Ikan Batang (Narrow-Barred Mackerel) Fish Porridge -
(Serves 8)
Batang fish porridge is about as ubiquitous a street food in Singapore as you can get fish and chips in England. Or Moules frite in Ostend. Or something like that...
The combination seems painfully plain - fish + porridge = fish porridge. Except that the fish is the extremely flavorful Ikan Batang, or Narrow-barred Mackerel, and the porridge is long grained rice porridge that’s been slowly cooked in a fish broth that in turn takes hours to prepare. The porridge is then flavored with Teochew fish sauce, light soy sauce, preserved radish (tung chye), copious amounts of sliced ginger, scallions, and coriander, and served piping hot with wilted chrysanthemum greens.
If you can’t get the Narrow-barred Mackerel in your town, you can easily replace the fish with a Spanish Mackerel or Albacore. A word on the fish - the fish used for this recipe must be ABSOLUTELY FRESH. It relies on the pure, fresh flavors of the fish to bring the porridge to its best level. So don’t use anything less than the freshest catch you can find.
Ingredients
For the Fish Broth
1.5 kg Ikan Batang fish bones, plus one fish head
1 yellow onion, sliced
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 thumb of ginger, about 3 cm, julienned
2 tsp Teochew fish sauce (you can use Thai fish sauce)
0.5 tbsp fleur de sel (sea salt)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp Shaoxing wine
1 tbp Chinese rice wine
1 tbsp quality cognac
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp whole black peppercorns, bashed
3 liters of water
For the Fish Porridge
1/2 a batang, filleted, about 1.6 kg, cut into chunks
1 yellow onion, sliced
1 shallot, sliced
1 2 cm thumb of ginger, sliced thinly
1 2cm thumb of ginger, julienned
2 cloves of garlic, bashed
2.5 cups of rice (each cup is 240ml), washed
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp preserved radish
1 tsp white pepper corns
1 bunch of chrysanthemum greens, de-stemed and washed
1 bunch of chopped scallions (stem only)
1 bunch of picked coriander leaves
2 tbsp fried shallots
1 tsp fried, julienned ginger strips
1 tsp fried chopped garlic
Prepare the stock. Wash the fish bones well. Heat up the canola and sesame oil in a large stock pot, and fry the onion, garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add the fish bones, and turn up the heat. Using a blow torch, sear the fish bones and some of the garlic and onion, charring them slightly. Deglaze with the shaoxing and rice wine, and cook off most of the wine (around 3 minutes); then pour in the cognac and flambe with the blow torch.
Top up the pot with 3 liters of water and add the rest of the ingredients - fish sauce, sea salt, sugar, and peppercorns. Bring to quick boil, and simmer for an hour. Strain off the scum which rises during the cooking process. After an hour is over, strain the stock twice over a fine chinoise. Set the stock aside overnight.
Fry the garlic and ginger strips and set aside.
The next day, heat up the stock. Prepare the porridge. Start by heating up some sesame oil, and frying the onion, shallot,ginger slices and strips, and garlic. Add in the rice and fry the rice until fragrant. Deglaze with the wine, then top up with 2.5 liters of the fish stock. Bring the water up to a rolling boil, then turn it to a slow simmer. Add in the light soy sauce, preserved radish and white pepper corns. Simmer until the water is almost completely reduced, around 25 minutes - this is when the grains have soaked up all the flavor in the stock. Add in the remaining 500ml or so of fish stock, and bring it back to a simmer.
Add in the Batang slices, and cook until done. Around 5-7 minutes. Before serving, add in the chrysanthemum greens and wilt them quickly. Ladle the porridge into serving bowls; garnish with coriander, scallion, and the fried ginger strips and garlic. Done!
Wine Suggestion - A crisp Gavi or Soave would work well with this fish porridge.
