cream dory fish fillet with white sauce dip

Noche Buena... I've been thinking of something special to eat and to serve to my family this Christmas eve. I dont like pork, beef, nor chicken so what's left is fish and veggie. After my shift i went ahead to SM supermaket since i have this (1000 sodexho gc, I just used the 500), I told myself that I'll just buy whatever comes to my mind but it needs to be a fish dish. The market was too crowded that I needed to wait couple of minutes just to get a cart and a basket. I kept pushing the cart, passed along every isle,.then all of a sudden I remembered that few days back I ate at chowking and ordered their P79 combo meals, there were 3 choices and what I selected was the one with the fish fillet, it was like i had this bulb lit up at the side of my head..i went to the fish section.. special thanks to Mon because I think he told me before that the best fish to use for fillets is the Cream Dory fish, well you know what happened next. I searched each and every stalls in the fish section, and lucky me.. I came and meet Dory, the frozen dory..hehe.. it's P195 for per kilo, not bad..as to compare to maya-maya which is like P250 to P300 per kilo, I just bought 1 kilo since it's just my first time to try it..then i bought bread crumbs and 1 Nestle all purpose cream for the white sauce. actually for the white sauce, I really dont know how to come up with the sour taste and the thikness of the cream..but I said, I got to try it I guess I just trusted my memory and my taste buds..it needs to look and taste like the ones I've eaten in fast foods and restaurants.

So here's how i did it..

Preparing the fish>>>

1. Since the fish was frozen, I needed to soak it to water for like 5 to 10 minutes (tap water will do) just for the ice to melt without damaging the meat of the fish.

2. I used Maggi magic sarap and a bit of salt, rubbed it all over the meat to give flavor, cut them to pieces (I came up with 16 large pieces) then left it for another 5 minutes.


Breading>>>

1. I used two beaten eggs, flour then the bread crumbs. The meat needs to be dipped in the egg then to the flour then to the bread crumbs.

Note: it is recommended to dip fry to avoid uneven color and it should be in a low-heat to make sure that the meat is cooked without overcooking the breading.

but it my case, I was not able to dip fry it because I ran out of oil but what I had was enough to cook it..at least..just the color was uneven :)

2. Once the bread crumbs turned to golden brown then it's done. You can use wax paper to absorb excess oil, or any clean paper will do..I used bond paper.


White Sauce>>>

Now here's the challenge for me, when I tasted it in chowking, it has sour creamy taste with a bit of garlic and green herb. So what I've used?:

all purpose cream
vinegar
salt
powdered pepper
finely minced garlic
celery (for the green herb)


Im sorry I cant tell this in detailed because I just did (tantsa tantsa) until i came up with the taste and the look as I remembered it and guess what? It tasted so similar to what they have in chowking,.. I was so happy.. :-)




I was able to finish the dish at around 11:30, I served it of course at 12am, I was lucky that i was able to take a picture of what it looked like before they're gone to our tummies.. and the taste?? it was awesome..Mon is correct, the dory fish is so tasty and has soft meat, just the way I liked it when I eat fish.. Merry Christmas to all!!! :)

my first try

cooking trip nanaman ako today hehehe... and ofcourse seafood again. i bought 1/4 kilo of these sugpo and made it as shrimp tempura.

first I cooked the shrimp in a low fire pan with a bit of butter, parang halabos lang just to cook the meat.

then i prepared the breading, ive found out on the internet that egg makes the breading "doughy" and that to use cornstarch together with the flour and an ice water ('dont know why it needs to be an ice water) to make it look flakey and crispy, so NO egg.. and so i followed.

I flavor the breading with salt and a bit of magic sarap to taste..... and here how it looked like, somewhat similar na rin to a real tempura...hehehe, im so happy. the coating is also crispy, it just did not turn out to be the real flakey look because i did not deep fry it, pero pwede na rin...hihihi..

must try

i would like to try fruit teas next time :-)

some of their best sellers: Nai Cha, Taro, Black Forest and Choco milk teas

there were times before during our team building when we eat at chowking, i always get to see coach shei ordering some sort of a beige like colored cold drink, i never bothered asking her what it is, what does it taste like or even asked what is it called until last month, i think it was, when i got to try this Tea Zone milk tea..i and my boyfriend were strolling in the mall when i suddenly crave for a pearl drink so we went to look for ZAGU but then my boyfriend tried to stop me as it might trigger my tonsillitis so we just looked for something else, and so we found this Tea Zone tea drinks. they have a lot of flavors for milk teas and fruit teas..2 of my favorites are taro and nai cha (like chowkings i think). it can be served hot or cold. they dont use blenders so it is not made out of crashed ice (which is a yes yes for me) :-) , they just put some slightly crashed ice enough to make the drink refreshing, what they do is they just mix the powdered milk tea i think it is and whatever flavor you will be choosing in a shaker and shake it just like what a bartender does then pour it into a glass with black pearls (sago) on it and that's it, and i dont know but i really like it, i like the presentation of how they prepare it and of course the taste it really tastes good. the thing is that they only have 2 branches as i remember the crew told me, one is here in victory mall caloocan and the other one is somewhere in makati, so no wonder if they are not that known yet and one more thing the price is very affordable (sulit) as they usually say it.

my recipe for the day

Buttered Shrimp with Quail Eggs

I suddenly crave for seafoods yesterday so I said why dont I cook seafood recipe tomorow for my lunch, so I went to the market on my way home and bought some shrimps, there are different sizes off course the big ones (sugpo) are the most expensive among the group like P75 for 1/4 kilo, so I went and bought the medium sized shrimps which is P50 for 1/4 kilo not bad kasi mga more than 10 pieces din naman sya. Honestly I dont have any recipes in mind so I just experiment, and here I came up with what I call it "Buttered Shrimp with quail eggs". I put some quail eggs for extenders kasi I like seafoods very much na baka maubos lang kaagad ng hindi pa ubos ung rice ko and I am going to leave the half of the meal dito sa bahay for my brother because like me he is also a seafood freak.