2 large slices of spanish mackeral/tenggiri fish (quarter or halve it)
150g lady’s finger
2 tomatoes
1 stalk lemon grass
2 tbsp thick tamarind juice
1 cup coconut milk(optional)
Salt and sugar to taste
Pounded
10 cloves shallots
5 dried red chillies
5 red chillies
1in shrimp paste/belacan
½ in fresh turmeric
Procedures:
Wash and rinse lady’s fingers.Cut lady's fingers into pieces and tomatoes into quarters.Smash lemon grass with the back of a knife.
Heat oil and fry pounded ingredients until fragrant.This will take about 10 to 15mins.Add in 1 cup of water , tamarind juice,salt and sugar and bring to a boil.Add in coconut milk if using.Add in lemongrass,lady fingers,and tomatoes.Cook for about 5mins and finally add in the fish .Cook until the fish is soft, for another 5mins and then serve. This dish is slightly spicy.You can reduce the red and dried chillies into half to lessen the spicyness. Or you can discard the seeds in the chillies.
Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/196557_nyonya-fish-curry#ixzz1hq2jmPBk
Nyonya food, as the name suggested, is the food of the Baba-Nyonya in Malaysia and Singapore. Known also as the Peranakan or the Straits Chinese (Straits-born Chinese), these groups of people are descendants of the very early Chinese immigrants to the Nanyang or 南洋 in Chinese–which literally means the “south sea” region.
The origins of the Baba and Nyonya could be traced all the way back to the Chinese Admiral explorer Cheng Ho, who sailed across the Indian Ocean more than 400 years ago to Melaka, a busy and prosperous trading port back in the early 15th century. Nanyang or 南洋 refers to the the Malay peninsula and the islands of Java.
Nyonya cuisine is generally referred to as the result of inter-marriages between the Chinese immigrants and the local Malays, which produced a unique cuisine where local ingredients such as chilies, belacan (Malaysian shrimp paste) lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, etc. are used. To assimilate to the local culture, these early days Chinese immigrants also adopted local Malay traditions–the men were called Babas and the women were called Nyonyas…
Some historians argued that the inter-marriage was not necessarily the roots of the Baba-Nyonya culture; they claimed that Nyonya is a precisely a word used to describe a Chinese lady who has adopted Malay dressing and cooking while maintaining Chinese culture. This is actually a true statement; my late grandmother who was a Penang Nyonya certainly didn’t marry a local Malay man. In fact, she married my late grandfather who came all the way from China during the Qing dynasty. I heard stories from my late father that he came complete with Qing dynasty’s costume and the signature “Queue” hairstyle: half shaved head with a long pigtail. However, my late grandmother was always dressed in Nyonya kebaya and sarong, with her hair braided neatly in a bun.
Regardless of the history and origins of Nyonya food, making Nyonya food is no simple affair. The unique and highly flavorful cuisine requires abundant amount of time, patience, and skills. A true Nyonya would spend hours and hours pounding her rempah (spices) with batu giling (a flat slab of stone to grind the spices) to cook up authentic Nyonya dishes such as Perut Ikan(pickled fish stomach with vegetables stew), Salted Fish Pineapple Curry(Gulai Kiam Hu Kut in Hokkien), and other scrumptious Nyonya concoctions.
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