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Monday, July 25, 2011

Stir Fried Fish with Wax Apple Slices 水蓊炒鱼片 - Local Fruits #1


Currently I’m living in a town where the food sucks. Sucks BIG TIME!! Wedding dinners here are either avoided by the younger generation or are forced by parents to be held at community halls, which is a far cry from prettily decorated dining halls in cities. Usually KK folks travel to Sungai Siput for restaurant cooked meals and they taste a lot lot better and are a lot cheaper than in KK.

This dish that I’m sharing today is a very weird dish that I once ate at a restaurant in Sungai Siput's Tai Chong. I was surrpised at the ingredient, wax apple. And to my surprise the taste and texture complemented well with the fish. With lovely wax apples bought from Jusco, I tried to recreate this dish, and I’m glad I did quite a good job on it.



Wax Apples or some call water apple, is a true local fruit. Well, papayas and pineapple grow here, but they are not true locals. Papayas came from the American continent and pineapples are indigenous to South America. So not every locally grown fruit are true locals.

When I was a kid, my neighbours had wax apple trees. My side neighbour and my back neighbour. The side neighbour's tree had pink smallish tart fruits and my back neighbour had one that grew white fruits with huge seeds. I guess the white version is very very hard to come by nowadays. It's not a blessing to have neighbours having such trees. How we dread each fruiting season. Our compound will smell like a dumpster with all the rotting fruits. Because the fruits are tart are not very nice to eat, unless you dip them in rojak sauce and you can't eat all the fruits from the huge tree, they are left to drop and waste away. 1/3 of the pink tree's foliage grows into our compound, so, 1/3 of their fruits rot in our place. You may wonder why we didn't just sweep them away.. Well, they dropped into the fenced up area that we grew our mango trees. it's mulchy and not a nice place to walk in, so bear with it. These trees also attracted lots of bees, not forgetting weaver ants. You can't imagine how happy we were when they decided to chop down the tree.

These wax apples I'm using today are a new breed from Thailand that we have only seen in the last 10 years. It's big and sweet. I think no one will want to leave them on the tree to drop and rot. I won't mind if my neighbour's tree grows into my garden :p I'll just pick them off and eat. No complains whatsoever.

Stir Fried Fish Slices with Wax Apple 水蓊炒鱼片
Recipe source: Wendyywy
Inspired by: Tai Chong Restaurant, Sungai Siput

350gm boneless fish fillets (dory or grouper will work fine)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ShaoXing wine
Dash of pepper
1 Tbsp egg white
½ tsp sesame oil

Mix fish with everything except the sesame oil. When everything is well incorporated, add in sesame oil and leave it for 30 minutes.

3 sprigs of spring onion
2 large wax apples
1 Tbsp ShaoXing wine
1/3 cup water
2/3 tsp cornstarch
¼ tsp salt
1/3 tsp sugar
Good dash of pepper

1. Cut spring onion into 2 inch lengths, separating the white and green parts. (should have 1 large handful of green parts)
2. Cut wax apple into half and trim the base. Slice into wedges.
3. Mix water, cornstarch, salt, sugar and pepper together. Set aside.
4. Heat a wok until very very hot. Put in 2 Tbsp of cooking oil and smear sides of wok with oil and make sure spatula is well oiled with the hot oil.
5. Put in white parts of green onion and fry for few seconds and put in marinated fish. Gently spread fish around but don’t move it too much. Let it cook for a while before moving and flipping them.
6. When fish seems cooked (if there is liquid oozing from the fish, then let liquid evaporate first), put Shaoxing wine around the fish, and let it evaporate .
7. Put in wax apple wedges and toss.
8. Pour in cornstarch mixture and cook until it thickens.
9. Put in green parts of spring onion, give it a final toss and dish up.


25 comments:

  1. very refreshing taste. Will give this a try.

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  2. I never knew wax apples can be cooked to make into a dish. When I was staying in Kampar, I remember I just pluck these fruits from the trees in the kampong area!

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  3. Wendy....

    Rsepi menarik utk dicuba ni...tak pernah masak menu cam gini....amik resepi dulu...tq Wendy kongsi2 resepi...:)

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  4. this is new to me, i must try this next time. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Looks delicious, I'm getting hungry, kekekeke....

