Don’t know your name…

I mentioned that I bought these ikan jamar…

…from my favourite fish &seafood stall the other day and I googled up and down, left, right and centre but I just could not find the name in English or Chinese. Maybe this is its name in Sarawak Malay and it is known by some other Malay name in other parts of the country, I wouldn’t know.

It’s in that same class of fish as the ikan kembong…

– all of them are around that same size, give or take a little and the easiest way to cook them would be to just rub with salt and deep fry in oil…

These that I bought for only RM11.00 a kilo were so fresh, so very sweet and tasty.

You may find them at the chap fan (mixed rice) or nasi campur places deep fried in this same way but they may turn out somewhat bland, not sweet, not nice at all. They sell these fish in bulk, frozen hard as a rock at the supermarkets and of course, those aren’t nice. As a matter of fact, I was told by the boss of this restaurant that we frequent a lot that they can only make the kembong sumbat (picture above) using very fresh ones – if they try using one of those supermarket ones, it will all fall apart.

Of course, you can marinate them with say, turmeric (kunyit) or curry powder, for instance, prior to frying or you can cook them in curry or with terung Dayak like what I have here…

…or you can cook it masak kunyit, without the terung Dayak and adding turmeric and a few pieces of asam keping (tamarind) instead for that much coveted sour taste.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering why we only had two that day, they were all for me, one for lunch and the other for dinner. My girl asked the mum to cook the remaining pack of sotong (squid) that we had in the freezer so they had this bowl of kung pao sotong…

…to enjoy. I did try a few pieces and it was very nice but unfortunately, I had to limit myself as I am keeping a close watch on my cholesterol level.

We also had this plate of 100% organic spinach…

…that day. I have been advised to take more green leafy vegetables for the potassium and I love this spinach very much, very sweet and nice even when fried ching chao (plain fried), no need to add much of anything.

So right now in our freezer, I still have four ikan jamar and one or chio/ikan bawal hitam (black pomfret), one pack of freshwater tua thow hay (big headed prawns)/udang galah and two packs of big pek hay (seawater prawns). I don’t think I will need to go back to the stall again for another week or two.

The fish & seafood 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. You can also go in via Jalan Pipit from Jalan Pahlawan. Go straight ahead till you reach the place towards the end of that road on your left.