duri & chips

Chopchopkalipok would like to take this opportunity to pay a little tribute to fish n chips and advise fellow fishing kakis not to discard duris overboard. Please practice catch and release if there is no intention of eating the cat fish.

nineteen tor yu tin

This simple dish is the first and only mat salleh dish that chopchopkalipok had in his younger days. Where got chance to taste other western food like sirloin steak, rib eye steak, lobster thermidor? The availability of western food was also very limited in the early 70's. Road side stalls do not sell western food as the general working class population can barely afford it. Decent western food was only available at those "posh" restaurant. Imagine this, how can my dad afford to take us to "posh mat salleh" restaurant when his monthly wage was only $350 in 1970. The closest we can have is, lb try to "copy" the ang mohs by frying fish with her own batter recipe. Her recipe was more like the "kampung Pagoh" style goreng pisang recipe which was very heavy as the batter had eggs in it. The french fries were also made from local kantang cut into strips.

Fish n chips days were only limited to Christmas and very special occasions. So sister and I really looked forward to it. Though the fried fish may taste like goreng pisang, the kantang french fries soft and limp that need plenty of help from Viagra, we would wolf down as much as our little tummies could hold as we did not know when the next fish n chips day would be...

fast forward to present day

Ok, now that you have portioned and readied the duri fish fillet. You just need to line them up in a shallow container.

Marinate the fillets with generous amount of Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce. Enough to coat the fillets with a little access but not drown the fillets.

Sprinkle white pepper, salt, 七味粉 only on the topside of the fillets as shown on the picture above. As chopchopkalipok uses agaration technique, this is good enough for seasoning the fillets. However, if you have the burning desire to add more or less seasonings, please go ahead. Cooking is not rocket science ya.

Cover the container with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 3 hours.

Remove from fridge and turn over the fillets. Take this opportunity to rub the seasonings on the other sides. However, you have to be very gentle as the fillets break up quite easily. Cover and into the fridge the container goes for another 3 hours.

Chopchopkalipok recommends a minimum of 4 hours for duri fillets as this fish is pretty bland in taste. However, if you are using a more delicate fish like ikan merah, you may want to reduce the marinating timing to so as not to "overwhelm" the taste of the fish itself...

To prepare the batter, you will need,

all purpose flour 3/4 part
rice flour 1/4 part
tiger beer
cooking oil

Mix the flour and rice flour well. Rice flour will give the extra crisp. However, adding too much will make the batter heavy.

Add in beer at the same time whisking the batter. Agaration the amount of beer to be added. the right consistency should be, the batter must be able to coat the back of the spoon well.

Add in a few table spoon of cooking oil and whisk till the batter is smooth and free of lumps. Set aside the batter for 20 min before using the batter. I would prefer to keep the batter chill while standing the batter.

tip: a drop or two of yellow coloring into the batter will give that long john silver fried fish color...

the kantang

Your choice of crinkle cut or shoestring cut readily available from super mart.

tip: I would prefer to "thaw" those ready to fry frozen french fries before I attempt to fry them. I would use an electric fan to blow dry the fries. I find that this will prolong the crisp of the fries.

cooking

Always fry the french fries before the fish if you are like chopchopkalipok who prefer to use one set of oil for the entire preparations. However, I do not like to keep the oil for second usage. Times are bad, oil very expensive.

Chopchopkalipok prefers to fry in a wok as it is more economical. Haha. More like shallow frying instead of deep frying... Chopchopkalipok will not go through the process of how to fry the french fries and the fish as this had been discuss in my June entry, "let's fry them". However, I would like to share a few tips about my experience with fish n chips my style...

Remove the marinated fillets from chilling about 25mins before frying. Do pat dried the fillet with kitchen paper towels before dipping into batter.

Coat the fillet with batter and allow excess batter to drip off before frying. Fry the fillets one piece at a time. Remove any broken bits of batter from the oil before frying the next fillet.

You may want to drip a few drops of batter to "test" oil, adjust fire if necessary. The first fillet to be fried will be your gauge on how hot the oil is. Adjust fire if necessary.

Remove the fried fish when the batter starts browning. The batter will continue to brown with the residual heat.

Chopchopkalipok like to rest the fried fish and fries on a rack to allow draining of excess oil before transferring to paper towel for more oil absorption.

Last, eat fish n chips when it is piping hot...

"nolema said...

Bro,just a tip... Chill the Beer. The colder you get the mixture, the lighter the batter will be. I even do it with a bowl of ice-water on the bottom of the bowl with the batter.

Another tip. Add a tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese into the batter. Gives it better flavour & makes the batter stick to the fish better."

duri the cat

Duri, a common catch on almost every other trip to Horsburg lighthouse, Mapur and Tg Pinang. Favor for it's fighting quality if you hook a big one. However, duri scores low points as a food fish. I'm not too sure if this fish really tastes that bad or simply as the name implies, a cat fish, which is a turn off to all anglers...


Anyway, on my Mapur trip a couple of months back. We had good or bad fortune (depending on how you look at it) of hooking up a dozen of decent size cat fishes in the range of 4-10kg. These duris pales in comparison to ang cho in terms of eating quality and some kakis lamented that all these duris will be dumped overboard as we had to make more space for better fishes in our eskies. Chopchopkalipok felt that it is a really a waste to dump all these overboard just because they are cat fishes and decided to fillet the catch with a 4" bait knife. Not exactly an easy task to work with a small knife on a huge carcass. Chopchopkalipok's motto is "make the best out of a situation". With little patience, the carcasses were dressed and the fillets wrapped properly in plastic wraps and chilled down with crushed ice.

Chopchopkalipok's method of storing fish/seafood is,

Never wash seafood or fish with fresh water before storage or at least minimize the contact with fresh water. Only wash with fresh water when you are just about to cook them.

