I asked a Malay lady choosing the selar fish. She said can use selar fish for assam pedas. Can use dry chilli or chilli boh. Better to ask a Malay, the cooke the best assam pedas...
How am I going to piece together the cooking process of assam pedas ?
Then with the big trolley in hand, I went to the books section, hoping to search a cookbook with the assam pedas recipe. I thought I can steal a snapshot of the recipe with my camera but alamaks, Tesco does not sell books or magazines anymore.
Then I got lucky, I bumped into a client, she told me the basic ingredients and cooking process.
Then I met up with hubs and his associate, also a Malay lady, I took the opportunity to check her version.
So, ok, I am all set to brew up a fiery assam pedas.
Got home, searched for the best looking recipe on the internet and compared notes with what was told to me. Confirm ! Recipe's the same...
So here goes :
Here's what I did :
Ingredients :
Selar fish - 800gm (abt 4 fat meaty fish)
Tomato - 2
Okra - 10
Long Beans - 4 long strings
1 fistful of assam jawa soaked in 2 bowls of warm water, strain and discard seeds
Dry chilli - 15, soaked in warm water till soft
Shallots - 5 bulbs
Garlic - 3 bulbs
Serai - 1 stalk
Belacan - abt 20 sen coin size
Gula Melaka - abt 20 sen coin size
Pound dry chilli, onions, garlic and serai (use only the white fragrant part, abt 2inch from roots)
Fry in 2 tablespoon of oil till fragrant and add in half a bunga kantan. Add belacan.
add assam water and gula melaka, simmer for 10 minutes.
add salt to tast
add fish, okras and long beans, simmer in low heat till fish is cooked.
Best served individually , easier to pick on the fish !!!
Best served with plain hot rice.. Thumbs up from hubs and the maid.. Yummmzzz
