A dish born of not having a crucial ingredient

We have a Kamias tree in our garden. It bears fruit throughout the year. The Kamias tree is called cucumber or sorrel tree in English. Its fruit is used both for cooking and traditional medicine. Kamias fruit is very sour so it is often used to make chutney or sauces for meat or fish dishes. I love the dish my mum cooks with it.  She stir fries thinly sliced kamias fruit with sliced pork and fermented soy bean paste all balanced out with garlic and sugar. I usually end up eating an extra serving when she makes  it. It is so aromatic that one can be forgiven for failing to resist. 

The dish I am sharing with you today is a bit of a happy accident born of not having "buah cermai" (Malay gooseberry) at hand. For this chef inspired dish it is a critical ingredient. These greenish, yellowish little fruits grow in clusters. Like kamias fruit, they taste rather sour too.

The following recipe is inspired by Chef Malcom Goh's Crispy Skin Salmon with buah cermai. As I did not have buah cermai in stock, I made my version of Crispy Salmon with kamias fruit instead. I am very happy with how it turned out because it is a pretty dish and had a slight umami taste experience. My Quay Lo is not a big fan of the aqua-culture salmon we get here. As a sport fisherman in the U.S. he always caught wild salmon which he prefers. On the other hand,  I am not a big fan of cooked salmon, preferring the sashimi style of serving it. However, we both agree we are happy to have a way to prepare the salmon that we both like.

Crispy Skin Salmon with kamias compote

Inspired by Chef Malcom Goh - Back to the Streets on AFC

This dish was featured in Asian Food Channel (Official) Facebook Page 

on 8th November 2012

Ingredients:

2 x 100gms salmon fillet

Method:

Season the salmon with salt and pepper. Pan fry in a pan with some corn oil skin side first on low heat. Once the fish is cooked three quarters though, using the change of colour on the flesh as your indication, turn over the fish and allow to cook on the other side for 10 more seconds. Remove the salmon and allow to rest.

kamias compote ingredients:

50gms kamias, diced

1 nos tomato, remove seeds and diced

2 nos sliced shallots

¼ cup fennel, diced

1 chilli padi, finely diced 

2 tbsp sugar

100ml water

40 gms butter

½ tsp salt

1 stalk serai (lemon grass) pounded

½ tsp roux

1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

bean sprouts shoots for garnishing

Method:

Boil water and sugar till sugar is completely dissolved. Add in tomato, shallots, kamias, lemon grass and chilli padi and let it simmer till kamias is soften. Add in butter and salt and mix well and let it simmer for another 5 minutes on low heat. Add in diced fennel and simmer till fennel is translucent. Add ½ tsp roux to thicken the sauce. Lastly add in the toasted sesame and place it on the serving plate. Put the piece of salmon on top of the sauce and garnish with bean sprouts shoots. Serve with freshly baked baguette and a green of your choice.

Less is More

There were two special cod dishes I made in November 2010. One was Grilled cod with orange sauce created by me. It was a dish that I was very proud of, because it was featured in Group Recipes, Petite Chef and made it to the Top 9 at Foodbuzz. 

Another is Crispy Code Fish with Mango and Sweet Chilli sauce also being featured at Group Recipes and selected for the Top 9 at Foodbuzz. The recipe was adapted from Chef Sam Leong's cookbook.

I suspect that some of my new blogger friends and readers have missed these two posts. These two dishes are an easy way to impress your guests this Chinese New Year because they are visually stunning and taste luscious. I also like the idea of offering a little more healthy and delicious seafood during a time when we tend to overeat red meat, roasted fowl and other more rich and fatty proteins during Christmas. Get ready for lots of compliments, oohs and aahs when serving, to the last delicious bite.  


For a long time, I have used the photo of the Grilled Cod with orange sauce photo to be Quay Po Cooks’ blog header and I have received lots of compliments, some said the dish looked like a piece of artwork. I will gladly accept the compliment.  Come to think of it, this is a perfect dish for Chinese New Year which is just around the corner. The ingredients used were Bean sprouts shoots, (豆芽; dòu yá, literally "bean sprout/germ" 芽菜; yá cài, literally "sprout vegetable" or 银芽; yín yá, literally "silver sprouts") - 'to your heart's content', positive start into the new year, Orange (柑橘; gānjú) - wealth, good fortune, gold and Fish, the word 魚 (yú), meaning "fish", has the same pronunciation as the word 餘, which is "remain or surplus", i.e.'having surplus money' in a more modern connotation but generally; an increase in prosperity. Have I convinced you to try either of the cod dishes for Chinese New Year reunion dinner? If yes, please click on the photos to get the recipes. 


Yesterday, I made another dish with cod but this time an extremely easy-to-do dish, and not quite as fancy. The recipe calls for only a few ingredients but with a little careful attention, you can create a very impressive and tasty dish. The caramelization makes the cod looks gorgeous. It is a slightly braised cod in superior light soya sauce with honey. So simple to do right? Simple is the BEST and SOMETIMES LESS IS MORE. This phrase reminded me of someone extraordinary.


Nick Vujicic has so much less but see how his less is more? As the holiday season starts and the end of the lunar year approaches, it’s a good time to take stock of what we have and count our blessings. When I count my blessings, I count my family, my relatives and friends, my readers, my blogger friends and my pets, TWICE!





Braised Cod in superior light soy sauce
Adapted from Chef Sam Leong’s recipe

Ingredients:
200gm Cod fish fillet


  Marinade:
    8 tsp Light soy sauce
    8 tsp water
    4 tsp dark soy sauce
    2 tsp sugar
    2 tsp Maggie seasoning


  Egg White Garnish:
    1 tsp cooking oil
    40 ml. chicken stock
    ¼ tsp salt
    a dash of ground white pepper
    1 tsp corn starch mixed with 2 tsp water
    1 egg white


Method:
Combine marinade ingredients. Place cod into the marinade for 30 mins before transferring to baking tray. Bake cod in an preheated oven at 150C or 300F for 10 mins. Reduce to 100C or 200F and bake for another 8 mins. To prepare the egg garnish, heat oil in pan and add chicken stock, salt, ground white pepper and then thicken with corn starch mixture. Pour in egg white and stir until cooked. Serve cod with the egg white garnish.