Vietnamese Baked Fish















I was in J O's Forum and Stefanie a great chef from the island to our south, asked me to try out this dish. Here's what she wrote - copied word for word from here.


"quote"
Posted on: 12.05.06 12.51pm GMT

a lovely Vietnamese dish

So I got these lovely fish fillets from the market today...any firm fleshed fish will do...and I was chatting away online with my cousin's Vietnamese fiance.
She gave me a fantastic way to cook these fish and I tell you...we were blown away!

YOU NEED:
4 fish fillets
3 to 4 birdseye chillies,minced,use less if you're in danger of catching fire!
zest and juice of a lime
1 lemongrass,white part of the bulb,sliced fine
small handful vietnamese mint
fish sauce
brown sugar
1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
minced garlic,loads of it

HOW:
Preheat your oven to 200C.
Slash thru the thickest parts of the fish to even out cooking.
Heat up some oil,about 2 to 3 tbsp and saute the garlic till just golden.
Set aside.
Rub the fish with the lime juce, brown sugar,turmeric and place them individually on pieces of foil,or better still,banana leaves.
To release the natural oils of the banana leaves,quickly pass them over your stove flame,then flip over do the same.
Sprinkle the lemongrass,chilli,lime zest and enough fish sauce to taste over.
Drizzle with the garlic & the oil and seal the packages.
Bake till just done,about 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile,mince up the vietnamese mint..sprinkle over the fish and serve with rice.
WICKED!

"unquote"


Since I am in the middle of training and working hours, had my colleague to help out preparing the ingredient and cooked this dish. All I did was just printed out the recipe and discuss with him to modified the ingredient as we didnt have some of the ingredient. We dont have Vietnamese Mint or Daun Kesom, so I didnt put any. Since we ran ot of lime and to lazy to go and get from other kitchen, we replace the zest with kaffir lime leave. Instead of brown sugar, we uses Gula Melaka.





























The ingredients used. Top picture from top left - lime juice, fish sauce, chopped gula melaka and sauteed garlic in oil.

Bottom picture = chopped chilli padi, kaffir lime leave, tumeric powder and chopped lemongrass.
















The only fish we have was Dory, not as firm as I like them to be but what the heck, gotta try out the recipe. All marinated to out taste.















No banana leave or lotus leave, so, aluminium foil will suffice. Topped with the sauteed garlic. I started to drool thinking of the marination and the flavour they will impart to the fish fillet.















All packed up and ready for baking.















Aint it wonderful to have a commercial combi oven like this. It can steam and baked. Set at 200C and since it was quite a small piece, 5 minutes will suffice.















The baked fish. Somehow, it lacked of juice. Must be the damn lousy fish. Thinking of using the whole fish for this dish. Should be GREEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT !















For photo effect only.


Out of 10, i give it a 8. It was really simple and delish. The fragrant of kaffir lime leaves, imagine if I have used the lime zest instead....drool...............

OH ! Before i forget, we used up only 200 gm of fish fillet and we added about 1 tablespoon of everything except for the garlic and kaffir leaves. Not enough though as it should be more juicy from Stef's description. Anyway, its delish ler.........<-------- trying to sound more like Malaysian Chinese. Chuckle !



BTW, thats my dinner. Yummy!

Cheers !

18 comments:

rokh said...

ooo yummy yummy. love your improvisions

boo_licious said...

Wow! Looks extremely good. Must try this out.

FooDcrazEE said...

rokh - thanx

boo - u must go in the forum and join us. She got a lot of great recipe.

mae said...

Ni how, <----- trying to sound like chinese!

Hi Michael, all those ingredients sounds trully delicious with the fish. I love using lemongrass as you know.

Off topic, thank you for all your kind words about me in Ceendy's site. You are not so bad yourself! Honestly, thank you for all the compliments... you're so sweet.

Also, please would you mind changing the comments section as it only allows blogger users to comment? I am resulted to use my blogger id all the time. Sorry for the whinging! lol. I'm also sorting out a way to add the remember details button on my site... just for you. hehe

shawnchin said...

Looks blardee good man!!

The Phosgene Kid said...

That does look good. I have a couple fillets in the freezer, have to give them the treatment. Would the banana leaves helped keep the fish moist?

FooDcrazEE said...

mg - TRY using the haloscan for comment. ITs on.

Shawn, ok ler....made some mistake though...lolz


Phosgene - yeah the banana leaves would help in keeping the fish moist

Babe_KL said...

sounds easy and delicious. will keep this at the back of my head ;-)

Pink Elle said...

Looks great! I'll give it a shot! Did your Dory taste funny after it was cooked? The one and only time I tried cooking Dory (in a stirfry with ginger and some black sauce), it had an underlying muddy-type taste that didn't make it too popular. Hopefully with the amount of spices you have here, it'll mask that taste.

FooDcrazEE said...

it sure is easy Babe

Sue - it does have the fishy after taste and I dont quite like it. Plan to cook this again and trying for a whole fish.....might need to readjust the recipe to my taste and I'm sure Stef wont mind....

Audrey Cooks said...

will definately try this dish, can imagine the taste already lor ... lately, I ran out of ideas on how to cook fish *bored*

5xmom.com said...

Hey, I like the little saucers and all those condiments. Just like the real pro. I'd never do that 'cos I need to wash them up later. Hahaha.

Btw, I was referring to my photo blog at
http://digitalphoto.malaysiabest.net

The recommendation is from the blog readers, not mine. Me no expert ler.

Joycelyn said...

sounds yummy! thanks for sharing

Robin CHAN said...

looks yummy, sounds like a lot of work..

HMM

Unknown said...

looks absolutely killer-taste dish - will definitely try since I got a couple of kurau fillets sitting in the freezer!

FooDcrazEE said...

thanx Lilian

J - thanx for dropping by. Cant beat ur blog can I ? Chuckle!

Robin - nah - its simple

Cath - do let u sknow the outcome.

Primrose said...

Fish is so healthy. I love it. By just looking at the condiments, I thought you were going to tell us about yee sang. Hehe!

Audrey Cooks said...

I tried it today and I must attest "it's great!" everyone ate it loved it! Thanks Foodcrazee or Mike is it?, Forum and Stephanie!I substituted lemon grass for kaffir lime leaves.