Baked Fish with Soy Dipping Sauce

Lately, been craving for fish. I loved the baked pomfret fish I made a few weeks back, and decided to have more. It's slightly different, especially the dipping sauce I made. It is very delicious and I bet you would really love it!

I would suggest to get medium sized fish for this, and the ikan kembung (Indian Mackerel) is perfect for this!

:: Baked Fish with Soy Dipping Sauce ::

5 Indian Mackerel (Ikan Kembung)
1 small lemongras, thinly sliced
10 thinly sliced lemon pieces
5 Daun Limau Purut (Kaffir Lime Leaves)
3 shallots, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
Aluminium foil, enough to cover fish while baking

:: Soy Dipping Sauce ::
3 tablespoon kicap lemak manis (dark sweet soy sauce)
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1/4 large tomato, chopped
3 cili padi (Bird's eye chili), chopped
1 tablespoon lime juice

Preheat your oven (medium heat). Wash and trim fish. Rub oil and cover the fishes with turmeric powder, including the inside parts. Stuff the inside of the fish with some lemongrass, lime leaves and shallots.

On the aluminium foil, arrange some lemon slices and arrange fish on it. Add a few more lemon slices on top of the fish and seal the aluminium foil. You may want to leave a small hole on top to let off some stream.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the fish is cooked. Serve with dipping sauce.

To make the dipping sauce, combine all ingredients in a dipping sauce bowl.

Note:
Try it with your favourite fish.
You can add a small cut of banana leaf on the aluminium foil to give it more taste.

Simple & Healthy Homemade Beef Burgers

I'm approximately 370 kilometers away from home, no access to a kitchen to cook, not much food choice - and looking at this burger I made some time ago makes my tummy growl. I miss my burgers. A long overdue post, now it is here to share with all.

My hubs is a meat person - chicken being his most favourite while others are acceptable. When it comes to burgers, the most popular and easy meat to use is the minced meat - I've found some recipes to make delicious beef, chicken, fish and vegetarian patties. I've yet to try some of them, but with beef - I have and it tastes really nice.

Homemade beef patties are really good and healthy as compared to fast food burger patties which is fattening and contains preservatives. Do you realise how much fat it contains? Though I must say, buying readily minced meat also do contain some fat, it is not as bad as those ready made frozen beed patties.

It is very simple to make your own delicious beef patties. Adding some oats and minced carrots and celery makes it healthy too, not to mention a way to make your family (esp. kids) eat their greens. You know some will just remove the lettuce and tomatoes from the burgers, but not the minced veges in the patties!


Here's a picture of how to prepare the beef patties:
Picture 1:
You will need:
350gm minced beef
1 egg
1/2 green onion, chopped
2 tablespoon breadcrumbs/biscuits
1 tablespoon oats
1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon of Italian herbs
dash of salt & pepper

Picture 2:
Mix well the chopped onion, breadcrumbs, Italian herbs and oats.

Picture 3:
In a medium bowl, mix the minced meat alongwith other ingredients using a spoon, and combine well.

Picture 4:
It is now ready to be formed into patties. Makes about 4 medium patties.

Form a ball with the mixture and using your hands, gently press them down to about 1.5cm thick. I do this as I did not use any patty moulds. The sides will tend to break a little, but simply form it gently again and place on an oiled grill pan, about 3 minutes each side until cooked.

For the burger:
Cut the buns in half, butter them and place on the grill for a minute, this will warm up the buns and give the surface a lovely taste. I love doing this also because it adds a little crisp to the buns.

In order: Place the first half of the bun on a plate and add some lettuce, onions, the patty, some cheese, your favourite sauce (mine was BBQ), tomatoes and place the top part of the bun to form the burger.

Serve immediately!