Recipe | Fish in Coco Cream Rice Topping

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It's Friday today... time to go meat-less once again. I remember, we always eat Ginisang Munggo (mung beans) every Friday. However, one doesn't have to eat munggo every Friday. Lent may ask us to sacrifice some privileges, but it doesn't mean we have to eat the same food every weekend. Here's a recipe you might try... which I got from Yummy Magazine's "Baon" Cookbook.


Fish in Coco Cream Rice Topping
{serves 4 to 6}

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon annatto powder
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons sliced ginger
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 fish bouillon cubes
• 3 tablespoons curry powder
• 3 medium potatoes, cubed
• 1 red bell pepper, cubed
• 2 cups coconut milk
• 2 pieces eggplant, sliced
• 1 kilo cream dory fillet, cubed
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon liquid seasoning
• 2 cups coconut cream

How to Cook:

• In a pan, heat oil then add annatto powder. Saute garlic, onions, ginger, and bay leaves. Add fish cubes and mix until dissolved. Stir in curry powder.
• Add potatoes, bell pepper and carrots. Cook for 2 minutes then pour in coconut milk and simmer for a few minutes.
• Add the eggplant and cubed fish. Simmer for 3 minutes then season.
• Pour in coconut cream and continue cooking for 10 minutes, or until all vegetables and fish are tender and sauce is thick. Season to taste.

Yes, it is simply Fish Curry, and one Christmastime, I served Mixed Seafood Curry for our Christmas Day lunch. It had shrimps, squids, scallops, and fish... but this would be the first time I used just fish. On the cookbook, it said one could go all-vegetarian by omitting the fish and replacing it with tofu. We only had 1 cream dory fillet in the freezer, so I decided to buy some firm tofu and add it as an extender in the dish.

Instead of bay leaves, I decided to put in Kaffir Lime leaves, simply because we have them in the garden. :) It gave my dish the Thai taste, ummm ummm!

I loved the combination of fish and tofu because of its contrast in texture (I did fry the tofu first as I don't really like mushy tofu). By the way, if you don't have annatto powder, you can just do what I did - heat oil and add some annatto seeds and cook it until the oil turns red-orange. Discard the seeds, and please make sure you take out all the seeds before you start sauteeing.

Every once in a while, it's nice to serve curry in the house. Next time, I might go for all fish... I just wonder if putting different kinds of fish would make a good combination.