Whole fish- Thai style @ Bangladeshi kitchen

In US one fish is found in abundance & cheap is Tilapia. This is the fish, u can find anywhere in any style. Whole, cleaned, fillet & taste also do not differ much than the Bangladeshi tilapia.

I cooked this tilapias in every style, the one I liked most was the Thai style. By now, in most of our Bangaladeshi cook has cooked some or other Thai dish. Thai food is not only getting popular in restaurants but we are cooking thai foods in our kitchen too.

Following is a fish recipe I have tried with pomfret & Tilapia. Both was tasty. You can use Red Snapper, cat fish or any other fish of your choice, it will come out great.

The recipe calls for Banana Leaf for wrapping, I have tried the recipe in both Banana leaf as well as aluminium foil, I think the aluminium foil one turned out better & safe too. As, my banana leaf was burnt & started creating so much smoke that my smoke detector started alarming.

Any way, it will be your personal choice.

Recipe follows;

Ingredients:

1 whole Tilapia/ or fish of your choice

Oyster sauce-4 tbsp

Soya sauce-4 tbsp

Fish sauce-1 tbsp

Garlic-4 pods smashed & roughly chopped

Thai chillies/green chillies- smashed

Salt- just a little to wash the Tilapia. for the recipe, the sauces will have enough salt, there is no need to add extra salt.

Green onion-thinly sliced.

Vinegar-2 tbsp.

Aluminium foil/ Banana leaf.

Method:

Clean the tilapia/ fish & soak it with salt & vinegar. Leave the fish for 10-15 mins.

Wash the fish again very well. Make two- three deep slashes on each side, till the bone.

Make a marinade with oyster sauce, soya sauce, fish sauce, chili & garlic as well as sliced green onion. marinade the fish for 30 mins, using 1/2 of the marinade.

Wrap in a foil or banana leaf & steam the fish for 15-20 mins in a steamer. U can use a bamboo steamer for this purpose or steam basket. If you do not have any of these, just use a heavy serving dish ( cornigware/ Pyrex), put the fish in the dish. Take a pan big enough to fit the dish & put some water, 1/2 way to the dish, put on the stove & let the water be warm enough to create steam. Once steam starts coming out cover the pan with a lid. Steam for 15-20 mins.

The fat over the slashes will start appearing. be watchful to the water level as it may dry out easily. Add water as needed.

Now put the fish over a baking tray along with the foil, put the oven onto a broiler or the highest temp you have in your oven. put the remaining marinade over the fish & bake/broil until the skin becomes brown. Now, in Bangladesh we don't have these oven but many houses has toaster ovens available, you can bake it in that oven or grill it in the oven or just using a old oily korai & you can fry that. Any method you use end point will be a crispy brown skin on the fish. Turn the fish once to brown both side.

Serve over a bed of sauteed spinach. just brown some garlic clove in little oil & saute the spinach using some salt. you can also put some red chili flakes &/or a pinch of nutmeg. A bed of simple rice or steamed vegetable will also be nice.

Enjoy! healthy eating.