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  6. Wendy...this is so refreshing...something new mmmm I shall this cooking fish this way :) Thanks for sharing such a good one.

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  7. 水蓊也可以拿来作菜啊?
    我还是第一次看到呢!

    有空就一定要试试看了

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  8. Wah, A new menu for me.Thanks for sharing :)

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  9. Fong,
    Hope you like it


    Mel,
    Yalor, you could've picked from my neighbour's tree as well, LOL. That is if you stay in Aston.


    cik cek,
    ambik, halal.


    Sonia,
    hope ur family like this


    amelia,
    hehe, go and eat then


    elin,
    eh, you can try this out in SS if you ever go there.


    sean,
    可以. The wax apple's crunchiness complements the softness of the fish very well.

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  10. vry interesting dish...while reading your stroy about that tree, is like going back to our childhood. yea, tat tree, got big army of Wong Ma Ma; while the tree was gone it's like 一天都光晒 "yat tin dou guong sai" ^^

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  11. Joanne,
    Wah, you could remember that tree? You were only so little that time.

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  12. I have not seen wax apple used in any cooking before.

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  13. Definitely interesting dish, and the medley of pink and green sure made this an appetising platter. Thanks for sharing this, Wendy!

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  14. the chef there sure creative, wonder where he get this from? is KK that bad meh? no good food? now i know why you want to be CKT seller, sure very laku!

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  15. Very interesting! I have only eaten these as fruits - this is new! Eh, you should open your own restaurant in the town, no fight, I am sure!

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  16. Little inbox,
    me too, before this


    HKchoo,
    Yeah, dunno why my wax apples look so pale here, LOL


    lena,
    Yalar, even my standard is the best in town, as said by my hubby. U say la, how nice is the food here, lousy la.

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  17. Mmmm, interesting....I never knew that wax apple can be cooked with fish.....sound delicious!

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  18. Shirley,
    No la, I'd rather sell CKT if I want to be in food biz, LOL.


    Pete,
    You try it, but don't overcook the wax apple

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  19. I love water apple especially those that is sweet and juicy. But choosing them is a challenge though. Sometime it turned out so bland.

    This is an interesting dish and am glad that you are able to repicate it.

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  20. Hmm, it looks healthy to me. What a crunchy and fresh taste.

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  21. wow, this is really new to me. I love water apple especially those big and sweet. will try it one day. Thanks for sharing. (it's not easy to get big,sweet and juicy water apple nowadys.)Usually I bought at the karak highway roadside stall.

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  22. Hi Wendy, i like your blog alot as well as those dishes that you prepared for your family!
    i am just wonder, if you could recommend some recipe that suitable for a 1 year old baby?
    there's only two recipes under baby food catergory. i am a first time mother and i need some experience mother to share with me.
    Thanks!
    See Bin

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  23. Edith,
    Hard to say, sometimes they are bland


    Angeline,
    Yeah, healthy with fruits and fish:)


    may,
    It's easily available at Ladang Bikam's highway R&R, which is before Tapah if u're coming from KL.


    See Bin,
    Firstly, a child under one isn't eating much except porridge. Personally I won't want to feed him too much of other things besides porridge or his milk or fruits. What you can do is just to use different ingredients in his porridge. But I don't recommend whole grains, as that can be too tough on baby's digestive system. I might be doing more recipes for my boy soon, but that'll be at least 6 months later.
    I usually start porridge at 8 months. Now my boy is less than 2 months.
    But I can let you know I'll be trying to experiment making rice rusks. But then again, that's still a long time to go.

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  24. Hi Wendy,
    How is the little R doing? (My boys are known as 3R). Yeah, very unusual dish. Never thought you can cook the jambu fruit with fish.

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  25. My favorite fruit is waxed apples! Your pictures of the fresh fruit are making me miss it so much. I have only been able to eat in Taiwan as it is very hard to find in the US. Though recently a Vietnamese tropical fruit store opened and they told me they will have waxed apples in the fall.I love your use of it with stir fry. I've never eaten it that way before.

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