Keep the skin on if any or as a whole. The skin helps to keep the meat good for long storage in the freezer.

Double wrap the seafood/fish with cling wraps before storing in the freezer will prevent frosting on the meat and delay deterioration of the eating qualities of the fish .

These pictures of the fillets show how well the meat were kept after 3 months in the freezer. As you can see, the skin is still "shiny" and the flesh is firm and pinkish in color...


Remove the skin starting from the tail with a sharp knife big enough for the fillet. Make a shallow cut that allows you to "grab" the skin of the tail end. With the sharp edges of the knife facing outwards and already making the first cut on the flesh. Pull the skin towards you while pressing the knife sharp edges against the skin. The hand that hold the knife maintain an angle while the sharp edges separates the meat from the skin. It is no easy feat to maintain the "angle" as angled too shallow, you will waste a lot of meat. If you cut too deep, you will cut through the skin. The hand that pulls the skin may want to pull it in a see saw motion that allows the knife to cut more efficiently...


Once you have successfully removed the skin, you will need to remove the blood residues along the lateral line of the fillet and discard this source of "fishiness".

The fillet is now ready to be portion into however you want them to be. The picture above shows how the fillet is portioned for fish n chips servings.

I would like to start from the rear of the fillet. Using your 3/4 of your palm as a simple guide of how the big the portion should be. Well, there is no hard and fast rule on how big the portion should be, if you have a small palm, the whole of the palm will be quite right. If you are a gorilla, 1/3 of your palm will be good enough.

Start the cut in a single stroke with a shallow angle will enable the portion to look presentable and not too thick in the center to allow shorter cooking time and even cooking of the fish. To make the portion look nice and straight, you may want to trim away any excess flesh and save these trimmings for fish stock or for porridge. However chopchopkalipok do not bother with trimming these away as the portion will be coated in beer batter anyway...

Do stay tune for duri n chips recipe...

hot pot

One of chopchopkalipok favorite pastime is to window shop at Giant Tampines simply because the car park is free. Ha ha... It is incredibly expensive to park in Singapore and a delight to find a "free" one.

I chanced upon a medium size clay pot with simple flora designs selling for $5. The clay pot's glazing is not of exceptionally good quality but the fit of the cover to the pot is just perfect. Looks sturdy and well built. For the low price of $5 what more can I ask for right? I did not even bother to "condition" the clay pot by soaking the pot in a tub of water overnight. Sifu told me that by soaking the pot into cold water will prolong the lifespan of the pot when fired in high heat...

Wife rang me up one day that she would like to have something "soupy" when she is back from flight. I was so preoccupied that day with my other love (aero-modeling) that I had conveniently forgotten her request till she was standing in front of the door... A hungry woman is an angry woman. Whoops... The clay pot and frozen chicken stock is my life saver for that day.

The beauty of having a hot pot is that the only work is to go to the super mart. Pick up some vegetables, mushrooms, seafood or whatever you fancy. They even have pre sliced meat platter now. Do you know that Singaporean are spoilt with so many choices that it takes more effort to decide what to buy then to prepare the meal.


You can choose to boil up the chicken stock over the stove before "dumping" all the ingredients in and eat them at one go. Or you can heat up the stock over a portable stove and "cook as you eat". The key thing about hot pot is the stock. Do not over salt/season the stock in the early stage of cooking hot pot as the ingredients will gradually flavor the stock with it's goodness... I do not like to crack an egg in a hot pot either as it will make the stock murky and unappetizing. If you fancy having an egg, I would suggest to hard boil quail eggs first and the hot pot is used to "heat up" the quail eggs. You may want to use the same method for noodles, dumplings and wantons too.


Do not forget to add 葱油 to the hot pot to give that extra flavor. Chopchopkalipok will also prepare a simple dipping sauce for boiled meat and seafood.

dipping sauce recipe (1 serving),

lightly brown chopped garlic 1 tsp
chili sauce 1 tbsp
tomato sauce 1 tbsp
hot dog mustard 1 tbsp
maggi seasoning a few dashes
七味粉 a few dashes
葱油 1/2 tsp

May entry for chicken stock recipe.
June entry for 葱油 recipe.

nineteen tor yu tin

I’m always fascinated by the Indian man frying my favorite mee goreng at the make shift hawker stall next to the Malayan railway station in late 70’s.

The way he grabbed the yellow noodles and chucked them into the kuali with much vengeance.

Wah, so “man”…

The sizzling sound of diced bean curd, pre-cooked minced mutton, diced potato, tau gay and all ingredients mixed into the fiery kuali.

A series of hard knocks on the kuali with the long handle chahn which produced the high pitch “klang klang” completed the showmanship.

He would then add the “secret” tomato ketchup mix last, to give that unmistakable flavor before turning up the heat for a quick final stir.

I would always stand as close as possible to watch the man in action. To feel the intense heat on my cheek and savor the “aroma”. I would “replay” the same scene of me emulating him in frying the mee goreng in my childish mind.

Heat oil in kuali.

Grab a bunch of noodles and throw in.

Fry.

Throw in diced bean curd, pre-cooked minced mutton, diced cooked potato, tau gay, green peas, vegetable.

Fry.

Make a hole in the heap of noodle. Add more oil if necessary. Crack an egg in it.

Fry.

Lower Heat.

Add secret mamak tomato mix, msg, soya sauce.

Full power to the rocket booster!!

That’s the way to fry a mee goreng.

Power!

I relished every moment of that action…

lb would always caution me to back off from that “rocket booster”. Just in case, the close proximity of the propane tank and heating element did not agree with one another and decided to explode…

lb– lao bu / 老母