SC - fresh eggs?
Serian
serian at uswest.net
Wed Sep 13 12:31:34 PDT 2000
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa <jenne at tulgey.browser.net> wrote:
>I have. But it was fish, and it was in the US. Little crisp salted whole
>fish, fried. The concept sounded good, but they didn't get eaten, even by
>me, and I TRY everything.
In Indonesia there are several types of little crisp dried salted whole fish.
One common type is called "ikan teri" (that's pronounced EE-kahn TREE).
These are fairly crispy just as they are, dried, but usually they are
fried with a paste of chilis or chopped chilis, shallots, and garlic
and sometimes even chopped tomatoes, and served as a side dish, NOT
as a course by themselves, eaten with meats, vegetables, and lots and
lots of steamed long grain white rice.
My mouth is watering at the thought of Sambal Ikan Teri. I can post a
recipe if anyone is interested. Of course, it isn't "period". I don't
know of any documentation on "period" Indonesian food, although there
are probably some texts written in Dutch or Portuguese from the 16th
and 17th centuries.
I think there are similar small fish used in other parts of Asia,
both Southeast and East.
And the smell of frying trassi/blachan/shrimp paste makes my mouth
water, too. Sure the smell of a block of this stuff is a bit, errr,
strong, but you only use a small amount to season the dish you're
cooking. There are different varieties throughout Southeast Asia and
China. When i lived in Jakarta, the woman next door began every lunch
by frying a dab of shrimp paste and the smell to me is like the bells
for Pavlov's dogs.
As for fish sauce, several cultures use it in Southeast Asia, and
each has a slightly different variety. My favorite kind is Thai. My
least favorite is Philippino. In Thai cuisine the flavor nicely
complements the sharp and sour flavors of many dishes, and cuts the
richness of coconut milk.
I grew up in a household in which the only fish we ate was canned
tuna (in tuna salad sandwiches) and canned salmon (in salmon
croquettes), although we did eat crustaceans (shrimp, real Maine
lobster (back when they were big), and crab). My dad used to go
fishing quite often, but we NEVER ate the fish he caught. My mother
complained that fish tasted fishy. Once in a fancy restaurant in
Chicago, where i'm from, my grandmother sent her plate of some sort
of white-fleshed fish back to the kitchen because it wasn't browned
(ugh!) - they brought it back brown and all dried out, as the
customer desired (yuck).
I learned to cook fish after i stopped being a vegetarian. I'd cook
it for myself sometimes when i was visiting my parents, and of course
my mother just had to taste whatever i was eating. Soon i was cooking
fish for her. I just did it simply, either in the oven or on the
grill, with a little butter or oil, salt, lemon juice, and green
herbs like tarragon. I cook it so it is cooked through, but still a
bit moist.
I've since learned a number of different ways to cook fish and also
eat a wide variety of stuff from the sea, including jelly fish, sea
cucumber, octopus and squid, and shellfish, such as oysters, clams,
scallops, etc. (well, we ate scallops in my family, but i don't think
anyone knew what the live creature looked like).
But as someone commented, lots of Americans won't eat fish. And for
some reason, if you let them see where their meat comes from - any
kind, land, air, or sea - they're especially squeamish. I love
Chinese whole cooked fish. So what if the head is on? I really don't
understand the big deal. Just eat the meat and leave the head if you
don't want to eat the cheeks and eyes.
Anahita al-shazhiyya
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