Fish Congee

Weather has been so hot and humid of late that all I wanted was soupy and easy to eat food.  Since we had a fish head and some fish bones in our freezer, why not make some fish stock and cook congee out of it? I prefer congee cooked from soup stocks because the congee are more flavourful cooked that way! More work but all worthwhile.  This healthy fish congee makes a great meal for toddlers, children and adults. One pot for all :)

Fish Congee
2l fish stock
1 cup rice (soaked for 30min at least with a few drops of oil and 1/4 tsp salt)
White Fish slices
3 tbsp minced meat (seasoned with 2 tsp soy sauce, a dash of pepper, 1/2 tsp sesame oil & 1 tsp cornflour)
Salt & Pepper to taste
Spring onion, fried onion & pepper- for garnishing & taste

1. Bring fish stock to boil, drain rice water and pour rice into fish stock. Allow to come to boil and let it be on medium heat, letting rice cooked and thicken into congee texture.
2. Add in white fish slices into boiling thickening congee, spoon into small teaspoons of minced meat and stir well with a ladle to allow congee to cook evenly.
3. When fish slices and minced meat are cooked, season congee with salt to taste.
4. Garnish with spring onion cubes, fried onion, pepper and serve immediately.


How to make Fish Stock?
Bones and head of 1 garoupa, wash and dried briefly with kitchen towel
8-10 dried scallops or 4 medium sized scallops, rinsed
3 stalks of spring onion
1 carrot, skinned and diced
3 to 4 slices of ginger
2.5 litres of water

1. Place water in a big pot, place in dried scallops, spring onion stalks, carrot and bring to boil.
2. In a non-stick pan, heat 1/2 tsp oil and add in ginger slices and fry till fragrant. Add in fish head and bones and pan fried till 3/4 cooked. If you have stock bags, you can place the fish head and bones into 2 or 3 stock bags and place them into the main stock pot, otherwise scoop pan fried fish head and bones directly into stock pot.
3. Allow stock pot to come to a boil, lower heat and let it be on a rolling simmer for 1 or 1.5h. Fish stock is ready for soups, hotpots or congee. (Remove fish head and bones before using for cooking congee)

Salmon Slices in Chilli Oil

During my last few day trips to JB, I got more recipes to add on to my recipe books collection! Always happy to have my hands on new books!

These are the few books that are keeping me occupied currently when I aren't on my feet baking, cooking away or busying with other housework.  Tried one of the fish recipe from the 400 Dishes Seafood Bible (400道海鲜圣经) and made this simple and yummy Salmon Slices in Chilli Oil.  Something different from the usual pan-fried, air-fried or baked salmon.  I prefer my food with some sauce!!!

Am looking forward to trying more of the other recipes on my salmon fillets!

Salmon Slices in Chilli Oil

Original recipe calls for 鲷鱼片 but I used Salmon slices instead

200g Salmon slices

1 Spring onion, cubed

Sauce

2 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp oyster sauce (I used abalone sauce)

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp + 1/2 tsp caster sugar

2 tsp chilli oil (I used 老干妈辣椒油)

2 tsp water

1. Wash, clean and dry salmon. Slice salmon into medium thick slices.

2. Make sauce by mixing all seasonings in a bowl. (Do a taste test at this point, if you want it sweeter, add 1/2 tsp more sugar, spicier, more chilli oil. Get the taste you want at this stage!)

3. Put a pot of water to boil and place in salmon slices. Scoop up with a strainer when it is cooked, about 3min later. Set salmon slices on a serving plate.

4. In a separate pot, bring sauce to boil and drizzle sauce over salmon.

5. Top with spring onion cubes and serve immediately.

Steamed Cod Fish with Minced Garlic

I love to eat fish cooked this way. I love garlic and love how it covers the fishy smell. A simple and easy way to have the fish prepped, cooked and eaten in no time!

