Fishball Soup ikan tenggiri

Another of my favourite dish. Home made fishball soup. Today being a holiday I decided to take over the kitchen and cooked for my family, with the aid of instructions from mummy of course. Anyway, I woke up late on the account of temporary insomnia last night and so my mummy prepared the potatoes and bawang and stuff. ("Aku kasi kau tidur puas puas dulu. Lagipun nak tunggu kau bangun, bila nak start masak?" heh heh) Anyway, she has seen me peel potatoes, garlic and shallots, so she has faith that I can do that part well and need no more practice. heh heh. So she left the hardest part to me: to clean the fish and scrape the flesh of the skin and bones and to make the fishballs and soup.

Here are the ingredients:

• I ikan tenggiri besar ( I have no idea what this is in English)
• 3 potatoes, cut into chunky pieces
• 2 1/2 big onions
• 10 garlic
• halia 2 batang (sepanjang jari) - (in english is this galaghal?)
• 1 biji buah pala
• 3 bunga cengkir
• 1 stick of cinnamon/kayu manis
• 4 biji buah pelaga
• 3 bunga pe'kak/star anise
• 1 teaspoon of white pepper
• Salt to taste

Prepare the fish by cleaning away the guts and sliced it through the middle, so you get 3 very long slices. Usually the fishmonger will do this for you. So you bring home 3 very long slices. One of the slices has the bones on it. Scrape carefully making sure every tiny bit of flesh is scraped off, even in between the bones. You should only have the skin and bones left after the procedure.

Chop 2 onions and garlic thinly. Place them in a big pot. Halia just squash them a bit (titik kan) and place in a big pot. Break the cinnomon and buah pala in 2. Potatoes, half of the buah pala and both cinnamon sticks plus the star anise, buah pelaga and bunga cengkir should be placed in the pot too. Fill half the pot with water. Boil the mixture.

While the soup is being boiled, prepare the fishballs. The flesh that you have scraped off from the fish can now be rolled into balls. 1 fish could make 80-100 balls depending on the size of fishballs you make. Some people pound the flesh or use a tool to flatten and mix the flash together. This is optional. You can do so if you think there are a lot of bones in the fish. By punding and flattening the flesh you are squeezing out skin and bones. If you are confident that there are no or very few bones, then this step can be eliminated.

Tip: Wet fingers and palms constantly when making the balls so that the flesh won't stick to your hands.

Next: take half of the buah pala, half a big onion, 2 pieces of garlic, a small piece of halia and white pepper and pound till you have a paste. Heat up a small pan and use a little bit of oil. Pour in the paste and stir until it has turned brown and crispy (my mum described it as garing - I can't find a better word to descrbe). Pour into the boiling pot of soup.

By this time, the potatoes should be cooked and fishballs should be placed into the soup one by one. It is better to put in the fishballs individually because if you put them together, they will stick to each other. Put one tablespoon of salt into soup. Once you see the fishballs turn white and float, you can turn off the fire and eat!

Okie, this is a very simple dish. The most troublesome part is the fish and that is the main ingredient. So it takes around 1 1/2 hours to prepare.

So this is the outcome. Eat with rice, bread or by itself. It tastes great. Remember always get the fish fresh because you want the fish to crumble and melt in the mouth and not have the springy texture. You can add spring onions to your own bowl of soup. For me I prefer to eat it with rice together with sambal lonteh. Power!