Coconut Poached Fish

Since I cooked the Saucy Chicken Mango from the May 2010 issue of Yummy Magazine, my brother and I have already tried different dishes from the said magazine. It was basically our first time to cook that much dishes from a magazine.

This was the third recipe I tried (the second was the Tilapia Tropicale, which I posted last Friday). Reading the directions for this one, I figured this would be an easy dish to do, so when my mom and I last went grocery shopping, I included the ingredients as well.




Coconut Poached Fish
{Serves 4}

Ingredients:

• 400 ml coconut cream
• finely grated zest from 1 lemon
• juice from 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons sambal oelek, or chili sauce
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 4 (120-gram) firm white fish fillets
• 1 cup baby spinach
• steamed rice, to serve
• shredded onion leaves and sliced chili (optional)

Directions:

• In a large frying pan, combine coconut cream, zest, lemon juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, sambal oelek and garlic. Bring to a boil on high, stirring.
• Reduce the heat to low and add fish fillets. Simmer gently, covered, for about 8 to 10 minutes, until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Remove fish and stir through spinach leaves.
• Serve fish on steamed rice, drizzled with sauce and topped with shredded green onion and sliced chili (optional).

For this dish, I used dory fillets. Truth be told, I was a bit hesitant and afraid to try this recipe because it was the first time I would taste dory fish, and the first time I would use chili sauce. Actually, I had to use the LKK chili garlic sauce because I cannot find sambal oelek and / or chili sauce in the supermarket. The dish is somewhat on the pricy side, and I was praying hard that I may be able to pull off this dish.

The dish was very, very easy to make. Just one note to share if you want to try the recipe - don't add all the lemon juice. It said in the recipe that it requires juice of 1 lemon, but we all know lemons come in different sizes, and some lemons would be juicy, others aren't. Just put in a little of the lemon and just gradually add to suit your preference. On my part, I poured all the lemon juice, so the outcome was a bit on the sour side, but brother said it was just okay.

When I served this, I also served some left over crabs, and I tested if the sauce would be okay for crab meat, too. It tasted okay... and we had this conclusion that the sauce is okay for any seafoods. We might try this dish again sometime, using prawns.

If you want to try this recipe or the other easy to cook recipes, just go and grab a copy of the May 2010 Yummy Magazine. You can check their website at - http://www.yummy.ph/ - or their facebook page at - www.facebook.com/yummymagazine - they also have a twitter, and you can follow them at - www.twitter.com/yummyph.

*** Jenn ***