Whole Crispy Fish Recipe

This Spirit House signature dish is one of the easiest to make - as long as you’re not scared of a wok of boiling oil or you have a large deep fryer.

The Tamarind Chilli Sauce

The easy way …
You can take the easy way out and head to an IGA and buy a bottle of Spirit House Tamarind Chilli Sauce. Here’s the method: open bottle, pour 100ml or so into a saucepan and heat. For a strong flavour, boil sauce for a few minutes to reduce the sauce down a tad.

… If that was too easy, you can do it the hard way and make your own sauce …
Make your own tamarind chilli sauce
4 tablespoons chopped garlic
4 red chillies, finely chopped, deseeded
2 golden or red shallots, sliced
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh or
pickled galangal
1 tablespoon finely chopped coriander root or stem
10 white peppercorns
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons palm sugar
half cup tamarind water
coriander or Thai sweet basil to garnish

method:
in mortar, pound white peppercorns, add garlic, shallots, galangal, coriander root - pound to coarse paste.
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in wok and stir fry the paste and chillies until fragrant - about 2 minutes. Add fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind water. The sauce should be sweet, tangy and salty and should be quite thick. If too dry, moisten with a few tablespoons water. Simmer this sauce for a few minutes for the flavours to come together. Remove sauce from wok, keep warm.

Cooking The Fish

1 whole fish, weighing about 500 gms -cleaned, scaled, gutted & gilled
plain flour to coat fish
4 cups vegetable oil for deep frying

Method
Score both sides of the fish diagonally with a sharp knife. This opens the flesh making it quicker to cook and easier to eat.

In a Wok, make sure oil is sizzling hot by testing with a piece of garlic. Slide fish gently into oil, head first. Using wok flipper, spoon oil over the top of the fish while cooking. This will take about
10 minutes. Carefully turn the fish over, fry on the second side for about 5 minutes. Carefully lift out, drain on paper towel.

Transfer to serving platter, spread apart the gill area just behind the head, this will make it easy for the fish to stand upright on the plate spoon over sauce and garnish with coriander leaves or basil.