Spicy Thai Red Fish Cakes
Our red curry paste or kreung gaeng phet daeng, is made from dried red chilies, shrimp paste, coriander roots, cumin, garlic, other herbs and spices. Rich and pungent, it is perfect as an ingredient for fish cakes and coconut milk-based curries, delicious soups and stir-fries, and even as a marinade to flavour seafood, meat and vegetables before barbecue.
- Process 500 g skinless white fish fillets with a heaped tablespoon of Latasha’s Kitchen Thai Red Curry Paste, 1 egg, bunch of chopped coriander leaves, 3 tablespoons of fish sauce and a tablespoon of grated palm sugar until well combined and smooth.
- Tip the mixture into a bowl and combine with 80g or a large handful of green beans sliced in very thin rounds.. Knead mixture for 20 minutes until it becomes a soft, glue-like mixture. Rest for 10–20 minutes.
- Wet or oil hands and shape 2 tablespoons of the dough into a ball and flatten slightly.
- Shallow fry the fish cakes until golden brown. Deep fry the basil leaves for garnish (optional)
- Drain on absorbent paper towels.
- Alternatively bake fish cakes on a tray lined with baking paper in a pre-heated hot oven until spongy and golden.
- Serve with Latasha’s Kitchen Red Chilli Onion Relish or make my following sweet chilli, cucumber and peanut dipping sauce.
Note:
Should you prefer a softer but still firm fish cake texture then don’t knead the mixture for as long as 20 minutes, but rather 10 minutes will do. Kneading the mixture to a glue like mixture will produce soft rubbery like fish cake texture just like fish and meat balls found in Asian noodle house and yum cha places.
Ingredients for Sweet Chilli & Cucumber Sauce
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 125 ml white vinegar
- 2 tbsp water
- 5 cloves garlic, finely ground
- 2 red chillies, finely ground
- 3 shallots, sliced thinly
- 1 cucumber, quartered lengthways and thinly sliced
- 3 tbsp pounded roasted peanuts 9or use toasted white sesame seeds)
- Coriander leaves
Method
- Bring to a boil sugar, salt, vinegar, water and salt, then lower the heat and simmer for almost 10 minutes until the sugar dissolves and becomes almost syrupy
- Allow to cool, then add the garlic, red chillies, shallots, cucumber slices, peanuts and mix well. Garnish with coriander leaves
HOW WE MAKE OUR THAI RED CURRY PASTE
The concentrated paste used in the recipe above can be purchased from all good stockists or online. Here’s the how we make if for you in our kitchen using only the best fresh and imported ingredients and slow cooking them to perfection;
We start the preparation for this delicious paste the night before by soaking tamarind, so that we can squeeze out the flavour in the morning.
When we arrive back in the kitchen the next morning we are greeted by our delivery of fresh ingredients from the markets including fresh Australian brown onions, tomatoes, coriander, lemongrass, ginger, garlic and chillies.
The onions chopped, then blended in a number of batches until they are ready for the cooking pot.
The pot is added to the heat and heated to a high with rice bran oil. The finely blended onions are added into the pot with Australian sea salt and cooked for a long time until it caramelises.
While onions are cooking, the team weights whole spices according to the recipe formulation and these are dry toasted one at time until they release their oils. The spices are cooled before being blended to a fine ground mix in Latasha’s spice mill which travels with her.
While onions are cooking, Latasha weighs the whole spices and dry toasts them one at time until they release their oils. The spices are cooled before being blended to a fine ground mix in Latasha’s spice mill which travels with her.
Meanwhile chillies, fresh ginger, turmeric, galangal and garlic are finely blended one at a time.
Tamarind juice is whisked then strained to the required measurement.
Once the onions are ready, the fresh ingredients are added. We then add tamarind, palm sugar, fish sauce, coconut milk and the fresh coriander. We let the mixture boil rapidly to ensure a thorough mix.
Tastings are done to ensure the balance of flavours are captured and pH testing is done.
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