Garam Masala Noodle

This dish was inspired by Neil Perry's pressure test recipe on last year's masterchef " Garam Masala Poached Fish with Semolina Noodle". What a long name ha? But I adapted this recipe from his recipe and make little adjustments here and there. Of course, I don't have the patience to make my own noodle so I just bought the usual yellow hokkien noodle from any asian groceries. It's still really satisfying. A bit of fusion between Indian/Thai flavour. I served this for one of the dinner parties we had at home and my friends loved it too.

I didn't cook it as long as Neil's recipe, and I made some changes to it as well. The colour looks a bit different too from his recipe. Haahahahha... but it's still good. I used Basa fillet, I kinda like this fish as it has nice firm flesh and a distinct flavour to it. I don't need to be afraid of overcooking it really. But you can replace it with any white flesh fish you like. Neil used snapper fillets.

The recipe I made is for about 8 servings. But you can cut it down to half of course.

Garam Masala Noodle with Fish

Adapted from Neil Perry's Masterchef pressure test recipe

Ingredients:

• 1kg Yellow Hokkien Noodle
• 200-300 grams snow peas
• 5 Basa Fillets, cut into 5-6cm pieces
• 5cm piece ginger, shredded
• 1L coconut milk
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 can diced tomato ( you can just use fresh tomato if you want. I was too lazy...=)..)
• 10 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 bunch Thai sweet basil leaves
• 1.5 big piece of palm sugar ( mine was a 5cm diameter piece, you can adjust accordingly)
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons salt

Spice paste:

• 2 red shallots
• 5 cloves garlic
• 5cm piece ginger
• Red chillies, optional ( you can add more if you like it spicy. I didn't add any chillies for mine)

Dry spice:

• 2 heaped teaspoon garam masala ( you can get it at any big supermarket or asian groceries)
• 1 teaspoon tumeric
• 1 teaspoon whole black pepper, dry roasted
• 8 green cardamom pods - dry roasted, cracked and black seeds removed
• 2 cloves, dry roasted
• 2 star anise, dry roasted

Methods:

1. Grind all the dry spices together until fine. Make sure you dry roast the cardamom/cloves/star anise and black pepper first before grinding. And crack the cardamom pods with your mortar and pestle to remove all the black seeds after you dry roast them before grinding.
2. Process the shallots, ginger and garlic into smooth paste and mix in all the ground spices
3. Heat up oil in frying pan, and fry the shallots/spice paste on low-medium fire for 10-15 minutes until fragrant.
4. Then add in the canned tomato and fry on low fire for another 5-10 minutes until slightly dried up.
5. Add in the coconut milk, water, kaffir lime leaves, shredded ginger and boil on medium fire for another 20-30 minutes until all the flavour of the ginger and lime leaves are infused into the stock.
6. Add in seasoning ( sugar, salt and fish sauce). Adjust seasoning accordingly.
7. You can just switch off the fire now if you're not ready to eat yet and put in the fish whenever you're ready to serve the noodle.
8. When you're ready to serve, reheat the stock and put the fish into the stock and simmer on low fire for another 15 minutes until the fish is cooked.
9. Blanch your noodle and snow peas in hot water until soft
10. Arrange noodle and snow peas in a bowl

11. Put all the basil leaves into the curry stock and switch fire off.

12. Pour the stock with some fish on the noodle and serve warm

Bon appetit!