Pepes Mackarel

Its kinda hard to find "pepes" in English term.
Pepes is a cooking method which using banana leaf as food wrapping. What make it special is the fragrant  from banana leaf that last in the food after steaming.
Some people like to grill it after steaming process taken, well including me. It make the food inside become slightly dry and has harder texture.

This method can be applied in many food variant, such fish, chicken, even tofu.
Even the technique can't be relatively simple, but the result is worth taking. 
The tips is bunch of spices. You cant be over spices in Pepes way.... :)

To make this YOU Need:

2  medium shortbody mackerel , in Indonesia knows as ikan kembung. Clean and wash them carefully.
1/2 lemon
2 plies banana leaves
4 tooth picks

Spices:
2              lemongrass, chopped
1/2 cup     lemon basil
2              Indonesian bay leaves
3              leeks , chopped
2              small green tomatoes
5              garlic
10            red shallots
1 cm        fresh turmeric
3 cm        fresh ginger
2 cm        fresh galangal
salt and sugar

* You can add chilies to spice it up

HOW TO:
1. Squeeze lemon into fish , leave them for 15 mins. wash them again. Put pinch of salt.
2. Grind garlic, shallots, tumeric, ginger , and galangal. add some salt and sugar to seasoning.
3. Mix the grinned spices with lemon grass, lemon basil, and leeks. divide into 2 parts
4. Arrange 2 banana leaves , put indonesian bay leaves in each leaf.
5. Put some spices on top of bay leaf, follow by fish, put the rest of spices on the top of it.
6. Wrapped them carefully with banana leaf, and put tooth picks to tighten them up in each end
7. Steam fish for 30 mins, and grilled after that. The grilling process allow the fish to be crispier.

Enjoy !






 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Veggie time!

Image
Wednesday..... Today I do not cook. Feeling dizzy. My neck feels shore and heavy. Suspect: too many fritters...like tempe goreng, banana fritters, bakwan, etc :) As I said I don't feel to cook. I ask my kitchen crew to cook something fresh, and off course refreshing.. The choice is capcay soup. Capcay is simply stir fry veggies, like carrots, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower , and every thing veggie left in the fridge. Sometimes I call it "left over " soup... :) You can put every thing, and become one healthy food. Ingredients: 2   garlic 1   onion salt and pepper 1 tsp sugar 3 cups of chicken stock 3 tsp vegetable oil 2 tsp oyster sauce Veggies : anything you like. :) but do not forget to slice them ... Protein : meat balls, prawn, chicken fillet or anything left in the fridge. HOW To: 1.  in the big wok, stir fry the onion and garlic with hot vegetable oil until fragant 2. put the protein that you have prepared until tender, pour the  sauce an...
Read more
Image
Dear October, Welcoming october with lemon custard pie.... How this become a bad start hey.... my custard just cracked every where like dry ground. Oh dear Lord, what happen? My kids just look at it and said " hmmm mommy no .. but thanks..." DO you want to see the pic I surfed in the net, that cracked custard do to over cooked or over heat.... hmmm let me recall...ha..ha.. yae... I left the pie during my bath..ho..ho... hmmm thats explain. here the link about how to make a succesfull pie.. http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Pumpkin-Pies--Custard-Pies/Detail.aspx THe key points are: revent cracks by baking the pie at a moderate temperature, and--even better--bake custard pies in a water bath. This prevents the outer layer of custard from baking too fast. To avoid burns or dropped pies, only use heavy-duty aluminum, glass or ceramic pie pans: disposable foil pans are too shallow, are hard to grip, and can buckle when you try to remove them from a water bath.  Us...
Read more