After over a year of being back in the States, Annie’s Mum has come over for a visit! Here’s some of the stuff she brought with her:
Mortar and Pestle
Our beloved stone mortar and pestle, which we used to prepare ingredients for lots of dishes in Sarawak (like our Stir Fried Pork with Long Beans). We had to leave it in KL with Mum because it was just too heavy to bring with us. But now we have it again – YAY! 🙂
Now that we’re back in the Bay Area, I had to go visit the Saratoga Farmer’s Market that Nate mentioned in a previous post. One of the usual things I always get there is the salmon collars that we’ve blogged about before. They’re still there and even though the price has increased to $5/lb, they are still a good deal and I snagged a few bags.
My whole family enjoyed eating them in the way I usually prepare them (broiled with a simple seasoning of salt and pepper) but, having been away in Asia for so long, our appetites were smaller and we actually had some leftovers. The leftovers weren’t really enough for another whole meal on its own so I decided to try something new. I decided to go with fried rice.
I love Indian food and mamak food in particular. We often go to one particular place in Kuching almost weekly for roti and thosai. The thosai comes with dipping sauces of dhal and coconut chutney but we like the fish curry sauce the best.
One day I got some pieces of fish to go along with the curry. It was delicious! But then we got the bill and it turned out that the fish pieces were 5 ringgit each! Being the pake person that I am, I decided that I should learn to cook fish curry for myself because then I could buy a whole fish for 20 ringgit and save some money.
Armed with just my instincts and the flavor profile that I got from having this fish curry over several visits I decided to try to recreate it.