Malay fish head curry recipe (gulai kepala ikan)

veryone I know  rolls their eyes squeamishly at the very mention of fish heads.

- How can you eat it what is looking at you? - my Black French friend Lionel's voice goes an octave higher than usual. Well, dude, just don't look back, c'est ça!

My landlord raises his face from his plateful of deep-fried fish fingers only to crack something very sarcastically English about my bagful of nice and fresh salmon heads. I have brought them at Brixton Market, three for a quid, now try to beat that!

But the best thing about them is not how cheap they are but all the lovely textures you get from a big meaty head of a piscine predator - from the meaty cheeks to the crunchy cartilage to the flavoursome brain, and I love the eyes too!

This time, instead of Ghanaian abenkwan, I made it Malay style, gulai kepala ikan. It is so good that some consider it the national dish of Malaysia and Singapore.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients (if you don't know what it is, google it or just show the name to  your local Asian grocer): 

• 3 medium-sized salmon heads
• two red onions
• half a head of garlic
• a three-inch piece of ginger 
• teaspoonful of turmeric
• one crushed and finely chopped stalk of lemon grass
• half an inch of finely sliced galangal
• half a handful of fresh or frozen curry leaves
• a couple of de-seeded chopped chillies
• a few tablespoonfuls of Malay fish curry powder (can be made by grinding ad mixing equal quantities jeera, coriander seeds, fenugreek and red pepper)
• half a litre of tamarind juice (dissolving 50g tamarind paste in warm water) 
• half a litre of coconut milk (or dissolve 100 g creamed coconut and warm water)
• a dozen okras, two large tomatoes cut into eight pieces each, a handful of string beans, and half a dozen halved garden eggs. 

 Cooking instructions:

1. De-gill the heads, wash them well and chop them into 8 pieces each.
2. Peel and make paste out of the onions, garlic and ginger.
3. Lightly fry the paste in a deep cast-iron pot with some ghee or vegetable oil.
4. Add turmeric and fry until it start giving off flavour.
5. Add the rest of the spices. Fry ever so gently, making sure the flavours fold into the oil, not go up with the smoke.
6. Add the tamarind juice and the coconut milk.
7. Bring to a gentle simmer and add the vegetables and fish heads.
   
8. Simmer until the vegetables are soft. 
9. Serve with freshly cooked steamed rice.

Thai green curry (gaeng khiao waan) - แกงเขียวหวาง

I follow the authentic recipe to cook Thai green curry - gaeng khiao waan. It is so good it needs no improving.

It starts with lots of chopping and slicing:

• 2-3 stalks of lemons grass (chop off the dry tops and use them to make infusion), chopped;
• 4-5cm galangal root, sliced;
• 3-5 chillies, chopped;
  
• half a head of garlic, peeled and finely chopped;
• a few kaffir lime leaves, leave them whole or tear big ones in halves.
  

First in a medium-heated thick-bottomed pan goes a nice glub of odourless vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, there goes garlic. When it just becomes golden the rest of the herb mix follows to be shortly joined by 2-3 tablespoonfuls of fried chilli paste.
When all this goodness becomes fragrant, I give it a generous dash of fish sauce. Then I add half a pack (about 125 g) of creamed coconut milk and slowly whisk in two tins of coconut milk. The point is to infuse the milk with the flavours of the toasted herb mix.

At this stage I add green peppercorns, Thai basil and tiny Thai round aubergines that give the final product that unmistakeable flavour you can smell the moment you step out of the plane in Bangkok. I let it all simmer until a thin greenish film of oil appears on the surface and then add the rest of the ingredients:

• a skinned breast of chicken cut into bite-size pieces;
• white round aubergines cut in halves(also known as garden eggs in Africa);
• string beans;
• button mushrooms.
  

When the chicken is done you can serve it with boiled jasmine rice. You can supplement chicken with seafood but then add it at the very end.

Here is a theme song for this fragrant Thai meal:

Indian-Malaysian potato curry

This potato curry is Indian of origin but is very popular in Malaysia. As with all curries, the technique is about infusing oil with spices and then using it to make the gravy.

In this case this stew's intense fragrace is based on 2 components:

1) peeled and puréed six shallots, half a head of garlic, 3 chillies and 3 inches of ginger;

2) spices: garam masala, ground turmeric, cinnamon sticks and curry leaves. First I briefly fry the spices in odourless vegetable oil and then the pungent purée. Then I add pre-fried vegetables (potatoes , carrots and a tomato) and pour water to cover it all. Let it simmer 15-20 minutes and ideally let it rest for some time to allow all the juices intermingle and soak into the vegetables.

I serve it laced with yoghurt and sprinkled with fresh lemon juice and chopped coriander.

Here it is served alongside with Malay oxtail in tamarind juice and nice long-grained rice cooked the Asian way.

Here is a theme song for this fragrant Indian meal: