Tag Archives: coconut milk

A Simple Curry of Poton

04 Saturday Feb 2023

Posted by in Fish, Main Courses

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This fish from the Cephalopod family which includes squid, octopus and cuttlefish, resembles squid in form but is generally much larger and less tender, needing longer slow cooking. Stewing it in a coconut sauce spiced with ginger, garlic and chilli is a simple and flavoursome way to prepare it.


The same sauce can be used to cook more tender fish, but will need to be simmered for 30 minutes for the flavours in it to develop before adding the fish.

For 2 portions

1 stick lemongrass

1 large clove of garlic

a thumb sized piece of ginger – or galangal if you can get it

1 large green chilli

bunch of fresh coriander leaves or green coriander seeds

250 ml coconut milk

500 grams Poton

1 tablespoon Nam Pla fish sauce

salt & freshly ground black pepper

Slice the tender part of the lemongrass into very fine rounds

Finely chop the garlic, chilli, ginger, and coriander leaves – save a few of these for garnishing

Put the chopped ingredients above in a pan with the coconut milk and bring to simmer.

After five minutes add the Poton and simmer gently for 30 – 40 minutes until the Poton is tender.

If you are using a more tender fish, or selection of fish, then simmer the sauce for 30 minutes for the flavours in it to develop before adding the fish and then cooking the 5 or ten minutes that the fish needs.

Season the curry with fish sauce, freshly ground black pepper and salt if needed.

Serve with plain rice or rice noodles, and stir fried vegetables. A great garnish are thinly sliced radish that have been steeped in sweetened rice vinegar.

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Fish Cooked in Coconut Milk with Spices

25 Tuesday May 2021

Posted by in Fish, Main Courses, Sauces

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I made the sauce for this fish dish first, and then slowly poached the fish in it. I’ve used fillets of Mackerel as they are in season here right now, so superbly fresh and a good price, but any firm fleshed fish fillets can be used. I haven’t tried it, but it could be a good sauce to cook prawns in as well.

For 2 portions

500 grams fish fillets

1/2 red onion – sliced

2 cloves garlic – finely chopped or green garlic sliced

1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger

1/2 fresh red chilli – finely chopped

oil or butter for frying

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

200 ml coconut milk

1 teaspoon ground rice

juice of a small lime

salt and pepper

Heat the oil or butter in a deep frying pan or wok. Add the onions and cook on a low heat until starting to brown a little.

Add the garlic, ginger and chilli. Stir in and fry for a few minutes.

Add the mustard seeds and fry until they begin to pop, then add the turmeric and coconut milk.

Gently cook the sauce for five minutes.

If the sauce is thin, then thicken with the rice flour.

Add the fish and poach gently until the fillets are just cooked.

Season with salt, pepper and the lime juice.

Serve with rice. I made a Red Rice, Cauliflower and Green Bean Biryani, which went very well. I’ll post the recipe for that next.

Malaysian Steamed Fish

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Fish, Main Courses

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Sea bass cooked in coconut milk flavoured with ginger, garlic, chilli and tamarind. To accompany the fish I made Rice Noodle with Mushrooms and a Seaweed Salad, I’ll post those recipes to follow.

For 2

2 seabass

peanut oil for frying

4 cloves of garlic – peeled and sliced

piece of fresh ginger – cut into little julienne

1 green and 1 red birds eye chilli – the green finely chopped and the red sliced

1 stick lemon grass – white core only – finely sliced

1/2 onion – sliced

50 ml thin tamarind sauce / tamarind paste in 50 ml boiling water

100 ml coconut milk

1 tablespoon fish sauce Nam Pla

1 tablespoon Ketjap Manis / soy sauce and 1 teaspoon sugar

fresh coriander

Heat the oil in a large shallow pan or wok into which the fish can fit.

Add the ginger and fry for a few minutes until starting to brown.

Add the onion, garlic, chilli and lemon grass. Fry for five to ten minutes to soften.

Now add all the liquids, stir well to blend and bring to a simmer.

Add the fish, cover and turn the heat down. Leave to cook for seven minutes.

