1st time cooking fish

After the fishing trip on Thursday, I brought home 4 fishes - the stingray and 3 smaller fishes.

At first, I was hoping to find some place where I could get someone to help me cook them. Din really wanna try cooking them myself and perhaps waste them in the process... Tried searching online for a place but to no avail. Then I tried to get DK to help me ask the zi char stall tat he used to co-own. But he also told me tat they cant cook them for me. Haizzz so bo bian lor, have to do it myself liao.

I dun tink I have ever cooked anything other than stuff like fried eggs, sausages, etc, or maggi mee, which isn't actually really cooking? So this would be like my 1st time actually cooking something. Definitely my 1st time cooking fish. Decided tat I would 1st try to cook those 3 small fishes for dinner on Friday.

Brought them to the wet market and tried to ask some fishmongers whether they would help me process the fishes - descale, take out the organs, etc, for a price of cos. Sadly, the 1st few tat I asked turned me down, giving reasons tat they are too busy, etc... Finally found 1 frenly uncle who even asked for my no. so tat he can jio me when he goes fishing with his frens. Eventually declined his offer as I still prefer to go with my own group.

So I happily headed home with the nicely processed fishes and started to search online for recipes. Decided to steam them cos this seems like the easiest way to do it. Found this recipe which uses tau jio (豆醬， or bean paste sauce), one of my favourite sauces to eat with steamed fish cos it usually makes the fish very appetising. Thought abt doing it our Teochew way with salted vege, tomatoes, etc, but worried tat it may turn out to have a strong fishy taste. So I decided to go with the tau jio recipe as tau jio seemed to have a stronger taste which shld help to lessen the fishy taste.

Decided to 1st try out with the smallest of the 3 fishes so tat any wastage is minimised. Din really follow the recipe exactly as I left out those ingredients tat were for garnishing. Seemed to me tat it was mostly just to make the dish look nicer and also din wanna waste these ingredients as I dun tink I would be cooking again anytime soon.

So I roughly followed the recipe and poured the ingredients and seasoning onto the fish in a plate and left it to steam in the wok for 10 minutes.

I opened the wok lid and ehhhh, the fish looks kind of weird... tink i put a bit too much of the tau jio already... i took out the fish and nervously tasted it. actually taste not bad lah. quite sweet with the fried garlic and a bit of sugar tat i added. the meat was quite tender also. at least it wasn't undercooked, i tink... not bad for a 1st timer like me lah. tink i would give myself 4 out of 5 stars. Haha. Anyway, I finished up the 1st fish and decided tat I'll just steam the 2nd and 3rd fishes in the same way, maybe just with less tau jio...

The 2nd and 3rd fishes still din look really appetising but at least they look slightly more normal... Tasted quite good also. Tink I'll try the Teochew style next time.

After my relatively successful 1st attempt at cooking fish on Friday, I decided to try cooking the stingray on Saturday. Din bring it to the fishmonger for processing as it only needs to be cut. Hmmmm but cutting it proves to be quite hard also... Dunno izzit tat our knife is too blunt or tat its skin is too tough, i spent quite a bit of time before I finally managed to cut out the 2 wings, which seemed to be the only edible parts.

Ehhhh the wings look kind of small don't they... So much effort just to eat so little meat. So those tat we usually eat outside must actually be much bigger than the one I caught.

I poured the sambal belachan which I had bought over the 2 wings and also sprinkled some chopped onions over them. Also added a bit of cooking oil as the sambal seemed a little too dry. Then I wrapped everything up in some aluminium foil and put it into the oven to bake for about 25 minutes.

As I took it out of the oven, I could already smell the fragrance of the chilli. As I unwrapped the aluminium foil, smoke was oozing out and I couldn't wait to try it! Hmmm really taste not bad. I squeezed lots of lime on it and it was really quite appetizing and goes well with white rice.

So there it was, my 1st experiences of cooking fish. Tink i'll try out other ways of cooking them the next time I bring them back from my fishing trip.