Taking advantage with the natural sweetness of mixed seafood, this sour and spicy dish is a wonderful combination between sour Assam (tamarind paste) with fragrant home cooked sambal. With a Thai Tom Yam like twist, this recipe is a perfect compliment to eat with plain rice as you slurp on the delicious gravy as well!
Assam Seafood
Ingredients:
1. 1 packet of Ladies Fingers. (Okra)
2. 1 packet of Assam paste. (Can get from supermarkets)
3. 2 stalks of lemon grass.
4. 5 Thai lime leaves.
5. 1 -2 Fresh Squid.
6. 1 -2 Fish Fillets. (Try to get the parts with less or no bones)
7. 300gm Big Prawns.
8. My Home Made Sambal. (Click on this to go to my sambal recipe!)
Instructions:
1. If you made my sambal recipe and the big portion is already in the freezer, scoop a small bowl of sambal from the cooked sambal.
2.
Place the Assam paste in a container. Soak the Assam paste in water and squeeze out the seeds. We want the Assam water.
Tip: We will be creating this Assam water 2 times to produce roughly 1 and 1/2 container amount.
Like this!
3.
Wash the squids and remove the innards. Be sure to cut them into rings and bite sized pieces. Also wash the fish fillets and cut them into slices, making sure they have no bones. Wash the prawns and remove the shells and guts. (The dark grey line at the back of every prawn)
You should be able to remove all these. You can throw them away.
4. Smash the lemongrass with a pounder and tear the lime leaves into smaller pieces.
5. Wash and cut the ends of the Lady’s Fingers (Okra).
6. Use a medium sized pot and add in 2tbs of oil. Add in the sambal you scooped and stir fry it for a few mins but not too long.
7. Then add in 1 container of Assam water while straining into the pot with sambal.
8. Refill the container with the remaining Assam paste from the strainer and do the same by squeezing and getting rid of most seeds, then add about 1/2 container water. Then pour the 1/2 container mixture into the pot.
9. Add in the lemongrass and lime leaves. Let the pot cook for 30mins to bring out the aroma.
The pot should look like this when it is around 30mins.
10. After that, add in the Lady’s Fingers (Okra), fish fillets and prawns for 10mins.
11. Then add in the squids.
Finally, season the pot with some sugar and salt to taste.
Tip: Squids cook extremely fast so we want them to cook last otherwise they will be tough to eat.
12. It is done!