Ikan Salai Masak Terung Asam

Smoked Fish in Sour Eggplant



This is one the simplest yet a heart-warming soup dish among the Dayaks. The aroma of the smoked fish is so homey and inviting, combine with the sourish soup produced by the sour eggplant. As the older generation of Dayak did not enjoyed the privilage of having a refrigerator, this dish can be whipped up any time as the ingredient are easily available throughout the day.

Terung Asam/Terung Dayak, which is very unique and only available in Sarawak

Ikan Salai (Smoked Fish)

Ingredient:
1. Smoked Fish
2. Sour Eggplant (cut into 6. Seeded if preferred)
3. 2 stalk of Lemongrass
4. 1 litre Water
5. Salt for seasoning

Optional Ingredient:
1. Chicken Stock
2. 1 no. Assam Keping
3. 2 bird eye's chillies

Method:
1. Bring sour eggplant to boil in water. You may use chicken stock instead of water.
2. Once the sour eggplant slightly undercooked, add in the smoked fish and the lemongrass.
3. Add the assam keping and bird eye's chillies.
4. Once the sour eggplant's skin peel off, season the soup with salt to taste.
5. It's ready. Best served hot.

Sambal Ikan Keli (Catfish)

Shrimp Sambal with Catfish



This is the Bidayuh version of Sambal Ikan Keli or known as catfish. Besides the catfish soup, when we don't have the pot to cook it in while we were at the farm, we will use daun buan as a wrapper, and grilled it on an open fire. The aroma of burnt daun buan is wonderful and to me, it can evoked powerful memory of my childhood. Daun buan is easily available in tropical country like Malaysia, and act as an alternative to banana leaves.

This is how to prepare the catfish for grilling.
1)Clean-up the catfish. If you wish, you can wash it with tamarind pulp or lime juice to get rid of the smell. Season lightly with a bit of salt.
2) Clean the daun buan. Wipe it dry. Gently, take away the back-bone of the leaves. See photo below.

3) You will need minimum 2 pcs of leaves. Run it over the stove to soften the leaves. This will make it easier to be bend when wrapping the fish, and prevent tearing up of the leaves.

The leaves after heated on the stove, the color turned slightly yellowish.

4) Arrange the catfish on the leaf. Wrap on the longish side, if the leaves are big enough, you can fold and clip it nicely together. Then fold one of the edge towards the bottom, put it upright so the fish slides down to fill up the space. Then fold the other edge. Turn facedown on another new leaf. Repeat step 4.



5) Catfish nicely wrapped in daun buan.
6) Grilled the wrapped catfish on the stove about 10-15minutes on medium low fire.



7) Once it is ready, open the wrap and peel off the burnt leaves. You don't need to wash it off.

8) Prepare sambal belacan which consists of shrimp paste and chillies only. Add a bit of warm water. Fermented durian (tempoyak) is optional. Peel off the meat from the fish and shred it into big chunk. Mix into sambal belacan.

9) You can make it as a dipping for other ulam, or it can be eaten with white rice.

Umai Sarawak (Umai Ikan Tenggiri)

Umai Ikan Tenggiri

This is one of Sarawak traditional dishes that does need little introduction to. Eventhough it used to become the Melanau's staple food, it had became so famous in Sarawak that one can find this delicacies in a five star hotel in Sarawak. But nothing can beat a homemade umai, pronounced as 'umei'. There are many variations to umai. One can use boneless/boneless sea fish e.g tenggiri, bawal (duwei in Sarawak), prawn (click here), or even salted ikan terubok.

Basic Ingredient:
Fresh meaty/boneless fish
Onion
Red chilli
Shallot (pounded)
Asam Paya/Lime Juice
Ginger
Salt
Sugar



This was prepared by my Melanau sister-in-law (SIL) who hails from Mukah, the origin of this food. . My SIL version below has been added with lots of extra ingredient, but the basic taste remains the same as she plays with added aroma and more texture.

Here's her version of umai above.

Basic Ingredient:
Fresh meaty/boneless fish
Onion
Red chilli
Shallot (pounded)
Asam Paya/Lime Juice
Ginger
Salt
Sugar

Additional Ingredient:
Ground nut
Bunga Kantan

Optional:
MSG

Method:
1. Fillet the fish and cut into smaller slices.
2. Add in sliced onion, red chilli, shallot, ginger, bunga kantan.
3. Add in lime juice.
4. Season to taste with salt and sugar. Mix evenly. Refrigerate if necessary.

5. Groundnut can be mixed or just before serving.
6. Serve.

Touch wood, but this is one of the Last Meal I would request if I am in a deathrow, beside sambal belacan and a hot piping white rice. It's that good!

Pekasam Ikan

English : Fermented Fish
Bidayuh : Kauk Ikien



This food is one of the most ancient food, and yet still can be found in many Bidayuh households in Borneo Sarawak nowadays. Pekasam Ikan, which went through a fermentation process using life bacteria, can last for a long time and can be eaten throughout the year. The freshwater fishes used were normally caught during monsoon season, and preserved in bulk for storage.

