Fried Fish in Green Sambal

Fried fish with sambal is a very popular Malay dish in Johore. There are many variations of sambal sauce and this one use fresh long green chili. Each time I have this dish, I remember the shop we used to patronize near my house, Lembah Impian. Unfortunately, the shop has since closed down.

This is a very simple dish that goes so well with a bowl of hot steamed rice. Hub and my son are capable of polishing off huge portion of rice whenever I cooked this dish. It’s easy to prepare too.

For the fish, I always go to the Chinese fishmonger near the Kepayan stalls (near my brother’s house) along the Lintas highway coming from the airport to Penampang. The prices are slightly higher but his fish is so much fresher than those in Penampang Market.

Fried Fish in Green Sambal

Ingredients

500gm Mackerel fish - Gutted

10 pcs fresh long green chilies – roughly chopped

1 yellow onion – peeled and cut into wedges

4 shallots – peeled

6 cloves of garlic – peeled

1 tsp shrimp paste sauce

¼ cup of Tamarind juice (½ tsp of tamarind paste dissolved in ¼ cup of water)

Salt – to taste

Sugar – to taste

Instructions

Clean the fish then score a couple of slits in the thickest part of the fish and dry the fish with kitchen towel.  Rub salt and turmeric powder over the fish including the cavity.

Heat up a deep wok and add enough oil for deep frying and when the oil is very hot, fry the fish until golden brown and crisp. Remember not to over crowd the wok. Drain them on paper towels to rid of excess oil then transfer into a serving dish. Set aside.

Using a pestle and mortar, pound the shallots and garlic. Transfer into a bowl and set aside. Then pound the chilies. Be careful when you do this as you really do not want to get any chili in your eyes. 

Heat up another wok and add about 3 tbsp of oil then sauté the yellow onion until soft. To this, add the garlic, shallots, green chili paste and shrimp paste then sauté until fragrant.

For the shrimp paste sauce, I normally use this.

Add the tamarind juice and season with salt and sugar. Let it simmer for another 2 minutes then pour the sauce over the fried fish.

Voila!