Bandeng Tauco (Milk Fish Fried with Preserved Soybeans)

Ever since I first made this dish, it has been my husband's favorite. He said, he never had anything like this before. Which is weird for me, because I grew up eating this almost on a daily basis, it's the family's favorite too.
My grandmother made this for her family, and then my mother makes it for hers, and now I make this for mine. It's a simple recipe, but quite a challenge to make, I will tell you why.

Milk fish

I'm not a big fan of fish. Well, apparently as a child, I was, but then I ate too much of it, and grew sick with it in the end. But, out of all the fish in the fish world, my favorite has got to be the milk fish. It's a lot of work to eat it, because of the many many bones you have to go through, especially on their tails (the most delicious part I have to say), but they're very flavorful. It almost tastes like they have MSG in their meat. Yummy.
Clever fish, they know how to self produce MSG, but not so clever as to end up on my plate, though. This is just a joke, by the way. Just in case.

Anyways, the ingredients we need, other than the fish of course, are preserved soybeans (they taste salty so we use this instead of salt), garlic, ginger-I'm using old ginger here, green chili, lime juice, coconut milk and brown sugar, or palm sugar, whichever you have on hand. The complete recipe is at the bottom of this post.
Though I wrote green chili, because that's what we use for the original recipe, the other day I made it with green onions instead, since the markets are all out of green chili. There's a green chili crisis over here. It still tastes good, but it's just not the same.
So green onions can be a substitute ONLY when you don't have green chili with you or if you don't like the taste of green chili (that's crazy).

It's looking quite simple so far right?

Next, we marinade the fish in lime juice and a bit of water. I add in water because I don't like the taste of the lime juice to interfere with the savory taste of the milk fish, but I want the lime juice to wash the fishiness away.

So, we let it sit in the marinade for around 15-20 minutes. After that, we rinse it under running water, drain the water, pat them dry and season them with salt before we fry them up.

Here's where it gets really tricky, at least for me.

I'm a big fan of deep fried things, like most people do, I'm sure. However, deep frying them myself is a big fear for me. I hate doing it. I hate when the oil splash around, flying out of the pan, making tiny 'explosions' in my kitchen and giving me mini heart attacks at the same time. Does this happen to you too?
It's like having a volcano on my stove, it keeps erupting and making a mess of everything, not to mention scare me skinny (I wish).
Not only will the cholesterol kill me, but the suspense will too.

So, like everything else in life, which includes sewing, ironing, or driving a car (these are three very important things), I learnt how to fry a fish (or everything else) from my dad. Here's what he taught me:

First, put the fish in the hot oil and immediately cover the pan, with a glass lid or something else that has weight, so it stays in place. Okay, however, the only problem I have with this is, when the pan is completely covered, the steam and moisture will all be collected on the lid itself and then falls back into the oil, making another mini eruption. Not good. So, what I like to do is to leave a small opening, to let the moisture escape.

Second, when it's time to flip the fish over, turn the heat off first and let things 'settle' down. You have to time this perfectly, otherwise the fish will be burnt. So right before it's time to flip the fish, turn off the heat.

Lastly, after you turn the fish over safely, turn the heat back on. Easy peasy.

It's not rocket science, so it was pretty easy for me to follow. A little bit more complicated, I'm not so sure. Though the noises are still intimidating, I feel relatively safe.

Another alternative is this:

Source: unknown/internet

It's not ideal, but it seems safe. That man knows how I feel, that's for sure.

Moving on.

Deep fry the fish by following the steps above, or if you have a better alternative, go ahead with that, but please share it here too :), I'd love to know.

Put the fish aside when they're crisp and golden brown. Now, prepare another frying pan to make the sauce.

Heat up some oil, and then stir fry the garlic and ginger.

Chopped garlic and ginger

After it started to smell fragrant, add in the preserved soybeans, the coconut milk, and some water. Stir the ingredients until they are well incorporated, then add the sugar. Don't forget to taste. When you think it's starting to taste well seasoned and to your liking (for me it should be savory, a balance between salty and sweet), toss in the fried fish together with the green chili/green onions.

When the green chili/green onions have wilted, then it's ready to be served.

It's best served with a plate of steaming hot rice, and a big appetite. I'm quite confident to say that this will be the best meal you ever have :).

Complete recipe:

500 grams of milk fish
1/2 table spoon of salt (to season the fish)
2 tablespoons of preserved soy beans
2 green chilies
1 lime (3 table spoons of lime juice)
250 ml of water (to mix with lime juice)
6 cloves of garlic
3 centimeters of old ginger
1 table spoon of brown sugar/palm sugar
65 ml of coconut milk
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil (to stir fry)
200 ml of water (to add into the sauce)

I hope you like this recipe as much as I do, and as much as my family does. I'd love to hear back from you, so feel free to leave your comment below. Have a tasty day!