Ingredient :
Freshwater fishes (above using Ikan Lampan Jawa)
Salt
Pounded Rice
Yeast (sold in white thin round shape, can be found in most dry market within Sarawak)

Method :
1. Clean the fishes.
2. Add enough salt. Reduce excess water.
3. Pound the yeast finely. Coat the fishes with the rice yeast powder one by one, and preferably keep in a glass jar. Close the lid tightly.
4. The fermented fish is ready for consumption within 1 month onwards.

Sup Tikam (Ikan Lampan Jawa)

As mentioned and stressed in previous posts, Bidayuh cooking are pretty simple cooking with ingredient that is easily available. One of the simple, quick but delicious meal is Sup Tikam (which literally means a soup where you can throw anything you want inside).


One of the variety of Sup Tikam my mother used to cook was Sup Ikan Lampan Jawa. The ingredients are as following:

Ikan Lampan Jawa (or any other freshwater fish)
Young Ginger (Halia Muda)
Turmeric Leave (Daun Kunyit) or Daun Pegaga Wangi
Terung Assam Kuning (Terung Dayak)
Lemongrass (Serai)
Sambal Belacan
Salt
Fermented Durian (Tempoyak)
Water

Optional:
Saute garlic and shallot
MSG
Chicken stock cube

In fact, with the exception of salt, the other ingredients are pretty optional, you can put all or the combination of some, depended on what you have available and taste that you want to achieve.

How To Prepare:
Boil terung dayak in a pot of water. When it almost soften, put garlic, lemongrass, turmeric. After that add in the sambal belacan, tempoyak, MSG or chicken stock cube and salt to taste. When everything cooked and the fragrance start to come out, put in the fish slowly. Turn off fire when the fish is cooked. Serve it hot.

Note : Please beware of the fine bones of the fish above.

Resepi Pansoh (Pansuh)

Manok (Ayam/Chicken) Pansuh

Here is the basic recipe for Pansoh (Pansuh).

Ingredient (Marinate) :
1. Meat (Chicken, catfish, pork)
2. Garlic (pounded rough)
3. Shallot (pounded fine)
4. Ginger (pounded)
5. Turmeric Leaves (cut abt 5-10mm width)
6. Lemongrass (pounded)
7. Salt
8. Cassava/Tapioca Leaves
9. Young bamboo

Optional Ingredient:
1. Turmeric stump
2. Tepus/tipuk
3. MSG
4. Fermented durian (tempoyak)
5. Black pepper
6. Bird's eye chillis
7. Young Galangal (sliced)
8. Daun Bungkang (pls see http://sarawakianaii.blogspot.com/2011/07/daun-bungkang.html)

Method :
1. Before using the bamboo, fill it with water for 1/2-1 hour to clean the inside, and encourage the water to seep in.
2. Marinate all Item 1-8 and Optional Ingredient together, leave some of tapioca leaves to cap the bamboo later on.
3. Emptied the water from the bamboo. Fill it with the marinated meat.
4. Don't compact all meat, let it loose lightly.
5. If you want pansuh soup, add in a cup of water.
6. Capped the bamboo with tapioca leaves.
7. Cook over pit fire-charcoal or log-bamboo stand abt 60-80 degree.
8. Pansuh is cooked if the water start to gurgle at the cap.
9. In case the pansuh is dry type, take note of color changes on the tapioca leaves to determine if it is cooked.
10. To serve, just transfer the meat into a plate.

Pork pansuh (pansoh)

Best taken with hot plain rice! Enjoy!

Tips : Add-on certain tapioca leaves to the marinate can produce bitter taste. Select tapioca leaves that will not have this effect.

Sup Ikan Dengan Terung Kuning

Fish Soup with Yellow (Sour) Eggplant
Bidayuh: Sup Ikien duoh Tiyung Dayak



Food Prepared By : Aunt Mary G.
Photo Taken By : Sumuk


Ingredient:
500 gm fresh fish
2 pcs of garlic - pound
2 stalks of lemongrass - pound
1-2 nos of yellow (sour) eggplant - cut and de-seed
1 tsp sugar
2 tbs cooking oil
bird's eye chillies (cili padi) - qty to personal taste
500ml water

Optional:
1 tbs fermented durian (tempoyak) or MSG
2 pcs dried assam (asam keping)

Method :
1. Saute garlic in oil on a cooking pot until fragrant.
2. Add water to pot.
3. Add the yellow eggplant and cover the pot loosely. Boil until the eggplant soften and the skin almost detached by itself.
4. Add in dried assam if preferred.
5. Add in the fish, lemongrass and chillies. Salt to taste.
6. Add fermented durian or MSG for additional flavor.

And it's done!