Sunday, February 15, 2009
Making fishballs
Learning a new trick
Fishballs sold at supermarkets and wet markets are becoming very unhealthy,
so I decided to make them myself.
My recipe came from the WWW and I condense it as follows:
Obtain a slab of about 300 grams of very fresh tenggiri or batang fish, or dorab or parang.
Using a spoon, scrap off the flesh, just the flesh.
Make a little bowl of water,
about four tablespoons will do for 300 grams of fish,
flavoured with half a teaspoon of salt and pepper.
Add two tablespoons of cornflour and that bowl of water and mince the lot in a food processor.
If you do not have a food processor, just chop them with your cleaver and then add the flour and water.
To make fish balls springy and full of doink doink, put the blob of minced fish into a large bowl.
Get another bowl of water for wetting the hands.
When our palms are wet, the fish flesh will not stick to our palms, making it easier to handle.
Take that blob of mushy stuff and throw it against the side of the bowl.
Keep wetting your palms if you have to.
Keep doing it, slapping and hitting the blob until it is shiny and firm.
And that will be the fishball mass.
When you have this fishball mass ……
You can squeeze it into marble size balls and drop them into your cooking soup.
You can spread it on soyabean skin and deep fry them.
You can stuff it into vegetables like okra, bitter gourd and taupok to make yong tau foo.
The possibilities are endless …
This recipe is easy to follow, and my first attempt was passable but not as I had expected.
The fishballs were too dense and hard, very doink doink, in fact too good as some would say.
I wanted them to be less dense and soft.
I suspect that this is related to the proportion of flour and water.
This experience has taught me a few things which will make my work faster and better the next time.
Also the next time I will use a whole parang fish, about one kilogram in weight.
The parang is the ideal fish for fishballs although a bit difficult because of the numerous bones.
But never say die, man.
Ron
Fishballs sold at supermarkets and wet markets are becoming very unhealthy,
so I decided to make them myself.
My recipe came from the WWW and I condense it as follows:
Obtain a slab of about 300 grams of very fresh tenggiri or batang fish, or dorab or parang.
Using a spoon, scrap off the flesh, just the flesh.
Make a little bowl of water,
about four tablespoons will do for 300 grams of fish,
flavoured with half a teaspoon of salt and pepper.
Add two tablespoons of cornflour and that bowl of water and mince the lot in a food processor.
If you do not have a food processor, just chop them with your cleaver and then add the flour and water.
To make fish balls springy and full of doink doink, put the blob of minced fish into a large bowl.
Get another bowl of water for wetting the hands.
When our palms are wet, the fish flesh will not stick to our palms, making it easier to handle.
Take that blob of mushy stuff and throw it against the side of the bowl.
Keep wetting your palms if you have to.
Keep doing it, slapping and hitting the blob until it is shiny and firm.
And that will be the fishball mass.
When you have this fishball mass ……
You can squeeze it into marble size balls and drop them into your cooking soup.
You can spread it on soyabean skin and deep fry them.
You can stuff it into vegetables like okra, bitter gourd and taupok to make yong tau foo.
The possibilities are endless …
This recipe is easy to follow, and my first attempt was passable but not as I had expected.
The fishballs were too dense and hard, very doink doink, in fact too good as some would say.
I wanted them to be less dense and soft.
I suspect that this is related to the proportion of flour and water.
This experience has taught me a few things which will make my work faster and better the next time.
Also the next time I will use a whole parang fish, about one kilogram in weight.
The parang is the ideal fish for fishballs although a bit difficult because of the numerous bones.
But never say die, man.
Ron
# posted by chunmu @ 6:13 PM 
