As far as I could remember, Ramadhan, being a blessed and blissful month, has been my platform to try new recipes. You know, the excitement (and no doubt the unsure feeling) on how the dish would turn out to be and taste wise, nice to the palate. Talking about experimenting, some turned out nice and well-enjoyed by the family members but some remained untouched and had to be finished by, yours truly.
A nice dish to me has to be balanced. It needs to have equal amount of sweetness, sourness and spiciness. Bearing this in mine, I decided to prepare some grilled fish to be paired with this wonderful dip recipe, which I had taken from Ika@Arah. Do give this recipe a try.
GRILLED FISH WITH DIP
For the fish :
- 4 pieces of medium size mackarel (cleaned and gutted and wipe dry)
- 5 shallots
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 cm piece of ginger
- 2 tablespoonfuls of chilli paste
- 1 teaspoonful of turmeric powder
- 1 teaspoonful of salt
- 1/2 teaspoonful of sugar
- 1 piece of turmeric leaf (finely sliced)
- enough cleaned banana leaves (according to the size of your fish) (I replaced it with aluminium foil but using banana leaves would result in more fragrant grilled fish)
- enough toothpicks
Method :
- Grind shallots, garlic and ginger finely and put into a bowl. Then,put in remaining ingredients and mix well.
- To assemble the fish, take a piece of banana leaf and spoon some mixture on it. Place your fish on top of this mixture and top the fish with the spice mixture. Fold the leaf and secure each end with a toothpick. Follow the same procedure if you are using aluminium foil but just fold each end tightly to avoid the spice mixture from seeping out.
- Ideally, the fish should be grilled over charcoal but I used my iron skillet to do the job. Continue turning your fish over medium heat till cooked.
For the dip :
(A)
- 4 pieces of bird’s eyes chillies (add more if you want it to be more spicy)
- 1 fresh red chilli
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 tablespoonful of tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoonful of chilli sauce
- 1 tablespoonful of fish sauce
- 60ml of tamarind juice (add more water if your prefer a runny dip)
- 1 teaspoonful of sugar (or add more to your liking)
- a pinch of salt
(B)
- 1 to 2 shallots (chopped finely)
- 1 to 2 ripe tomatoes (chopped finely)
- 1 stalk of coriander leaves ( I used celery leaves (daun sup/sadri)) (sliced finely)
- 1 fresh red chilli (cut into rings)
Method :
- Put ingredients (A) in a blender and grind finely.
- Put in ingredients (B) and mix well.
- Serve with the grilled fish.
