It’s not unusual…

It’s not unusual for people to cook tom yam using sea food such as fish, prawns or sotong (cuttlefish) and so on but usually, the dish is soupy.

My missus bought two of this white pomfret (ikan bawal putih) the other day…

…and steamed one of them in the usual Chinese style. It would be such a waste to use the fish to cook tom yam as it would lose its sweetness in the soup…and being such an expensive fish, RM20-30 a kilo, I would like to savour the flavour and not have it drowned by the tom yam. So, I decided to steam it with tom yam sauce and to prepare the sauce, I used the following ingredients:

– tom yam paste, a bit of belacan (dried prawn paste), two stalks of lemon grass (serai), two slices of ginger and two or three pieces of assam keping (tamarind) plus chillies. I boiled them in a bit of water in a saucepan and leave it to cool. I thought it was a bit too sour, so I added a teaspoon of sugar to it.

Then I poured the tom yam sauce over the fish and steamed it for around 15-20 minutes…

The photo of the fish after the steaming turned out blur, so I’m afraid I am unable to post it here. It turned out to be very nice though and certainly was a welcome change from the usual. The sauce went well with the rice and we could still enjoy the taste of the fish, unadulterated. Perhaps you would like to give it a try?