Been thinking about it…

Ever since that time when I bought the fresh bay kar/ikan tenggiri/mackerel fish paste from this seafood stall near my house, I have been thinking of using it to make some tod mun pla (ทอดมันปลา) that I like very much.

My missus made some really lovely ones…

…before but unfortunately, she did not have all the ingredients that day so I did not get to enjoy what I was thinking of.

We had some nice ones (5 for RM12.50)…

…at the Thai restaurant here and here (3 for RM10.90)…

…but they have all called it a day now.

My friend, Peter, the boss of Payung, made some…

…for me once but they are not on their menu so I don’t think I will ever get to eat those again.

Well, it so happened that I managed to get two packs of fish paste (RM10.00 each)…

…from that seafood stall so I asked my missus to make more of her yummy Thai fish cakes and I went and bought a few strands of long beans and sliced them thinly…

…for her to use.

I did not notice it the previous time but this time around, I saw that it actually involved a whole lot of work. My missus had to prepare all the ingredients…

…including a lot of Thai basil leaves and sawtooth coriander from my garden and I heard a whole lot of pounding going on in the kitchen.

Finally, it was done…

…and we had that for lunch and dinner and there were some left over till the next day even. Compared to the prices I had to fork out at the Thai restaurants, this was indeed so very cheap, so many pieces for the RM20 worth of fish paste.

We used to buy the ones from Jakar or Sarikei…

…but those are seasoned and when making fish balls using those and cooking them, there is no need to add any salt or msg as there would be more than enough of those in the fish paste for the soup or whatever dish one is cooking…and one does not know what else they have added. This fish paste from the seafood stall is unadulterated, pure fish paste – no salt, no msg so one can add one’s own seasoning according to taste.

The fish stall is located to the right of CCL FRESH MINI MARKET against the wall at the end of the block to the right of the Grand Wonderful Hotel (2.309601, 111.845163) along Jalan Pipit, off Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai, on your left just before the Petronas petrol station a short distance from Delta Mall. You can also go in via Lorong Pipit 4, turning left into the lane at the junction where Starbucks Sibu is located and go straight ahead from there.