Chan’s Fish Curry

Fish curry – one of my favourite dishes and as long as it’s done right (not too spicy) your kids will love it too. Once you’re good at it, you can take as little as 30 minutes to prepare it. Most places outside will do fish head curry, but it’s not always easy for us to buy fish heads for our curry, so I normally end up using fish slices.

As I mentioned in the video, this dish probably has more vegetables than fish. Lots of tomatoes, some eggplant and lady’s fingers. Onions are optional. The fish is marinated with curry power and fried separately fish. I always fry my fish because the fried surfaces tend to pick up and hold the flavours of the curry better. The rest is easy. Just put it all together and simmer. I often use yoghurt for this curry, but you can also use evaporated milk. I never use coconut milk – that’s reserved for curry chicken.

Do try this at home. It may be quite a hassle initially, but once you’ve got the hang of it, it should be wonderfully easy. Cooking is a skill every Singaporean should acquire. Once our population hits 6.9 million and all our hawkers are foreigners, you’ll be thankful that you can cook.

© Chan Joon Yee

Hawker Leaks

Unwashed, insecticide laced vegetables. Improperly stored sauces and condiments. Former SMRT blogger Gintai has insider’s information on hawker food preparation. Here are some of the perils of eating out – especially at economical rice stalls.

Read all about it here. More reasons to cook your own and check out this blog regularly for ideas.

Chinese New Year Cakes

You see this every Chinese New Year. These cakes, made from glutinous rice flour, is used as an offering to the kitchen god on Chinese New Year’s eve. After all the festivities, most people don’t know what to do with it.

First, slice up the cake. It’s almost like soap, except that it’s sticky and not slippery.

Next, beat up an egg. This will act as the “batter”. Dip the cake slices in the beaten egg, then get the wok ready. Heat it up with some oil.

Fry the slices until the egg begins to brown.

And we’re ready to serve! Try it. Don’t waste your Chinese New Year cakes.

© Chan Joon Yee