Steamed Cod Fish with Minced Garlic

1 sliced of cod fish (roughly 250g)
garlic puree (I used minced garlic instead, from 4 garlic pcs)
10g spring onion (I used 2 pcs of spring onions, cut them thinly sideways and placed them in water with some ice cubes for 30min, the spring onions will curl to form some garnishings)

Seasonings
1 tbsp Oyster sauce
3 tsp water
1 tsp caster sugar

1. Put steamer to boil on high heat.
2. Combine oyster sauce, water and sugar in a bowl and mix well.

3. Wash cod fish and dry with a kitchen towel, then place on a plate for steaming.
4. Spoon minced garlic over cod fish and drizzle seasoning sauce over. Top with spring onion curls.
5. Place cod fish to steam for 7 min on high heat ot till cooked. Serve immediately.

Air Fried Salmon in Black Pepper Sauce

Told you we are into salmon nowadays ya! :P I even bought a book on seafood just for the fish recipes!

Starting to like eating fish meat now as compared to before. I guess my hubby has a little influence to me on that because he loves to eat fish.

Short short post here as I am hurrying for dinner. A hungry woman is an angry woman :P

Air Fried Salmon in Black Pepper Sauce

2 Salmon Fillets
SingLong black pepper sauce
Spring onions, sliced thinly

1. Wash and pat dry salmon fillets with a kitchen towel.
2. Preheat airfryer to 180deg C for 5min.

3. Put salmon fillets to airfry for 5min at 180deg C.
4. Open and brush on a thick layer of black pepper sauce onto front and black of salmon fish and continue to airfry for further 4min or till done.
5. Carefully remove salmon fillets and garnish with spring onions. Serve immediately.

Air Fried Salmon with Garlic Powder & Italian Herbs

Air Fried Salmon with Garlic Powder & Italian Herbs

2 Salmon Fillets
Dash of salt
Garlic powder
Dash of black pepper
Italian Herbs

1. Wash and pat dry salmon fillets with kitchen towel.
2. Season fillets with salt, black pepper, garlic powder and Italian herbs, wrap with cling wrap and leave in fridge for 30min to an hour.

3. Preheat airfryer to 180deg C for 5min.
4. Put salmon fillets to airfry at 180deg C for 8 to 10min or till done. Serve immediately.

Salmon with Salted Soy Bean Paste

Hubby and I have been eating lots of salmon and cod fish recently. We buy a whole salmon fish which is much cheaper this way. Cod fish wise, we buy it in slices. Not a wise choice but let's just say at least I am picking up on eating more fish and it is way healthier than consuming seafood :P

Flipping through the stack of recipe books, I realised I have many salmon fish recipes to try my hands on. More to come!!!

For this salmon with salted soy bean paste, I paired it with plain porridge as the soy bean paste was salty and the plain porridge could take away part of the saltiness. A different taste of pairing soy bean paste with salmon, not too bad if you are not into cooked salmon because soy bean paste helps mask the cooked salmon smell.

Salmon with Salted Soy Bean Paste
Recipe adapted from the asian oven by Jo Marion Seow with slight adjustments made

*Original recipe uses Halibut fillet but I replaced it with salmon fish

4 Halibut fillets, about 150g each (I replaced it with 2 salmon fillets)
3 tbsp salted soy beans (tau cheo) (I used just 1.5 tbsp soy beans)
1 clove garlic , peeled and grated
1 thumb-size knob ginger, peeled and grated
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp cooking oil
1 spring onion (scallion), sliced

1. Preheat the oven to 200deg C.  Line a baking dish with non-stick baking paper.
2. Place halibut fillets in the baking dish in a single layer.

3.  Mash salted soy beans with the back of a spoon.  Mix garlic, ginger, mashed salted soy beans, sugar and oil.  Spread this mixture in an even layer on the halibut fillets.  Bake in the oven for 6-8 min.

4. To check if the fish is cooked, insert a fork into the thickest part of the fillet.  If the fish breaks up easily, it is done. Otherwise, bake for a further 1-2 min.
5. Once the fish is cooked, sprinkle spring onion on top and serve immediately.

Cod Fish with Ginger-Garlic Sauce

A simple and delish cod fish dish that requires no effort at all.  Steam the fish, prep the sauce, drizzle the sauce onto the fish and voila! a dish is cooked and done!

The big box sale by Marshall Cavendish some 2 months back or so got me crazy and I lugged back a huge amount of recipe books, and I have got no reasons to not try out recipes from the stack of books lying in my study room. So yeah, start of the recipe book cooking from now.

