Baked Fish

Another day, another fish dish! I'm so in love with fish, I made another fish, this time, pan-baked. I marinade the fish pieces first so that the taste of the marinade will permeate the fish. This is best eaten with steamed rice but I ate this fish with fried vermicelli instead. Anyhow, this is my late grandmother's recipe.

Now the next question is, what is pan-baked? Pan-baked is basically baking the fish in a pan. Kind of like pan-grilling but covering the pan so it becomes baking instead. Why is it pan-baking? Just because. I just want to try new methods of cooking as I've never tried before.

Baked Fish

Serving: 3-4 persons

Marinade

• 1/4 medium sized galangal 
• 1/4 medium sized ginger
• 1/4 medium sized tumeric
• 1/2 lemon grass
• 6 dried chillies (I added more for heat!)
• 1 teaspoon of tamarind paste (I actually also added more as I LOVE sour food)
• 6 small sized red onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 5 candle nuts
• 1/2 cup of water
• Salt to tastte

Blend all marinade ingredients together until it forms a paste. Marinade the fishes and keep the marinated fishes in the fridge for at least 1 to 2 hours.

Ingredients

• 5 pieces of fish (I used cut pieces of Spanish mackerel aka ikan tenggiri)
• 6 tumeric leaves
• 1 tablespoon of butter

Cooking Method

1. Marinade the fish for at least 1 to 2 hours. The longer you marinade, the tastier the fish meat will be. However, don't marinade for more than 12 hours as I assumed the fish will taste too sour due to the tamarind paste.
2. Cover the fish pieces with tumeric leaves and pan-baked for 20 minutes or until the fish is cooked. By the time the fishes are cooked, the liquid produced by the marinade and fishes will evaporate, producing a moist baked fish dish. I waited until the bottom of the fishes and tumeric leaves to be slightly charred as I love the charred taste.
3. Once the fishes are cooked, put a dab of butter on top of each fish. 

Enjoy!