Otak Otak - Fish Cake
Otak Otak - Fish Cake Recipe
Otak-otak is fish cake from Malaysia. Muar, a small town located at Johor is particularly famous for it. It is made by mixing fish paste with a mixture of spices, including chilies, garlic, shallots, turmeric, lemon grass and coconut milk. The mixture is wrapped in banana leaf and grilled or steamed it. Other versions of otak-otak also utilize crab meat, prawn meat, cuttlefish, fish head or chicken.
Ingredients:
- 500g fish fillets (minced)
- 4 shallots (peeled and roughly chopped)
- 1 teaspoon belacan (dried shrimp paste)
- 2 stalks lemon grass (leaves and root removed, only around 2 inches of stems, cut into ½ inch long)
- 1 inch galanggal ( cut into small pieces)
- 3 red chilies (remove seeds and cut into small pieces)
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon corn flour
- 180ml coconut milk
- salt and pepper to taste
- banana leaf or aluminum foil (around 12x10 inch, grease with cooking oil)
- toothpicks (or a stapler)
Steps:
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- In a blender or food processor, grind the shallots, belacan, lemon grass, galanggal and red chilies with coconut milk to a fine paste. Add turmeric powder. Mix well.
- Mix in the fish meat, egg, brown sugar, salt and pepper and cornflour. Beat the mixture until smooth.
- Place fish paste mixture in the center of banana leaf or aluminum foil, adjust according to the size of banana leaf.
- Fold and secure both ends with toothpicks or stapler.
- Bake fish until firm to touch. (Approx 15-20 minutes.)
- Cool before cutting.