Turn the fish over, cook this side for seven minutes.

Serve the fish with the sauce spooned over and garnished with red chilli slices and fresh coriander.

Oriental Rice Pudding

19 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Sweet Things, Vegan

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This pudding is in need of a name, so I would be grateful for any suggestions, or should I just stick to Oriental Rice Pudding? I was looking for a light dessert to follow the Gado Gado which I served for lunch, and remembered an Indian milky dessert called Sheer Korma. That is made with a very fine wheat vermicelli, seviyan, cooked in sweetened milk with nuts and flavoured with saffron, so I thought to make it more in tune with an Indonesian dish, and to make it vegan, to substitute the wheat vermicelli for fine rice noodles and use coconut milk instead of cows milk. I think it worked very well.

For 4 servings

80 grams rice vermicelli

160 ml can full fat coconut milk

40 grams pistachios

25 grams flaked almonds

25 grams broken pecans

75 ml agave syrup / honey

few strands saffron

For lime sherbet topping

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1 lime

Start by making the lime sherbet as you have to do this a day in advance so it can dry. This amount is more than you need for garnishing this dessert, but the sherbet keeps well for a couple of weeks in an airtight jar and is lovely on plain ice cream and fruit salad.

On a flat plate or tray sprinkle the sugar in an even layer.

Using the zester on your grater, grate the zest of the lime in an even layer over the sugar, then with your fingertips lightly mix the two together still leaving the mix spread out.

Leave in a warm dry place for several hours or overnight until dry and crunchy.

So for the rice pudding –

Soak the rice vermicelli in cold water for an hour.

Drain and cut into shortish lengths.

Put into a saucepan with the rest of the ingredients and bring slowly to a simmer.

Simmer for 5 – 10 minutes until slightly thickened. Leave to cool.

Serve at room temperature with the lime sherbet sprinkled over the top.

Shiitake Mushroom & Tofu Fritters With Sweet and Spicy Sauce

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by in Main Courses, Sauces, Vegan

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The tofu and bean sprout fritters recipe that I posted previously was very good and the resulting cakes very subtle and delicately flavoured. Today I wanted to make some with more punch and depth of flavour, so I fried some finely chopped shiitake mushrooms and fried them with the onion and garlic. Then, as I already had it sitting in the fridge, for the spices I used a tablespoon of the green curry paste that I made for the vegetable curry. And finally to allow for the extra moisture of the mushrooms I added extra egg and rice flour. The cakes did hold together in the pan a lot better than the previous ones with bean sprouts.
I will write the whole recipe for the fritters below, followed by the recipe for the sweet spicy sauce which was a bit of a last minute throw together, but worked really well as often is the case.

SHIITAKE MUSHROOM FRITTERS

Makes 2 portions

200 grams plain tofu

1 spring onion – finely chopped

1 clove garlic- finely chopped

100 grams shiitake mushrooms – finely chopped

peanut or other light vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vegan green curry paste – see previous post for recipe

4 tablespoons – 60 ml rice flour

1 egg – lightly beaten

Fry the onions and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of oil until translucent.

Add the mushrooms and continue frying slowly for another 5 minutes.

Meanwhile break the tofu into a bowl and then mash it with a fork. Add the curry paste and mash more to mix thoroughly.

Add the mushroom and onion and again mix thoroughly.

Add the rice flour and mix, then finally the egg and mix again.

Form into six cakes squeezing the mix together with your hands so it holdS it’s shape.

Fry gently in oil until nicely light brown, about five minutes, then turn over carefully and cook the other side.

SWEET AND SPICY SAUCE

200 ml coconut milk

50 ml chilli jam – you can find the recipe on this site

juice of 1 small lime

1 tablespoon cashew cream

Heat all the ingredients in a small pan stirring them together. If the sauce seems a bit thin, coconut milk varies so much in density, add more cashew cream to thicken.

I have been experimenting with cashew cream, and in general I’m not so excited by it. It was great for thickening this sauce, but as a cream I find it works better for sweet things than savoury. I think in the next blog I will do a comparison of various vegan creamy sauces with recipes of course so you can try making whichever ones appeal.