Sometimes in your travels, you come across a great dish that you cannot forget. Trying to re-create it at home can be a challenge, but it is worth the effort.I first came across the dish on one of my regular business trips to Jakarta. Staying at a hotel that was popular with the locals and not tourists meant that the food there was pretty authentic. I quickly developed a selection of favourite dishes from the menu that became dinner must-haves.

One trip, I noticed the menu had changed and on it was Ikan Bakar Colo Colo. I decided to try it, and was struck by how simple it was and the great taste. They used a nice thick seabass fillet in that hotel, though they did say that restaurants outside would grill whole fish, rather than a single portion fillet. One of the things that made it special was the colo colo sauce, some call it a sambal, which because it was served in a small quantity, did not overwhelm the fish.

So, the dish went onto my list of must-haves. Some trips it was not so good, I suspect because the chef who got it onto the menu was the expert and if he was off, then another chefs efforts did not quite measure up.

Re-Creating The Recipe.

When I got back to Thailand, I searched the net and downloaded a recipe. I tried it as is, and it was a veritable disaster.

So, I had to content myself with having the dish whenever business took me to Jakarta. One day, waiting for a flight at an airport out in the provinces, I came across a cookbook at the airport bookstore. In it was a recipe for Ikan Bakar Colo Colo, so I bought the book on the spot.

Soon after, I tried the recipe as is. It was good, but not exactly what I had in the hotel. So, the next trip when I got to eat the dish, I made a careful comparison of ingredients and taste, to the best that one can tell by looking at and tasting the finished dish.

The difference came from the green chillies, which have a unique taste, addition of bird chillies which give a ‘kick’ to it, a little garlic and I believe the Indonesian kecap manis, or sweet soy sauce, which has a taste rather different from Chinese Sweet Soy Sauce.

And so, all set, I cooked the dish back in Thailand. It was wonderful!

As I no longer travel to Indonesia on business, I cannot readily get kecap manis, but I do intend to ask anyone who travels there to bring back a bottle.

Article / Recipe

I cooked this dish last night. It was an Indian curry, but unlike many that you find.

I tend to find that Indian Curry recipes sometimes go overboard on the ingredients, specifying large quantities that then overwhelm the palate. It doesn’t hurt to aim for a more subtle balance, and that was what I did.

The basic spice paste I used was dried chillies, shallots, garlic and just a couple of sticks of lemongrass. Proportions were about half the usual. Cut back drastically on the tamarind juice, as to me at least, this is one ingredient that most of the recipes positively go overboard on - you wind up with a sourish tasting curry, and wondering why on earth all the other ingredients went in!

I used a commercial curry powder and packaged coconut cream.

I tried frying the okra or ladies fingers whole first, to avoid the slimy texture it develops in curries. Well, there was no slimy texture, but they softened up anyway, so next time I will slice them and fry till crisp and add as a garnish. That should be nice, I think.

For the rest of it, it was just a matter of ensuring that I fried the spice paste until really fragrant, only then adding curry powder and mustard seeds and frying again till fragrant. In went the onion rings and curry leaves for a few minutes, then the tamarind juice, coconut cream and a dash of water to thin out the cream.

Simmered that for 10 minutes, then put in the tomatoes, ladies fingers and fish. Simmered uncovered for 10 minutes, then turned the fish, covered the pot, turned off the heat and let it stand for 20 minutes.

The result was lovely. I was using frozen fish, but with this cooking approach, the texture was nicely preserved. Flavours were well balanced, and the only regrets we had were the fish was on the small side (biggest available that day), and the okra was older than we would have liked. Okra is best when young, and the longer, older ones tend to stringiness.

But this is certainly an indication that aiming for subtlety in Indian curries pays off. More on this in future.

Update 16th May, 2008 - I have written a full article and recipe for this dish.

One dish that I really enjoy eating is Spanish Mackerel stuffed with chilli paste. Somehow though, Spanish Mackerel can be hard to get at times, so I decided to try this with Grouper instead. Two groupers, 1 serving each, as they were pretty small.

Ingredients for the paste were 10 prik ki nu suan (chilli padi) ie the small green chillis, 4 prik ki nu (bird chillis) and 2 large red chillis (prik chi fah), 10 shallots, 1″ knob ginger, 1″ fresh turmeric, 4 cloves garlic, 1 stalk lemongrass, ½ tsp sugar and salt.

Pulsed everything in the blender till I got a coarse paste, then fried with 1 tablespoon oil until fragrant. Most recipes do not call for this step, but I was looking for a short cooking time and the paste would be pretty raw. I preferred to have ‘mature’ flavours. After the fried paste cooled, I stuffed the groupers and roasted at 200°C / 400°F for 12 minutes, then turned over for another 12, basting each side once with vegetable oil. As they were still pretty juicy then, I raised the rack to the top level and grilled at maximum heat for 2 minutes a side.

Allowed to rest for 5 minutes while dishing out the other items.

The fish turned out pretty nice. I was a little worried that 1 fish each was a little too much, given that there was rice and a spinach soup to go with it, but we ended up picking the bones clean, so it was OK.

And how would it compare with Spanish Mackerel? Well, Spanish Mackerel is more oily, has darker meat and a heavier texture so it would take well to grilling. Grouper is more delicate, hence the roasting and shorter cooking time.

But as I mentioned in my article “Halibut, In A Malaysian Fish Curry” on ChefPla.com, it appears to be increasingly difficult to get some varieties of fish, so we need to innovate if we are to enjoy our favourite recipes.

Last night I decided I’d better cook the seabass before the weekend, because I typically do not cook on weekends, and I was concerned the spinach and mushrooms would go bad.

Defrosted the fish, then got ready to prepare the stuffing. Took the spinach out of the fridge, and saw that it was bad. OK, too late to turn back, I’ll do a stuffing without the spinach. Mushrooms still OK, so I increased the shallots and threw in a few cloves of garlic.

Garlic gets mixed reactions from people, some cannot stand it, others love it. When cooked, it certainly isn’t as pungent as raw garlic. Plus, there are many health giving properties attributed to it. Anyway, we love it.

After the stuffing was ready, I stuffed and tied the fish. I did not bother to remove the backbone first - without the spinach, I did not need such a large cavity anyway, so I just skipped the unnecessary stuff. Then instead of a cream and white wine sauce, I decided to simply drizzle the fish with olive oil and dot with butter before roasting.

I usually do this dish with pan roasted potatoes, because they cook in about the same time.

Thirty minutes later, dinner was ready, which we had with a fresh salad and some white wine. The fish had a nice firm texture, though I would probably experiment with 25 minutes roasting next time.

Not bad for an improvised meal. Of course the purists would throw their hands up in horror. But you know what? If I did not tell anyone that the stuffing should have been different and there should have been a cream and white wine sauce, they would just say it was a delicious meal.

You’ll find the recipe on this site, listed as Roasted Seabass with Stuffing.