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Here’s a quick, easy and tasty recipe for those of you out who like fried fish fillet. As a child, I remember feasting on crispy fish fillets during our summer outings to various tourist locations in the Philippines. My grandfather played host to these trips for the international students (mostly Koreans) in the school he used to head and I, of course, would not miss any of it. And some of these students have children my age. It was so funny in the beginning because us kids could not understand each other — they were still learning English and so we were all just nodding, smiling, laughing, playing and eating! The language barrier did not keep us from enjoying each others company.

So where was I.. yes the fish! One of my favorite packed lunch order at the Korean restaurant that catered for us was the spicy fish fillet with steamed rice. I have distinct memories of tastes of food from childhood and this is one of them. I have been so desperate for decades to find this taste or replicate it until I stumbled upon the basa fish and this simple concoction. It sounds ridiculous that I have been craving this for more than 10 years! I’m so relieved to “find” it once again and be able to satiate this craving. I cooked and ate this two days in a row! It was that bad.

I have to tell you something else: it tastes so close to McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets! I promise I was not hallucinating. So FYI, this could be a good alternative McNuggets fix.

Here’s another accidental discovery that accompanied this dish: I ran out of flour and resorted to using cornstarch for dredging. It gave a really nice, crackly-crispiness that I have been looking for a very long time. Perfect!

As for the fish, you might be wondering how in the world I decided to pick basa fish. I didn’t know this fish until it called out to me at the Chinese supermarket. This was sold frozen and although I don’t usually buy frozen fish, I was curious to try it. The meat is white (compared to the orange-coral-red-ish color of salmon) with thick flakes, compared to the finer tilapia meat. It keeps its shape during pan frying and is not as delicate as some fish fillets. I makes perfect sense for making fish sticks. It won’t fall off your fingers or fork as other fish varieties would.

You can also try the following recipe with the fish of your preference. Don’t forget to let me know if it worked out for you! Read the full story

Do you have those moments when you think you should know (how to do) something by default as a result of your ethnicity (or perhaps last name, family, affiliation, etc.)? And then you refuse to seek guidance because “it’s in you”. It’s like assuming that as an Asian I should know how to cook rice perfectly without any measuring tools or timer.

That’s exactly what was going on in my mind when I embarked on this Pot Sticker Adventure. I was pretty confident I could pull this off by channeling my inner 1/minisculeth Chinese. A book I’m reading says this is what artists are prone to do — Wing It. Did I ever wing it. I just wanted to use what we had in the kitchen, including kale.

I think I added shredded kale, chopped carrots, green onions, salt, pepper to the ground pork. I can’t remember. I wrote down the ingredients but I could not find that piece of paper anymore.

I made the wrapper with equal parts boiling water and flour. [Please don't ask me what got into my head.] The sealing/folding left something to be desired, but it still resembled what it should look like. Somewhat.

In the end, my first pot sticker experiment tasted REALLY good for something that’s based out of nothing. Dan and I were more surprised than anything. The wrapper was not so good, so I’ll stick to pre-made ones next time. Other than that…yummy!

The dipping sauce, if you’re curious, was a mixture of light soy sauce, white vinegar and smashed whole clove of garlic. It’s a Filipino dip that’s normally used for roasted pig but I tried it with the pot stickers to balance the saltiness. Dan loved it. :)

What have you experimented/concocted lately? Share your links if you blogged about them.