Shiny…

We would usually go out somewhere for lunch on Sundays (and Saturdays too) but the other day, my missus said she wanted to cook some lamb that she had in the freezer. She could not remember when we bought it but she insisted that it was quite sometime ago and she would like to get it out of the way.

She cooked this beautiful lamb curry…

…with it but unfortunately, lamb is red meat so I could not touch it and besides, potatoes, like sweet potatoes, are too high in potassium so those too were out of bounds. Otherwise, I would be all right with curry depending on what ingredients are used to cook it. If it had been chicken breast (or rabbit) or fish or tofu with vegetables such as cauliflower, long beans, okra, pineapples and so on, it would be fine for me but lamb and potatoes are definitely not for me.

We also had some of these kilat…

…in the freezer, left over from the fifteen I bought the other day.

Kilat is Malay for shiny and also for lightning – I do not know which one the name actually refers to but usually, they are very small and we would fry them till very crispy so we would be able to eat the crunchy fins and some of the bones, though not the big ones. If I am not mistaken, in Hokkien, these are called pek chio kia or baby white pomfret/ikan bawal putih – the regular-sized ones will cost an arm or a leg but actually, these babies did not come cheap either. I think I had to fork out around RM5.00 for ONE of them!!!

These days, with the prices of cooking oil shooting sky high, we would steam them…

…which, of course, is cheaper plus it is also healthier. If I am not wrong, all the other smaller (and cheaper) fish like the bak chik (RM10.00 a kilo and I can get around 20 of them!!!), the kembong and all the rest are not suitable for steaming – they all have to be deep fried.

I don’t know how much the big ones are these days – I never dared to ask lest I get a heart attack but if these kilat…

…are so expensive, I might as well buy one of those instead.

They taste more or less the same, that similar mild sweetness of the fish, not as fleshy…

…as the or chio/black pomfret/ikan bawal hitam and not as strong tasting (which I personally enjoy a lot more, actually). The latter do not come cheap either these days but if the kilat is going to be so expensive, I might as well go for it instead – we do prefer it to the kilat and there will be a whole lot more to enjoy.

I still have the 1 kilo bak chik and one barramundi (ikan siakap) in the freezer. I guess I shall have to drop by the fish & seafood stall over the next few days to see what they have in store and buy before my present stock runs out.

The fish & seafood stall…

…is located to the right of CCL FRESH MINI MARKET against the wall at that 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.