Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Fishball Soup - Historically




We had this as dinner last night. This, along with that tofu finger, is an all-time-favorite back in my household. Kakak kept on complementing me while finishing her small bowl. (auwww.. that little girl is such an angel these days, she even handed us a tissue each to wipe our mouth while eating) And she even shared mine and mdh’s. The recipe is easy-peasy that I don’t even have the heart to pen it down here. You know, the usual sautee of ginger and garlic, the adding of water. Then add chunks of potato and finally carrot wedges. The ‘star’ of this dish is homemade fishball.

The homemade fishball was purely coincidental when I first did my FISHBALL SOUP. We were at Pasar Sungei Besi doing our usual shopping for lauk and sayur. Mdh was looking for some crabs for our CHILLI CRAB lunch. They say, when it’s at the middle of bulan Islam, crabs will have more flesh. But I guess living not so near the sea, I can’t use that judgement for buying some. The crabs may have been caught days ago, or even week. Anyway, when it comes to crab, mdh always does the testing and selecting. He’d ‘jentik’ (what’s the word in English eh?) the shell and from the way it sounds, he’d know if the crab has full flesh or not. So, on that day, I was waiting for him doing his testing and selecting. I couldn’t help but to notice the guy at stall nearby scraping the flesh of tenggiri papan. The he pounded the flesh dengan gigihnya until it was all mashed and tender. That was the first time I bought his produce. We came again many times later, more often than not, standing impatiently while he did his job. I remember at one time, he told me that I could very well do that at home actually. He even gave me his trade secret! But I prefer to wait on. There was one time we decided to go have breakfast while he pounded and only remember about that when we were almost at the car to go back home. Nevertheless, mdh fetched it. The guy had already finish selling actually but he waited on for us to take a portion which he had kept. Eventho it was just fish, I was a bit terharu with his gestures.

Anyway, usually I add ‘suun’ (glass noodle) into it but last night mdh suggested that we use dried noodle he purchased from Jusco. I boiled them until tender and put them into small bowls. While sembahyang Isya’ I let the soup to simmer and when I’m done with prayer, I just scooped the steaming hot soup into the bowl. Memang pantang mdh makan soup sejuk or even yang suam-suam. He likes it steaming hot. Itupun dia komplen dah sejuk sikit (sebab sibuk ambik gambo punya pasal). Yang oi, kalau you nak sentiasa mendidih, kenalah makan dalam periuk yang tertenggek atas dapur tu! Anyway, we’re eyeing for that electric pot we often find in steamboat restaurants. Kalau ada rezeki, insyaAllah kami beli.

oh.. it's called Beijing Noodles.. pretty exotic huh?


got halal maaa

That's the history of FISHBALL SOUP. Pretty boring huh?


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

salam,

ringkas dan nampak menyelerakan. laparlah pulak.

lamanya saya tak buat fishball sendiri.guna isi ikan tenggiri mmg sedap. biasanya saya cuma gaulkan isi tu ngan garam dan sedikit tepung jagung, utk melekatkannya then rebus seketika.

ummi, pandai tak buat tofu egg tu? bolehlah saya tolong jualkan.

mmg nampak exotic mee tu. kalau guna mee tu mesti rendam dlm air panas ya..boleh tak kita rendamkan dlm air sejuk cam biasa kita rendam meehun tu sblm masukkan dlm air panas?

ummi said...

kaklong ~ tofu tu tak pandailahh. nanti nak try jugak cari2 kat internet. saya pun gaul jugak dengan tepung tp sikit aje sbb takut keras. buat syarat supaya melekat.

mee tu kena celur dalam 5 minit. kalau takat rendam ni rasanya mungkin susah sikit nak lembut.

sebenarnya malam ni nak buat version ayam-ball pulak tp che abang lambat pulak balik. ni tgh menunggulah nih.
*cepatlah*