I was not able to attend the South Arm community kitchen due to other personal commitment. Tony helped me to take the photos for this session. Thank you Tony.
For this session. Vanessa made Fish Paste Stuffed Vegetables and Hong Kong Style Fried Rice.
Fish Paste Stuffed Vegetables is my late-mom’s specialty. She made the fish paste herself. Her fish paste is very springy and tasty. Our family loves this dish a lot. She usually made it with eggplant, tofu, bitter gourd, tofu puff, bean curd skin and chili. I missed this dish a lot. Whenever she made this dish, she also made fish ball soup using the bones and the skins of the dish. The soup is absolutely delicious too.
Vanessa used a store bought fish paste for her dish. Vanessa seasoned the fish paste with white pepper powder. The vegetables which Vanessa used for stuffing includes the three different colour sweet peppers and eggplant.
Vanessa pan-fried the stuffed vegetables with some oil until golden brown in batches. Remove the fried vegetables and set aside.
After frying all the vegetables, she then made a sauce with soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar and water. I remembered my mom made the sauce with salted soy bean and minced garlic . Once the sauce came to a boil, return the fried vegetables to simmer for while to absorb the flavour of the sauce. You may thicken the sauce with some corn starch solution if you preferred.
Vanessa, thank you for sharing this dish which brings back so much memories to me.
mmm… this is my favorite! except my mom slices the veggies partway through and sticks the fishcake inside. (oh yeah, we call it fishcake too.)
i don’t think i can get fishcake in the midwest. but maybe i can ask for fish paste at the asian market.
I miss that dish as well. It looks great. However, do you know how to make the fish paste?
Looks great!
I like steaming the veggies and fishcake to cook them, then doing a quick pan fry to add texture before simmering in sauce. The only problem is, when you steam it, sometimes the fishcake falls off of the veggies.
Hi Windy, unfortunately I did not learn the skill from my late mom :-(.
Hi Chow,
I have try making my own fish paste. It’s very easy. I use about 700 gr of frozen fish fillet, 3 eggs white, some salt, pepper, and sesame oil. Defrost the fish fillet. Put all the ingredients into a blender. Blend till smooth paste. You can frozen the paste.
Once you try making yourself, you won’t miss this Yong Tau Foo anymore. It’s easy.
Hi Lannie, thank you for sharing on how to make fish paste.
I think I missed out another ingredient, some cornflour.
I wanted to ask you (if you know) if you could share your thoughts on how you keep the purple of eggplants going after the cooking.
I’ve cooked them several ways and they turn brown all the time.
I really like the luscious silvery glazed finish of eggplants when they served in front of me.
I’ll be back in Malaysia in July and will pry into that restaurant that served it.
Hi Jason, I’m afraid I do not have the answer to your question. But I found a couple of ways to retain the color of eggplants before cooking.
1. Add a spoon of milk to a bowl of water and add the cut up pieces to that water. The eggplant will retain their color without becoming black.
2. Drop pieces of eggplants immediately into cold water containing 4 tablespoons salt per gallon.
I would surely love to know how to retain the color of eggplant after cooking. My guess is that to deep fry the eggplant quickly before resimmering them in sauces. Please share with us when you find the way during your visit to Malaysia.