Shixcooks: Ikan Bakar Sambal Cincalok (Grilled Fish)

Ikan Bakar Sambal Cincalok 

(Grilled Fish with Fermented shrimp chili)

Don't run! It tastes nicer than it sounds! What is cincalok? It's this pungent and salty goodness that is OPTIONAL in this dish. hahaha.

But I'm not kidding. It tastes really good. My husband who HATES fish. I mean HATE! He loved this. Even asked for more after eating 2 portions.. That's how I know I can cook it again.

Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 1h

Ingredients:

1. 8 portions of fish (You can use any fish. This sambal begs you to eat it with fish.)

2. 14 cloves shallots
3. 8 cloves garlic
4. 2 inch ginger
5. Fresh tumeric or 1 tbsp tumeric powder
6. 1 inch galangal
7. Juice from1 lemon or 6 calamansi
8. 6 tbsp groud chili
9. 10 pcs lime leaf
10. 5 pcs tumeric leaf
11. A bunch of mint leaves
12. Banana leaf and foil (in a pinch, baking paper works)
13. 3 tbsp cincalok  (fermented shrimp paste - don't be deceived, this salty pungent thing is quite delicious) - optional
14. 2 fresh tomatoes
15. 2 tbsp tomato paste or 10 tbsp tomato ketchup
14. 1/2 cup oil (eyeball this)
15. Salt and sugar to taste

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a wok
2. Ground items 2-6. Spoon the paste into the wok (I counted mine as 12) and fry till fragrant
3. Add in the fresh tomatoes and ground chili (always half the amount of onion paste mixture. Less or more, depending in your tolerance level for heat) and fry till fragrant. At this point, the oil should be rising from the chili mixture.
4. Take a tumeric leaf and 2 lime leaves, cut off the middle stem and slice them thinly. Add them into the mixture.
5. Add in the sugar, cincalok or salt and ketchup.
6. Lastly, add in the juice to taste and turn off the flame.
7. While the chili is cooling, prepare the banana leaves by wiping them clean, cutting them into the right size to wrap the fish in and heat the leaves over an open flame until they become pliable. (Kinda what you do to a tortilla before you roll it up) If you don't have banana leaf, just use foil. If you don't have foil, on baking paper. If you don't have any of them, just use a casserole dish.
8. Separate and cut the mint, lime and tumeric leaves into 8 portions
9. On your banana leaf (or aluminium foil/baking paper/ casserole dish) place the tumeric leaf, 1 tbsp chili we made, fish portion, 1/2 tbsp chili, lime then mint. Then close the banana leaf (use toothpics to secure the end) and wrap it with foil. Repeat until you finish all the fish.
10. Bake it in the oven at 190degC for 30 mins

Shixcooks: Nasi Lemak (Savoury Rice)

So today my sister wanted Nasi Lemak (savoury rice) as her welcome back meal so I made these sides to go with this versatile meal.

Coconut rice (not pictured)

Prep time: 5mins
Cook time 30 mins
Special Equipment: rice cooker

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of rice
• 2.5 cups of water
• 3 tbsp coconut cream/milk
• Pinch of salt
• 1 inch ginger 
• 3 cloves garlic 
• 4 tbsp oil (some prefer margarine or butter)

Method: 

1. Wash the rice in a pot and once done add in the water.
2. Add in the oil, coconut cream and salt and mix well
3. Bruise the garlic and ginger and add into the pot. Bury them well so that they perfume the rice.
4. Let it cook.

Note: Being a rice eater, my rice is cooked in the rice cooker. If you don't have one, cook it in the pot at medium heat until water boils then cover and use extremely low heat under water dries up.
At this point, mix it and turn off the flame and leave the steam to do the work for the next 15 min

Rice Variation

Garlic and ginger are used here as aromatics. This is the way mu mum does it. There are other variations that people normally use which are written below:

1. Omit the ginger and garlic and use 3 pandan leaves instead. Wash them and tie into a knot before adding them in step 3. (Most common)

2. If you would like green rice, replace the ginger and garlic with 5 pieces of pandan leaf. Grind the Pandan leaf into a paste, sieve out the paste to remove the fibres and let the rice be coloured and fragrances by the juice collected.

3. Omit the garlic and use 2 sticks of lemongrass instead.

Side Dishes

I've cooked the rice with grilled fish and kangkong belacan. Usually, it's cooked with other proteins and vegetables like:

1. Fried yellowstriped scad/trevally

2. Omelette

3. sliced cucumber

4. fried peanuts

5. fried dried anchovies

6. Sweet sambal

7. Otak-otak (grilled spiced fish paste)

8. Fried chicken

9. Fishballs

10. Sausages

Do try out these recipes. It's really easy and cheap too!

Shix Cooks: Ayam masak kelantan

This chicken dish is a pansy version of lemak chili padi (chicken in a curry of creamy birds eye chili).  Nicely spiced with just enough heat to prevent the dish from being overly rich. 

Cooking time: 45 min

Prep time: 10 min

Ingredients:

3 tbsp oil

10 cloves shallots

3 cloves garlic

1 inch ginger 

5 red chillies

1 lemongrass

1 tumeric leaf

Approx 700 g chicken (1/2 a whole chicken or 8 pcs chicken wings)

100ml coconut milk

100 ml water

Method:

In a pot, heat up the oil. 

In a food processor, blitz the garlic, shallot, ginger and chillies and put it in the oil. 

While the paste is frying, take only the lower half of the lemongrass and bruise it. 

Then, thinly slice the tumeric leaf. 

Place the lemongrass and tumeric leaf in the pot and let everything fry for about 10 mins. 

Once everything is fragrantly frying, add in the chicken. Mix then cover the pot. Let it cook for 20 min. 

Add in the coconut and water and let everything simmer for 10 mins. 

Lastly, add some salt to taste. 

Stir it well and we're done!