Cod Fish with Ginger-Garlic Sauce
Recipe adapted from the asian oven book by Jo Marion Seow

*Original recipe snapper fillet but I replaced it with cod fish

1 thumb-size knob ginger
2 large garlic cloves, peeled
1, spring onion (scallion), diced
2 tbsp cooking oil (I used 1.5 tbsp)
2 tbsp light soy sauce (I used 1.5 tbsp)
4 Snapper fillets, about 150g each (I used 1 cod fish fillet, roughly 300g)


1. Scrape the skin off the ginger using a spoon. The rounded edge of the spoon is able to navigate the curved surfaces of the ginger and remove just the skin.
2. Finely grate the ginger and the garlic.  Put the grated ingredients and spring onion into a small bowl. 

3. Heat oil in a small saucepan until it is smoking hot.  Pour the oil onto the ingredients in the bowl and give everything a stir.  Now add light soy sauce and stir to combine.  The sauce is done.
4. Preheat the oven to 200deg C.  (I put the cod fish to steam instead of baking it)
5. Place fish in a casserole dish.  Cover tightly with foil and bake for 6-8min.  (Put a steamer to boil, place cod fish on a steam plate and put to steam for about 8min, or till done.)
6.. Remove the cooked fish from the oven.  Discard the foil.   

7. Spoon the ginger-garlic sauce over the steamed cod fish and serve immediately.

Note:
I did not add the diced spring onions with the ginger-garlic.
I sliced the spring onions sideways, thinly and about 2-inches long and placed them into a bowl of iced water.  Let it stay in for about 45min and the spring onions will curl.
Remove spring onions and drip off remaining water.  Spring onion garnish is ready for use!

Teriyaki Salmon 日式照烧汁煎三文鱼

Another udon meal but with teriyaki salmon. A set meal! Now you can see I have been eating fish meat regularly? Hehe... 

I love how I can control the sweetness of the homemade teriyaki sauce, in fact I read that Japanese hardly or never use teriyaki sauce from the bottles. 

Keeping it short here. Be back soon!

Teriyaki Salmon
Recipe by just One cookbook

2 salmon fillets with skin (3/4 inch thickness; skin will hold the flesh together while cooking.)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. flour (* see the note below for why using flour)
½ Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. sake (or dry sherry)

Seasonings
1 Tbsp. sake (or dry sherry)
1 Tbsp. mirin (or 1 Tbsp. sake + 1 tsp. sugar)
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce

1. Combine the ingredients for Seasonings and mix well until the sugar is mostly dissolved (or you can microwave for seconds). Rinse the salmon and pat dry. Season the salmon with salt and black pepper on both sides.
2. Sprinkle ½ Tbsp. of flour on one side of salmon and spread evenly. Flip over and sprinkle the rest of flour on the other side. Gently remove the excess flour.
3. In a frying pan, add the olive oil and melt the butter over medium heat. Don’t burn the butter. If the flying pan gets too hot, reduce heat or remove from the heat temporally.

4. Add the salmon fillets, skin side on the bottom. Cook the salmon for 3 minutes, or until the bottom side is nicely browned.
5. Add sake and cover with lid. Steam the salmon for 3 minutes, or until it's cooked through. Remove the salmon to a plate.

6. Add the Seasonings to the pan and heat up. When the sauce starts to boil, add salmon back in the pan and spoon the sauce over the salmon.
7. When the sauce thickens, turn off the heat. Plate the salmon e on warmed plate and serve immediately.

Notes

* By coating the fish with flour, we keep nice umami and juice inside. Also, the texture will get crispy and the sauce will be nicely coated.

White Bunashimeji & Vege Udon Soup

4 cups Quick dashi stock
2 packages udon
1 pack white bunashimeji (white beech mushrooms)
Few slices of leeks
Half a carrot, sliced thin

Seasonings
2 Tbsp soy sauce (I used only 1 tbsp)
2 Tbsp mirin (I used only 1 tbsp)
2 tsp sugar
¼ tsp salt

1. In a medium saucepan, add dashi and the seasonings and bring to a boil.

2. Add carrot, white bunashimeji, leeks.
3. Add the udon and cook for 3-5 minutes.
4. Serve udon and soup in bowls and top with green onion and additional toppings of your choice.

