Pempek, something I really missed from home..

Living far away from home sometime gives this very unpleasant feeling of missing the taste of the original traditional food from home country. Pempek, is one of the Indonesian traditional food that I missed a lot. This dish can be simply explained as fish nuggets dipped in a sweet and sour sauce. With ingredients that are limited available in the UK, my friend and I tried to make a modified version of Pempek. The fish being used should have been a special fish called "Ikan Tengiri". I don't know the actual English word for it, but when I Google it, some says that in English they called it "Spanish Mackerel". Since we cannot find the Spanish Mackerel in Glasgow, so we decide to try using "Sea Bass" because the shape and texture of the meat is similar to the "Ikan Tengiri" that we should use. So here are the ingredients for my "first try" piece of Pempek.

Ingredients For The Fish Nugget:
200gr "Seabass" Fish or "Ikan Tengiri" (Blended)
150gr Tapioca Flour
50gr Plain Flour
2 tbs Melted Butter
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tbs Salt
Water to boil + 2 tbs Vegetable Oil
Plain Flour to cover the dough
Vegetable oil to deep fry

Ingredients For The Sauce:
100gr Palm Sugar (Gula Jawa)
2 tbs Vinegar
1 tsp Blended Garlic
3 tbs Tamarind Paste
300ml water
Fresh Blended Chilly / Chilly Powder (according to taste)

How To Make The Fish Nugget:
1. Mix all the ingredients of the fish nugget well until the texture is like a "play dough".

2. Shape it into balls of long oval balls, then boil with water + oil. Boil well until the dough is floating in the boiled water. When the dough is floating, keep boiling for about 5 minutes so it will be cooked well.

3. After cooked well, take out the floating dough, cover with plain flour so it will not stick from one to the other. Leave to cool down.

4. After cooled, deep fry the Fish nugget with medium heat until it is golden brown.

How To Make The Sauce:
1. Boil all the sauce ingredients together.

To serve this dish, you can cut the fried fish nuggets into small pieces. Put it in a bowl, then cover it with the sweet ans sour sauce. This dish usually is not served while hot. It's better served when it has been cool down in a room temperature. The sensation of this dish is on the sour that are combined with the sweet and spicy. Using "Sea Bass" as the fish used in this dish does not taste as good as when using "Ikan Tengiri". But it is just fine to cure my feeling of missing the taste of my favorite traditional food.

Bon Appetit....^^