablespoons of shallot oil and crisps, soy sauce and top with green onions and cilantro. Serve immediately.

Serves: 2

Tags: Cantonese, Chinese, Fish, salty.

I love kalbi but find it a bit of a work to work around the sinewy parts of the short ribs.  Using a juicy piece of tenderloin solves that problem while still allowing me to enjoy the sweet grilled beef.

Chef’s tip: While testing for beef doneness is most accurately achieved with a meat thermometer, a quicker way of testing will be to feel the meat with your finger tips and then comparing it with the softness of the area of your palm between your thumb and the base of your hand.  With one palm opened, take your index finger of the other palm and press on this area.  That’s how raw meat feels like.  Next, with that opened palm, bring the index finger to gently meet the thumb like you are doing an “ok”; that’s how “rare” would feel like.  When you switch the index finger to the middle finger, you will begin to encounter some resistance, but it’s still soft; that would be “medium rare.”  For “medium”, bring your ring finger to the thumb, it will feel springy.  And lastly, for “well-done”, bring your pinkie finger to meet your thumb and your palm will feel pretty firm.  You never want to cook your tenderloins well done.

Marinade:
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
2 Tablespoons vermouth or sake
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
2 Tablespoons frozen pineapple concentrate
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
1/2 teaspoon ginger, grated
3 Tablespoons green onions, white parts only, finely sliced

4 6-oz tenderloin
1 cup kim chee

1. Whisk all the marinade ingredients together.
2. Immerse the tenderloins in the marinade, cover tightly and leave to marinade overnight.
3. Slightly oil a grill, and heat it.  When hot, sear the meat, both sides.  Cook till desired doneness.  Let steak sit for a few minutes before serving.
4. Bring remaining marinade to boil.
5. Serve steak with drizzled with cooked marinade with white steamed rice and some kim chee on the side.

Serves: 4

Tags: Beef, grilled, Korean, salty, sweet, umami.

This week, I got a big box of spices from my friend, Karina, from Singapore.  She sent me a kilogram of dried “bunga telang” – blue pea flower, a type of tropical morning glory. It’s an edible flower and we use its brilliant indigo blue pigment as a natural food dye.  See the pictures below for a view of the brilliant blue color!   You can’t imagine how excited I was.  Even when I lived in Malaysia, bunga telang is hard to come by.  If we see it on vines by the roadside, we would stop the car to pick some.

So what do you do with these blue flowers?  Nasi Ulam or in the East Coast of Malaysia, sometimes refered to as Nasi Kerabu.  “Ulam” means a medley of herbs.  The rice salad is tossed with, yes, a medley of Asian herbs, dried coconut and dried fish flakes.  If you want to keep it vegetarian or serving the rice to less adventurous palates, just skip the dried seafood part.  It tastes just as yummy.

Chef’s tip: Toasting coconut is just as easy on the stove top as in the oven.  Coconut burns really fast, so remove it from the heat source a tinge below your desired color, and it will continue cooking on its own.

3 Tablespoons dried bunga telang, soaked in 1½ cup water
1 cup Jasmine rice
1 cup Jasmine rice + 1½ cup water

2 oz salt cod, soaked 10 minutes, drained, optional
¼ cup dried shrimp, soaked, drained, optional

1 cup shredded, unsweetened desiccated coconut

Herb mix
½ cup mint leaves, chiffonade
½ cup Thai basil leaves, chiffonade
½ cup Rau Ram leaves, chiffonade
½ cup cilantro leaves, chiffonade
¼ cup perilla/shiso leaves. chiffonade
½ cup Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped
¼ cup sorrel leaves, finely chiffonade
2 tablespoon kaffir lime leaves, chiffonade
½ cup shallots from 2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 inch fresh tumeric, thin juliennes
1 inch galangal, thin juliennes
1 lemon grass, white only, finely sliced
1 ginger flower, finely sliced
Note: You can use any fragrant herb, if you cannot find all the herbs listed, or try new ones

½ cup roasted peanuts, chopped
1 Tablespoon roasted belachan, optional

Preparing the 2 types of rice:
1. Soak 1 cup of rice in 11½ cup waters with the blue flowers for at least 1 hour.  Remove flowers just before cooking.
2. In a small pot, bring the soaked rice and blue soaking liquid to boil. When it comes to a boil, cover the pot, turn to low simmer, and simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and let it sit, still covered for 10 minutes.
3. In another small pot, bring the white rice and 1½ cups of water to boil. When it comes to a boil, cover the pot, turn to low simmer, and simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and let it sit, still covered for 10 minutes.
4. Fluff the rice and toss together into a large bowl to cool.
Preparing the coconut and seafood, if using:
5. Toast the coconut till golden brown. Add to the big bowl of rice.
6. Soak and drain salt cod and dried shrimp.  Place salt cod in food processor and grind coarsely.  Set aside.  Repeat with dried shrimp.
7. Heat a sauté pan with 1 tablespoon of canola oil and fry the salt cod till fragrant.  Add to the rice.
8. Toast the dried shrimp till fragrant.  Add to the rice.
Preparing the herbs
9. Finely chiffonade all herbs.
Assembly:
10. Toss all ingredients – salt cod, dried shrimp, coconut, herbs – together with the cooled rice.
11. Sprinkle with chopped roasted peanuts and roasted belachan.  Serve at room temperature.

Serves: 8

Tags: Herbs, Malaysian, rice salad, salty, vegan, Vegetarian.