It Is Finally Here!

Good morrow everybody. Yes! The school break is finally here. More time to spend on cooking and blogging? Perhaps. I made some 'dadih' yesterday and it turned out to be slightly watery. I think I did not put enough 'agar-agar' strips into the mixture. It was fine the first time I made it. However, it still tastes okay (at least...)

Soo....what dish should I prepare today? Have been thinking to have my mother's delicious 'asam pedas'. I can eat asam pedas everyday! Imagine, a bowl of asam pedas ikan parang and a plate of hot rice. Just thinking of it can make me drool. My siblings and I love to eat our asam pedas by spooning the gravy onto the rice and adding drops of sweet soy sauce. The taste is definitely the end of the world!

Since I'm from Malacca (and very proud of it), I want to share some points on my favourite dish. At my place, 'asam pedas' is referred as 'asam tumis' or 'masak asam'. This is to differentiate it from 'asam rebus' which uses no oil at all. The best fish to use for asam pedas is definitely 'ikan parang' (snake ling). However, many use 'tenggiri'(mackerel) or 'kembung'(er...I'm not sure about the English name). Actually, the ingredient that determines the taste of the asam pedas is the 'belacan'! Yes, the strong smelling shrimp paste. Any die-hard Malaccan asam pedas cook would be very particular about the choice of 'belacan'. Sounds funny, huh? Funny but true! With good quality belacan, your asam pedas will definitely taste better!

Enough of my blabbering. Here's my mother's asam pedas recipe.

MASAK ASAM PADANG JAMBU

Ingredients:
4 pieces of ikan parang ( cut into 4 inch width or 1/2 kg of mackerel)
*2 onions
*2 pips of garlic
*a thumb size of ginger
*a thumb size of fresh turmeric
*15 dried chillies (cleaned and cut into small pieces and soaked in hot water)
*belacan
1 stalk of lemongrass (bruised)
tamarind (asam jawa) (the size of a village chicken egg, to be mixed with 1/2 bowl of water)
a bunch of 'daun kesum'
5 ladies fingers (topped and tailed)
oil
salt to taste
1/4 tsp of sugar(optional)


Method :
1. First, grind finely all the ingredients marked *.
2. Heat oil in a pot over a medium fire and pour in the ground ingredients. Put in the lemongrass. Fry until fragrant and the oil separates from the gravy.(In Malay, we call it 'pecah minyak')
3. Pour in the 'asam jawa' juice and let to boil. Then put in the fish and lower down the heat. Simmer gently for 5 minutes and put in the ladies fingers. Let to simmer again until the vegetable is soft.
4. Add salt and sugar to taste. Serve with plain, hot rice.


Notice the measurement? You may wonder, "Whose thumb should be used as the measurement? What size of bowl to use to measure the water? How big is the village chicken egg?" That's what we call the 'agak2 method', which means.....you have to cook more often to get the best taste of this dish. All you need to do is to try. Indeed, cooking is not about talent. It's totally about practice. The more practice you have, the better you would be. Just be careful that you do not burn the kitchen down! hahaha.....One more thing that I notice about coking is, if you are not happy, your dish would not turn out well! It happened to me! In short, cook and smile! Happy cooking.