Fried Fish with Fermented Soy Bean Sauce (ikan masak tauchu)

this is our main dish for tonight. my mom used to make this when i was little...i love this dish its so appetizing and when ever mom made this i will eat alot. now i hardly eat this dish, mainly because my husband can't stand anything that has to do with soy. he hated it, he's not allergic to it but just hated it...

so what made me cook this dish anyway? because i basically ran out of ideas on what to cook. ok lets face it if you're not working and all you do is cook for your family, eventually you'll run out of things to cook especially when you have picky eaters...not an easy task. and also lately i've been craving things from the past and needless to say this dish came to mind. since i have not much option especially with limited ingredients for anything else...my maid asked "bapak tak kisah?"(will he(your husband) mind?) and i told her that its his lost if he refused to eat coz its a delicious dish.

then husband came home and eat everything on the table with out question....i gotta say i was amazed! then i asked his is the fish any good? he said yes absolutely (then i begin to grin) then can i cook this dish again? he then said yes you should! (my smile was from ear to ear) he didn't know...and he liked it i'm happy full stop. i didn't tell him though or he'll freak out for absolutely no reason.

but my trick for the dish is that i use some sweet soy sauce and LOTs of ginger to reduce the 'tauchu'/fermented soy smell.

anyway here's the recipe:

2 pieces/slice of any white meat fish (i love seabass and haddock cut. but here i use tenggiri but i don't know what tenggiri is in english...but i think its Spanish Mackerel but i'm not sure... sorry)

lots of fresh ginger sliced in strips

1 large bombay onion sliced

1 clove garlic sliced

a hand full of cherry tomatoes

1 large red & green chili sliced (if you don't like it hot just de-seed them, here i only have red chili)

1tsp tauchu/fermented soy (you can get this at china town)

a splash of sweet soy sauce

1/3c of water

1tsp corn starch diluted with 2tsp of water.

1tsp sugar

**cook's note: you don't need any additional salt in this dish as the tauchu is very salty but i highly recommend you to TASTE your dish and adjust accordingly.

1. season fish with salt then fry them til cooked and tender. set a side.


2. heat a table spoon of oil and saute onion, garlic, ginger, chili, tomatoes until fragrant.


3. then add in tauchu, stir and reduce heat to moderate to low, add in the soy sauce.


4. then add in water and corn starch mixture.


5. cook until its simmers and the gravy is slightly thicken. remove from heat then pour the gravy on to the fried fish and ready to serve.