To Market To Get Fish

I've tweaked my version of Asian fish soups to my liking, using a mixture of fairly generous fish fillets and bones. No pork bones, but on some occasions, I don't mind a scoop or two of chicken stock or a few pieces of chicken bones in it. And no strange Chinese herbs.

Fillets of seabass, snapper and grouper tend to produce dependable non-fishy bowls of good soup. The other ingredients change about depending on what sort of final flavors desired. I don't always use dried squid or mussels or scallops. Unfortunately I don't cook with a fixed recipe, so the pots don't all taste the same each time, but it's about there.

Fish Soup

Boiled up a pot of fish soup for dinner. Mainly because the man doesn't like ordering it at the restaurants and prefers having it at home. So do I. The soup is tweaked to our preferences. Full of fish oils and less on other meat stock. It's also lower in the salt content, and it doesn't hold added sugars or MSG. Told the BFF to come over for a casual dinner too. After a long day at the office, she could do with some proper food.

The BFF has declared that she really likes my fish soup. Coming from her, that's quite a compliment. Mine's certainly not the best, but it seems to work fine. If she hears 'fish soup' and 'come over', she will definitely appear. There will always be sufficient amounts to pack a tub of soup and some carbs for her to take home so that she could have it for lunch or dinner the next day. I love the girl lah. She always has a place at my dining table.

Sliced Fish Bee Hoon Soup

It has been a while since I made sliced fish bee hoon soup. On some days I add in fish balls or beef balls. This time, I wanted it to be all fish and vegetables, but lighter in flavors. The soup base can always be tweaked. But the same rules apply for meat- I tend not to like cooking with pork or chicken. Unless it's a few pieces of tiny chicken bones or a few spoonfuls of stock (from boiling chicken bones and not from a carton).

Felt like having sliced fish bee hoon soup that day. The type that's supposed to be good for people healing from surgery. So my soup base for this generally holds no ikan bilis, no dried scallops, squid or mussels. Went out to the wet market to try my luck with ikan haruan (not ikan toman). I never bother to ask when the fish stalls have it. Some might, some don't. It all depends. Take a stroll through the market to hunt for it. I was in luck that morning even though I went late. Heh.

Stopped by my favorite Aunty's stall to get fish, and was happy to see that she had lovely slices of haruan, and bones. Rounded over to the vegetables stall to get some leaves and stems. Needed carrots, daikon, wongbok cabbage, baby bok choi and thick beehoon for the one-dish meal.

It's not too time-consuming, but it takes a bit of effort to cook this dish. Throw everything into the water for the base stock. After 20 minutes on the boil, I separate the stock into two pots—one thinner version to blanch the bee hoon, and the other pot continues to boil and that is the actual soup which is also used to cook the slices of haruan and vegetables later on. It's necessary to do so to maintain crunch in the ingredients, and ensure that nothing turns mushy from being overcooked. When the ingredients are this fresh, and require so little treatment, my job is to ensure that I do justice to them. #ImpieCooks2017

I don't have a recipe either. I take a quick look at what the internets say, and do my version. Maybe one day I'll write it down, but for now, it's all in my head. This would be the first time the man ate haruan in the form of sliced fish bee hoon soup. He declared he liked this version. Oof. Well, I'm flattered. 🤭😃

自家的生鱼片米粉汤。