They also sell otah. Business is good because cheap.
The southern otah not as good as northern or Thai otah. Super delicious steamed with gravy inside.snd not dry like in the south.
OTAK OTAK – FISH DUMPLINGS IN BANANA LEAVES (LAZAT MALAYSIAN COOKING SCHOOL)
October 3, 2014 by
Jennifer Che 2 Comments
This is the third post in the Malaysia and Singapore! series. Other posts in this series include Lot 10 Hutong – Kuala Lumpur’s Most Famous Hawker Stalls Under One Roof and LaZat Malaysian Home Cooking These cute little “presents”, called
Otak Otakin Malaysia, make the perfect pre-dinner appetizer at a large party. You can make a large batch of them beforehand and just steam them right before the guests arrive, which only takes 10 minutes.
They are impressive to look at, taste phenomenal, and are really easy to make.
Otak Otak is very popular in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. It’s a portable food, and thus is often sold at stalls for people on-the-go, sort of like the Chinese do with
zhongzi (bamboo leaf wrapped rice dumplings) or the Japanese do with
onigiri (seaweed wrapped rice balls).
The steamed little package is usually filled with small chunks of white fish and aromatic flavors like lemongrass, shallots, tamarind paste, kaffir lime leaves, and curry – all bound together with eggs and coconut milk.
The resulting dish is fantastic and most certainly a crowd pleaser.
Prepare a
spice paste by grinding together (either with a mortar and pestle or food processor) lemongrass, red chili peppers, and shallots. Prepare shredded kaffir lime leaves by rolling up a leaf and then thinly slicing it.
If you can’t find fresh kaffir lime leaves, you can probably use the dried version, but use a lot less.
In bowl, add a beaten egg to the spice paste and mix well. Add fish curry powder to the mixture and continue mixing. Finally, add the cut up fish to the sauce mixture and mix.
Add coconut milk.
Add the shredded kafir lime leaves and mix. Finally, add sugar and salt. Now you’re ready to start wrapping!
First, we need to soften the leaves. The easiest way to do this is to lay the banana leaf on an open flame for about 10 seconds. It will soften, darken, and be less prone to breaking.
Lay down the heated banana leaf, put one kaduk leaf down, and top with the fish mixture. Kaduk leaf is really, really hard to find in the U.S. (and no, it’s not a betel leaf, though it looks like one. Some call it wild pepper leaf). The instructor told us we could substitute with spinach.
I think 2-3 pieces of fish is plenty.
And then wrap according to the visual instructions below!
Have your toothpicks ready so you can seal your little presents.
Little packages of love, ready to be steamed!
You can refrigerate or even freeze them at this point until it’s time to serve them.
Steam for 10 minutes.
Waiting patiently.
Viola!
Definitely eat while hot – it’s so much better that way.
It’s hard to eat just one, so I was glad we each made four of them!
you on a roll today.
