Fish in Spiced Soy Sauce (Ikan Masak Kicap Berempah)

Yesterday's cooking session was somehow a chop-chop one.  Our day started very early.  Suhaym was in one of his cranky moods wanting to be carried all the time.  He woke up as early as 6.00 am nowadays.  His constant cries made Sayf the light sleeper, wide awake very early as well. This means I can't go back to sleep after morning prayers.  My kitchen-ing assistant and I have been passing Suhaym back and forth to each other whilst managing our own duties.  Sayf was his usual self, simply just adding on to our job scope in the house.  Going around the house littering and spilling drinks or food here and there and making a fuss whenever he hears the word "no" being uttered and toned with an exclamation mark.

I was still a little bit tired and sleepy to make breakfast so we ordered McDonald's home delivery.  That was at about 10.40 am.  Our chaotic breakfast was more of a brunch afterwhich we kind of lazed around.  Oh well, what can you expect to be doing on a Sunday?  Then of course, once the issue of breakfast was settled, I had to think about lunch.  I asked my kitchen-ing assistant to clean and prep my pomfrets for a somewhat simple dish.

Despite all the hassle of a cranky baby, I managed to cook up something for lunch, Fish in Spiced Soy Sauce.  Of course I snapped some photographs whenever I can!

We had our lunch at almost 4.00 pm as we were still quite full from our brunch.  Our lunch was simple but good, Alhamdulillah.  We got to eat without much chaos and we went through the rest of the day doing the usual things that a family with a toddler and a baby would do except that my husband had to set aside some time to finish up his homework.  Close to 5 pm, my mother in law brought Sayf down to the playground near a block away from our flat.  It was of course, PEACE on earth for a while.  Only mothers would know the kind of peace I am talking about, I guess.  I managed to steal some time and posted the recipe for the cream cracker layered cheese cake on my blog whilst my kitchen-ing assistant put Suhaym to nap. 

Then, we had the cream cracker layered cheese cake for our night time munch followed by another round of ghost movie.  So that's it for the uneventful (was it?) re-cap of my boring weekend.

Nothing else to report so I shall just get to the ingredients.

10 to 12 pieces of fish of your choice - cleaned and marinated with two tablespoon of turmeric powder and salt to taste and fried till cooked and set aside
1 large onion - finely sliced
2 tomatoes - cut into fours

5 green chillies (or bird's eye chillies, if you like) - slit in halves and cut into twos (I omitted them this time as my husband wasn't feeling too well in the stomachs)

1 lemon grass - cut into two and crushed
1 tablespoon of fish curry powder
1 teaspoon of sugar
salt to taste
1-2 small bowls of water
About 1/2 to 3/4 teacup of sweet soy sauce - to suit your taste (your choice of brand but I used Habhal's brand)

(*items to be blended)
5 red chillies
1 large onion
5 shallots
6 garlics
2-3 cm ginger


Method:

1. Heat oil from fish frying in pan and add finely sliced onions. Saute for a few seconds.

2. Add in the crushed lemon grass and saute for about two to three minutes.

3. Add in the blended ingredients and sugar and continue to saute for a minute or two.

4. Add in the fish curry powder and stir.

5. Continue to saute until oil separates.

6. Once oil has started to collect on the top of your sauteing mix, add in the sweet soy sauce and stir.

7. Add in water (less or more depending on how much gravy you would like). Add in salt to taste and bring to a boil.

8. Add in tomatoes. This would also be a good time to add in the green chillies if you like. Simmer for a minute.

9. Bring fire to medium and add in the fried fish pieces. Fold them into the soy sauce gravy.

10. Simmer for another two to three minutes. Off fire and serve.

Serve with white rice and Happy Kitchen-ing!