FooDcrazEE - eats - Pempek

Hello all ! Just came back from day off and didnt manage to tell all of you ....guess I forgotten - apologized for it.

My Brother in law came back from Palembang and brought back some goodies from there.

A kind of fish cake similar to our keropok lekor or keropok lekur but the difference is in the fish they used. It is rare to have this fresh water fish called Ikan Belida in Malay for food in Malaysia. Guess its over fishing again........whats new, eh ? chuckle !

More info here. The fish in this family have elongated bodies that are laterally very compressed. On account of this unusual shape they are often popularly known as knife fish. Their scientific name alludes to the relatively small dorsal fin that looks very much like a small pennant or flag above the body. The ventral fins, if present at all, are only rudimentary. The pectoral fins however are very well developed and so is the anal fin that runs along a large part of the lower edge of the body like a long narrow ribbon and merges with the small caudal fin. They are also known as Feather Fin Fish.















I dont really know what they are called in Indonesia but from the plastic bag, my guess will be Pempek. According to some Indonesian website, they Belida Fish must be at least 3 kg in size for a good quality Pempek and then mixed in with Tapioca flour or what the locals called ,Sago or Sagu.. Click here for more details. Isnt the 2 item a different thingy ? I meant the tapioca flour and sago. I know they are different as one is made from Cassava and the other a kind of palm sort of.After mixing, shape the seasoned dough into elongated cylinder shape and steamed till cook. The same as our keropok lekur but our's uses variety of fish normally from sea but Indonesian namely Palembang area, uses only Fresh Water Fish.
















We had 2 different vareity of this wonderful Pempek - the usual cylinder shape and this ( pic above ) is like a bag and filled with extra large duck egg. Cant tell for sure its Duck Egg but thru the texture, colour of egg yolk and taste, it does point towards DUCK egg. Oops! Shouldnt have taken the picture on this glass top table. Now you can see the tiling in the living hall and the newspaper is used so, I dont drip the sauce all over. Sorry no pic of sauce. All I can see of the sauce in the packet is tonnes of sugar. They even crystalized on the plastic bag itself. Mixed in water and dip in. Wooweeeeee..................its damn spicy. I down 3 cans of icy cold 100 plus within 10 minutes even before we can finish the pempek. Kalah cili padi, oi! ( literary in Malay meaning - even the cili padi ( hotness) loses out )
















































The cylinder shape Pempek - top picture with flash, bottom without.

Is all the picture better in quality now or what ? I took picture with my old hardy CANON IXY 3.2 and a 1 megapixel camera phone from my 3230 Nokia mobile. Dont think you guys will know which is which , eh ?

Will post about what I have cooked at home later.

Till Then

Cheers !