Baked Mackerel with Sambal Belachan Chilli

Whenever my husband and myself miss any food I just have to try cooking it myself. It is a pretty fun journey trying to search for recipes, finding the correct ingredients and if I can't find them I will have to tweak the recipe. If the dish turns out well, I will feel so happy. I must say I am pretty lucky to stay in Houston where I can still find quite a lot of asian ingredients. 


That day we miss the BBQ stingray. But we can't find stingray here. We decided to go to the seafood wholesale centre at Seabrook which is just 15 minutes away from our home to see if they sell any. To our disappointment, they don't sell them.  But they do sell other fresh fishes. My husband says he wants to eat fried mackerel. Therefore we bought some. I only fried 2 of the mackerel for him and save 1 huge one for my experiment for BBQ stingray but mackerel version hehe. 

So the first step is to prepare my sambal belachan chilli. As you can see from the picture above, it doesn't look like sambal chilli but look like hae bee hiam haha! But I didn't add any hae bee at all! It is too dry! According to the many recipes which I have searched, they say must use oil to slowly stir fry until the oil separates or floats from the chilli. But I mine doesn't seem to floats leh. I was thinking maybe I did not add enough oil cos I do not want it to be too oily. This is the part I didn't get it. I shall try another time since I still have so many chillis in my freezer. Oh by the way there are really many different recipes on making this sambal belachan chilli.  I choose the recipe which use more ingredients as I have those at home.  Here is the recipe which I adapted from 2 websites:

Ingredients:

1  Lengkuas (aka Galangal): ~200g

2  Young ginger: ~100g

3  Turmeric: ~50g

4  Shallots: ~750g

5  Candlenuts: ~100g

6  Dried red chilli: ~30g

7  Lemongrass: ~7 stalks

8  Fresh red chilli: ~450g

9  Garlic: ~1 bulb

10 Salt: ~1 1/2 tsp (add when you are frying the rempah)

11 Sugar: ~1 tsp (add when you are frying the rempah)

12 Vegetable oil: ~1 rice bowl (for frying the rempah)

13 1 tablespoon belacan (shrimp paste)

As you pound/blitz the ingredients, adding vegetable oil in small quantities gives you a smoother blend. No measurements for this ... just pour a little here and there as you pound/blitz.

Fry over a low flame for about 1 hour, stirring all the time, until the oil floats to the top. Cool completely before scooping into a sterilised container. Freeze.

Ok next is the fish. This is very easy! Place the banana leaf over the aluminum foil. Spread a layer of the sambal chilli on the leaf, than place the fish on top. Spread another layer of sambal chilli on top of the fish. Squeeze some calamansi juice (I can't get that and I use lime. But calamansi is still the best choice) and wrap up the fish. Place the fish in a baking tray and put it into the preheated oven (around 200 degree C) and bake it for around 10to 15 minutes. Before you eat, squeeze some calamansi juice and you can enjoy the spicy and yummy fish!