INTRODUCTION

Before we have kids, me and my wife used to dine in Thai restaurants for its delicious spicy and tangy food. One of the commonly ordered fish dish is this Thai steamed fish.

This dish is very refreshing, tangy and spicy hot and we love the soup that taste a bit like their famous tom yam soup. The fish are succulent and fresh. With the arrival of the kids, I have not been eating this dish for at least 10 years. They don’t take spicy or tangy food. Introducing these type of international cuisines  to them will have to wait at the later stage.

However, when I cooked this,  I realized that it is still too early for them.. They still do not like the herbs like lemon grass and coriander. During servings, they will take a piece of fish meat and dip into cold water before eating despite my assurance that the spiciness and tanginess have already been toned down..

I have prepared this dish twice within a period of 2 weeks. During my first illustration using red snapper, it seems that some members of the Facebook Group are not comfortable to eat a fish that looked afresh despite it was properly cooked. I am also hesitant to issue the report as some readers may not feel comfortable also. I have therefore decide to prepare another round  humbler version using a much smaller sea bass.

This dish is very easy to prepare and personally, I found that the following ingredients create a distinct taste and flavour of the dish when compared with other type of steamed fish: Coriander roots, lemon glass, lemon and fish sauce. All the others ingredients will enhance the taste but I will deem it to be more of an optional ingredients. If you can’t assemble all ingredients, just get ready the above mentioned 4 ingredients to have a reasonably authentic Thai Steamed Fish .

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from: Steamed Fish Recipe » Temple of Thai

Servings: 4-6 adult servings

• 0.5kg – 1 kg fish of your choice

Steaming gravy

• 2 stalks of lemon grass (white portion)
• 10 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 10 bird eye chilli, sliced
• 2 normal red big chilli, sliced
• 1 tablespoon of chopped coriander roots or coriander stems
• 3 tablespoon of fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon of white sugar
• 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed Thai lime juice * (about 3-4 Thai Limes)
• 1/2 cup of chicken broth or 1 teaspoon of chicken seasoning powder

* Note that the lime shall be Thai Lime instead of local calamansi or limau kasturi. Please refer to picture below.

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Chopped or slice the lemon grass, coriander roots, coriander leaves, bird eye chilli, chilli and garlics until fine. Extract the juice of Thai Lime, add the sugar, chicken stock, sugar, fish sauce and the chopped herbs. Stir until well mix and set aside.

• Clean the fish and score a few knives on the body to facilitate steaming. Transfer the fish to the steaming plate. Steamed for about 10-15 minutes using high heat or when the fish is about 75% cooked. Open the lid and pour the sauce onto the fish. Continue to steam for another 5 minutes or until the fish is cooked. Time of steaming will very much depends on the size of your fish and the shape of the fish. Bigger fish will required much longer steaming. To test the doneness, skew the thickest part of the meat and if it can easily be pierced through, it is considered as done.

CONCLUSION

This is a simple recipe. If it is just a small piece of fillet, you can actually combined all into one step. I saw some recipe just steamed the fish without any herbs and pour the sauce on top of the steamed fish before serving. Well, the flavour is there and i will leave it to the readers to decide.

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