In meal planning, I try to go for a set of dishes consisting of more plants and less meat, for example 1 soup, 2 plant-based dishes and a fish or meat dish. I have a family of 6 excluding the unborn twins. Fish is well-known to be healthier than meat. However, it can potentially be more expensive than poultry in Singapore. Buying frozen fish is more economical but it doesn’t taste as well if we steam the Asian way. We can find ocean-caught fish in the frozen section of the supermarket. Ideally, I want my family to be consuming ocean-caught fish rather than farmed fish as the latter are often injected with hormones or any anti-virus vaccinations. But options in Singapore are limited (even though Singapore is an island state!!??!??) and expensive. A
I also have to consider ways to get our picky-eater to eat fish. In Asian cooking, we typically present a fish dish with the fish head and tail intacted. However our pick-eater finds this disgusting and opts to skip the dish… Fillets and fried fish chips look more palatable to him. F TA
Beer Batter Fish
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder. Crucial so that the batter will rise.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup cold beer
White fish fillet 600 grams
Method
Thaw the fish fillets. I prefer to cut them into 3 inches long each so that the deep-frying is more manageable.
Marinate with salt or fish sauce and pepper for at least 30 minutes.
Mix the dry ingredients (including salt) together and place it in a fridge for 15 mins.
Remove the ingredients from the fridge, pour in the cold beer and mix. The mixture should look foamy with some thick consistency so that it can be coated on the fillets. Add more flour if you find the mixture too runny.
Put the mixture back into the fridge for another 5 minutes.
Heat up oil in a deep pan. I use sunflower oil here instead of olive or coconut oil. It’s cheaper and the end-product is crisper.
Coat the fillet with the mixture and deep fry in the pan till brown. This should take about 5 minutes, depending on the size of your fillet
Note: this is not a main course. I serve this dish along side with other dishes and rice as part of our traditional Chinese dinner. If you wish to serve this as a main dish, please increase the quantity of fish used.
Enjoy!
Do let me know if you know where to find cheap sources of fresh ocean-caught fish. Much appreciated!
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