Today is Thursday, the day hubby has to pop into his office. I like to cook him a surprise lunch every Thursday. I sent him to work this morning after giving him eggy bread and started to make my asam curry paste. I planned to finished cooking and showered by the time he comes back for lunch.

There are many ways of cooking this dish but this is the way I preferred mine to be cooked as this is the way I have eaten for as long as I could remember. I suppose like most dishes traditionally we are used to how our parents and grandparents cooked them.

As for me myself I still much preferred my fish to be seasoned and fried before adding to my asam curry sauce. Hence, I find it hard to eat fish curry outside and I always asked the vendor if they fried their fish first before placing my order.

As usual this is more as a guide than a fixed recipe as such. I have a pot of otak udang chilli that I have made the other day which I can add to my paste. If you do not have you can add a small handful of dried shrimps and blend with your paste. I also have daun kesom, laksa leaves, bravely surviving in the cold so I used some to boil my nasi kunyit.

As I am using oil to fry and aubergines and fish, I decided to also fry some keropok ikan and prawns from Kuching and some chicken and prawn wantons. This is because after frying my aubergines and fish I will throw away the oil. The oil will then have no more ‘strength’ for frying anything else. To try and reuse it some more will cause your cook to be very greasy!

p/s Otak udang – fried prawns heads with oil till crispy with garlic, salt, chilli and blitz in the blender to make a paste. Store in fridge and use at will.