Tuna in Tamarind Sauce (Pla Rad Prik)

 

MUNCH RATING: 2/5

 

A few months ago Steve and I went to a brilliant Thai restaurant near Richmond Park called Ayudhya. We had Monkfish in a tamarind sauce and it was called Pla Rad Prik. It was really tasty and the fish was beautifully cooked, but it was really spicy! I think traditionally the Thai fry a whole fish, but in the restaurant they fried pieces of monkfish.

 

Steve’s Mum bought us some tuna whilst in Tesco’s this week and I had to think of a good way to use it up. I’m not a big fan of tuna, so I thought this spicy tamarind sauce would be a good way to mask the tuna taste!

 

Well the sauce was good, but the tuna wasn’t. It just tasted so fishy and it put me off from eating it, so I left most of it. I will definitely make the sauce again, but I will use less chilli as it was a little bit too hot for us, even though I used only 1 chilli instead of the 3 that the recipe suggested!

 

Ingredients:

• Any meaty fish, cut into chunks
• Cornflour to coat the fish
• 1 shallot, coarsely chopped (I used ½ red onion sliced as that’s what I had in the fridge!)
• 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1 Tablespoon tamarind
• 3 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 Tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 1 red or yellow chilli, sliced

 

Directions for the sauce:

1. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a small saucepan over a medium heat.
2. Add the garlic, onion and chilli and fry until the onion is soft.
3. Then add tamarind, sugar, fish sauce and soy sauce and about 100ml of water.
4. Mix well and let boil to reduce down to a thick syrup.

 

Directions for the fish:

1. In a dish, coat the chunks of fish in the cornflour.
2. Heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a wok or large frying pan, then fry the fish for about 5 minutes until golden brown.
3. When cooked, pour the sauce on top of the fish and garnish with spring onion brushes.
4. Serve immediately with steamed rice.

 

COOK’S NOTES:

• To make the spring onion brushes: take a spring onion and cut off most of the green part and discard, leaving about a finger length of the white part. Carefully trim off the root. From the greenest end of the spring onion, cut about halfway along the length a few times to make strips. Place the spring onions into a bowl of cold water and place in the fridge for about 10 minutes to make the strips curl. Lift from water and drain before using as a garnish.