Nyonya Food, seafood dishes

In this page, you get to see mouth watering popular seafood food of the Nyonyas, food I eat since I was a child. Dishes that uses prawns, fish and crabs. As we lived in an island, many of our dishes are freshly cooked with seafood.

As early as 6 years old, my weekends and holidays was dedicated to preparing this dishes. So the taste and flavor when you learn cooking the dishes is something you want to savor and understand why I love our food so much. Come to the classes and experience the joy as  I explain so you will be transform to my childhood.

For me, I considered our usage of galangal, lemongrass, fresh turmeric with red chillies and shallots as the friends of Nyonya cooking. Shrimp paste, garlic, dried chillies are an equal must.

Starting fire using charcoal or firewood is something I am glad I am not using anymore.

Sambal Udang or Stir Fried Spicy Prawns

Sambal Udang is on top of the list of Nyonya comfort food. A dish I remember pounding and grinding chillies on the grinding stone. It goes very well with white rice. When comes to cooking, it is a fast dish to cook. Wok, stir fry and roll to your plate.

But having to pound the wet ingredients to made the stir fried spicy prawns super delicious and it is no longer an art.

A wok or pan and a chopper does the trick well in modern times. The only challenge will be undressing the prawns. If you can overcome that, you get a great dish.

For vegetarian version,  you can use firm tofu, okra, long bean, eggplants, sticky beans or petai or hard boiled egg.

Penang Nyonya Otak Otak or Fish Mousse

Making Penang Nyonya Otak Otak to some of my guest is a challenging task. Reason being,  having to wrap fish cutlets in wet marinates and placing wild peppers leave is daunting to them.

But seeing what fresh ingredients goes into the recipes makes them so excited that it is like a “do or die” task. What the heck, try it they say.  For me, it is real fun as it is so mysterious to them how we eat this fish wrapped in a banana parcel. I told them, there is no rocket science is involved.

The friends of Nyonya cooking is use in good proportion to marinate any firm white fish for Otak Otak. Prawns or crabmeat can be used too. On the whole, Otak Otak is fun to make.  You get to learn how to steamer.

Sambal Goreng or Prawns in cashew nut sauce

Sambal Goreng or prawns in cashew nut sauce is our top winner dish. The layers of cooking leaves a rich and light dish. We share with you the secrets how to makes your chilly so aromatic that, this is one dish everyone scarp the plate clean. It is finger licking good, I can tell you.

Eggplants lovers, this is one dish you would love to know. My sister Junnie is happy whenever we cook this dish. She will say, cook more the white sauce for me. Then she takes it home and add on stir fried eggplant.

Fish curry tumis

Fish curry tumis,  is fish cooked in sweet and sourish tamarind broth. It is one appetizing dish that you got to watch your rice intake. You may need to refill rice many times. Any firm fish cutlet or mackerel is suitable to make fish tumis curry.

The friends of Nyonya cooking of galangal, lemongrass and fresh turmeric with a little coriander powder makes the fish a fusion between Malay and Indian cooking. It can be served as a hot pot curry. More rice anyone?

Eggplants, okra and tomatoes are good selection for vegetables for Curry Tumis.

Tamarind Prawns or Assam Hae

Assam Hae or stir fried tamarind marinated prawns is another easy dish you can cook to perfection.

A fairly good size prawns makes a great Tamarind prawn dish. Though simple to make, the technique lies in marinating and stir frying the prawns. But there is no hard and fast rules, just simple basics honest to goodness dish. It goes well with Nasi Lemak, our coconut cream rice set.

Masak Titik, spicy shrimp soup

Masak titik is quite a special soup. For my British guest, they love it as a winter warmer. Spicy, hot prawn ball soup is good for cold days.

We use watermelon flesh. Really, you might ask. I will say,  yup the red part of water melon, you serve as fruit. The part you throw away, the white part is what we use for the winter warmer soup. Thinly sliced and add in the prawn stock which we will teach you how to do it. Cutlets or chunks of sweet corn in spicy shrimp soup is another variation.

Assam Pedas Prawns or Spicy tamarind prawn light curry

Assam Pedas Prawns is a light spicy tamarind curry. It is watery spicy prawns soup and for sweetness, pineapple slices goes a good long way.

Again the friends of Nyonya cooking is here to stay. Tamarind cream squeeze from the pulp is great for the dish.  You can serve with hot rice or scalded vermicelli. This spicy curry is be serve in home made Laksa meal or with deep fried popiah. Nom Nom yummy is the word you utter.

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