I guess, I was a cat in my previous life. Why? Because I do looooove to eat fish, namely all kind of fish dishes. And this deep fried fish with Chili Sauce (Pla rad Prik) is one of my favorite. Every year when I went back to visit my family in Thailand, my sister and my mother would always cook Pla Rad Prik for me almost every three days. Too bad that I have to cook it myself when I'm in Germany :-(
Ingredients :
- 1 whole fresh tilapia (weight about 600g)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/2 cup oil for deep frying
- 1 clove garlic
- 3 shallots
- 7-8 Thai chilis (prik chi fa)
- 1/4 cup tamarind marinade
- 2 tbsp. fish or meat stock
- 1 tbsp. palm sugar
- 1/4 cup fish sauce
Clean fish, wipe it up with the paper towel, cut both sides like a crisscross and sprinkle with salt. Heat oil in a wog or pan on high heat, as soon as the oil is hot, put the prepared fish to fry and immediately reduce the heat to meduim. Keep deep frying until both sides are crispied. Take it out from the pan, drain in a paper towel and lay on the serving plate.
Peel garlic and shallots. Wash chilis and remove stem from chilis. Then pound garlic, shallots and chilis together. Take 1 tbsp. of fried fish oil and heat in a pan on medium heat. Stir fry the pounded mixture in oil until fragrant. Add in tamarind marinade, fish stock, palm sugar and fish sauce. Stir well until the sauce is cooked. Taste, the sauce should has 4 full-flavoured tastes : spicy, sour, sweet and salty. (If you prefer sour, add more tamarind marinade, if you'd like to get more sweet then add more palm sugar or if you think it isn't salty enough, just add more fish sauce.) Reduce the heat to low, let it gently boil and further cook whereas occasionally stirring until the sauce is getting thick.
Pour the sauce on top of the fried fish and decorate with chili and spring onion. Have a nice meal!
