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 !