fish porridge

Basa Bocourti Fish

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Basa Bocourti Fish

The Basa Bocourti fish as the name suggests is really a Basa Fish aka the Mekong River catfish commonly found in Vietnam’s boutique street wet markets. They are very fleshy and are commonly found in their rivers. The fish when cooked has a nice sweet flavour unlike the cheaper Toman fish

This fish is also nicely filleted and packed at NTUC. Good for me because now I can just pick it up from the supermarket without having to haggle with the street side vendor, although I would gladly do the latter. There is something whimsical about market place values that the supermarket just can’t emulate.

Boil a very nice pot of porridge and lightly salt the Basa Fish and you will have a very nice fish porridge. The flesh when cooked is paper white and also flaky although not as firm as the Red Garoupa. There is virtually no bones with the fikkets which is strange but I am not complaining. So it is very safe for toddlers to have them for meals.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Basa Bocourti Fillet (about $2.50 for a rather large fillet, portion enough for 3 pax)

The rest of the ingredients and steps you can follow the recipe for my Red Garoupa Fish Porridge.

Bon Appetit!

Red Garoupa Fish Porridge

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Red Garoupa Fish Porridge

If there is a fish porridge that I like better than Batang or Bay Kah fish porridge, it would be Red Garoupa. The firm flesh of the fish just makes for very nice fish porridge, though some older folks will say that it is loh koh (read: hard to eat). I say porridge but you might call it congee. It is the same to me actually.

But it is a fish that is a joy to work with. Slicing is so easy and the flesh is firm and tender at the same time. Just a simple marinate of light soya sauce and the fish slices when cooked is a lovely sweet savoury flavour, and flaky too because that is an indication of freshness. Then add a garnish of shredded Chinese celery and you are good to go.

Recipe

Ingredients

Red Garoupa steak (about 150 grams for 1 portion)
Chinese Celery 2-3 stalks (these are very thin stalks)
Light Soya Sauce 1 tbsp
Sesame Seed Oil 1 tsp
Dried Chinese Scallops 5 pieces
Half a cup of Rice (to be boiled for porridge)

Method

1. Boil the uncooked grains of rice in a pot for about 15 minutes over medium heat. Longer if you want it to be very mushy. Add more water if you like it watery. Throw the scallops into the pot to flavour the porridge.

2. Slice the flesh of the Garoupa meat thinly and marinate it with the soya sauce and sesame seed oil. Leave it in the fridge for about 10 minutes.

3. Once porridge is boiling and rice grains are soft and broken down, you can add the fish slices in to cook. As seafood doesn’t need to cook very long, about 5 minutes would be suffice. The flesh should be paper white and nicely curved after cooking.

4. Add the shredded Chinese celery into the porridge for that lovely flavour. Add some more light soya sauce if you want your porridge tastier.

Bon Appetit!

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Marinated slices of fish

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Shredded Chinese celery

Batang Fish Porridge

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Batang Fish Porridge

Another comfort food for those that are in dire need of much comfort. Yes, fish porridge is definitely on my list of comfort foods. I dont usually do fish porridge the way my mum likes to cook it, but since I haven’t been feeling all that fantastic, I thought I should do it like how mum cooks it.

She loves to use bay-kah fish which I don’t really have at ntuc, so I guess I just have to make do with batang fish. Same same but slightly different. The texture of the meat is kind of like tuna in a way. Maybe one of these days I might experiment with tuna to make fish porridge.

Mum would skin off the fish, chop the meat into a paste and season it with light soya sauce and sesame seed oil. All the ingredients that makes it great. I don’t know what else or maybe I wasn’t really paying attention. So this is my version of my mum’s fish porridge.

Recipe

Ingredients

A cut of Batang Fish (usually the lower part is best)
Some Tong Chai (this is some kind of pickled vegetable that is for flavouring soups)
Light Soya Sauce
Sesame Seed Oil
Half a cup of Rice (this is for cooking porridge)

Method

1. De-skin the Batang Fish or remove as much meat as possible. The meat is then chopped aggressively as if to mince it.

2. Once it is suitably minced, add light soya sauce and sesame seed oil to marinate the fish paste.

3. Once the fish paste is ready, you can spoon dollops into the plain porridge and stir until it is cooked.

4. Cooking plain porridge is easy. Add rice to a pot and boil with water until the rice breaks down.

5. Add tong chai to flavour the porridge and you can eat.

Bon Appetit!