Honey Glazed Salmon 低卡路里蜜汁三文鱼

Looking back at the number of posts I have kept up to date, I realised I do not have much of fish dishes. Since this is gonna be a year that I would like pay extra attention to our health (not that I normally neglect our health hor!), more fish dishes will be appearing here. 

I am not one who loves eating fish. I am afraid of choking on the bones, which I did many times and got too scared from those incidents, so I might as well keep away from eating them. I know I cannot do this for long! starting to buy more fish from the wet markets now for our meals.

How do you like your salmon fish to be cooked? Eh... I actually prefer to eat raw salmon slices, but if to eat it cooked, I like it panfried or baked. 

Came across this really yummy and healthy salmon dish. I like that the ingredients are easily found in all, if not most households. Gather them and make this dish quick!

Hubby kept nodding his head in satisfaction with each scoop of the salmon meat into his mouth. I instantly knew this recipe is here to stay and a must-share!

Honey Glazed Salmon
Recipe adapted from Low Calorie Cooking

4 5 oz. salmon fillets
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 Tbsp honey
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F

2. Place the salmon fillets, skin side down, on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. In a small dish, whisk together the oil, honey, and garlic and set aside. Sprinkle the salmon fillets evenly with the salt and black pepper.Using a basting brush, spread the honey mixture evenly over the salmon fillets. (I sprinkled some dried parsley flakes over the salmon fillets)

3. Bake the salmon for 20 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. (I squeezed some lemon juice over the salmon pieces and serve immediately)

Teochew Style Steamed Pomfret

How do you like to have your fish to be cooked?  I like mine steamed.  I feel that a fresh good fish is best eaten steamed, this way the sweetness of the meat can be savoured rightaway, plus this method of cooking is healthy too! Oh, I should also add that it is also easy and fuss-free to prepare too.

I belong to the Teochew dialect group, and being a teochew, I am no stranger to the Teochew steamed fish (潮州蒸). Mum cooks them often since we were young, till now!

I like that there are many ingredients added to this steamed fish dish because I can save on prepping other dishes. Go on and say I am lazy. Everyone has their down and out days and I am no exceptional. I experience those days too, and when I do, I get the easy way out.  I cook real easy dish to pair with rice and that's it. Eat out? Yes, that is another escape route which we turn to sometimes, but homecooked is the preferred. I love feeding my hubby with homecooked food :P

Teochew Style Steamed Pomfret
(Serves 2)

1 medium white pomfret
3 or 4 dried chinese mushrooms (rinsed, soaked and cut into thin strips) - you may reserve the mushroom water for seasoning
2 pcs salted plums (use a spoon to mash it a little, deseed)
1 pc pickled mustard (salted vege/kiam chye) - I used 1 small pack of pickled sichuan vege, rinsed 1 time and drained
1 small pc ginger (thinly sliced into strips)
2 small red chilli (cut into small pcs, remove as much seeds) - optional
Half or 1 box tofu good for steaming (cut into smaller pieces) -
1 medium tomato (washed and sliced thinly)
salt

Garnish
1 stalk spring onions
1 stalk coriander (I did not use)

Seasonings

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp chinese cooking wine/Hua Diao Jiu

A dash of pepper (optional)

3 tbsp water, or more if desired (I used the mushroom water)

1. 30 minutes before putting the fish to steam, make 2 slanted deep cuts on the fish. Rub some salt on both sides of fish. Stuff some ginger into the fish stomach portion. Cover with cling wrap and leave in fridge.

2. Put a steamer or wok filled with enough water for steaming to boil.

3. Sprinkle leftover ginger strips all over the fish. Spoon mashed salted plums on sides of fish, line sides of the fish with tomato slices, tofu slices, pickled vege, sliced chinese mushrooms and lastly sprinkle red chilli evenly.

4. Mix all seasonings together and spoon over fish.

5. Put to steam on high heat for 10 to 12 minutes or till done.

6. Garnish with spring onions and coriander. Serve immediately.