Cooking Challenge with Steph #1 -- HK Style Curry Fishballs

Curry Fishballs. One of my favourite snacks of all time. I have a strange fondness (obsession?) with fishballs and meatballs almost my whole life. These little shaped deep-fried (or unfried) fish paste thingies are my favourite things to have in a hot pot, in noodles, or alone. And I go absolutely crazy over Oden. (I call myself the Oden Monster.)

Of course I'm not alone in this. Fishballs play a huge part in the Hong Kong culture -- it's one of the most popular snacks of all time. People in neighbouring countries and cities know of and seek out this delicacy. Based on a survey done in 2002, Hong Kongers consume approximately 55 tonnes (or 3,750,000 pieces) or fishballs a day! That about 13 billion fishballs in a year, or 196 pieces per person annually. HKers bleed fishballs!!!

With that being said, I'm always craving for this delicacy. I could get fishballs at the Asian grocery store, but I can't really find the "HK street food" flavour anyway, not even Chinatown. So when Steph and I set up this Cooking Challenge, it was the first thing that went on the list. A side story about how obsessed I am with this delicacy. When I was in kindergarten, I had to visit and take exams (and be accepted) to enroll into primary school. The choices were down to two very good private schools. I ended up with Saint Francis because... There was a 7-11 across the street and a few very small mum-and-pop stores on the other side, and the closest store to the school sold fishballs... (The 7-11 closed the year after I enrolled...) There were times after school, I'd ask my classmates who had been picked up by their parents to run across the street to get a skewer or two for me, and I'd share a few with them for their trouble. (We weren't allowed to leave the building unless we were being picked up. The entrances/exits were being watched/guarded.) Ahh... Memory lanes...

What are fishballs anyway? Fishballs are usually made with cheap white fish, minced and then beat repeatedly (by hands in the old days, it's not usually made with machines) under a well controlled and chilled environment until it forms into a paste. The paste is then shaped and deep fried. Sometimes a little bit of starch is added to the paste to help make it "sticky", but unfortunately, some readily-available fishballs have way too much starch and then the fishballs would really lose their flavours. Enough with my rambling, let's get on with the recipe!

Note: In my opinion, I think this recipe resembles fairly close to the flavour of some fishballs I had off the streets of HK. Could be much spicier, but the flavour of the sauce is close to it.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound fried fishballs
• 1 small daikon, peels and cut
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed with side of blade
• 2-3 cloves of shallot, sliced
• 2 tablespoons of curry powder
• 1 block of S&B Golden Curry (I used the Medium Hot one, you could get it from here.)
• 2-3 tablespoons of Thai red curry paste

Pictured going clockwise from 12 o'clock: assorted fishballs, broth, daikon, beef tendon, shallot and onion, curry powder, and reconstituted squid. Not pictured: curry paste and curry roux.

Broth:

• 2.5 cups of water (or chicken stock)
• 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Wash and boil the fishballs in boiling water for about a minute to get rid of residual oil, rinse well and set aside.
2. In a frying pan, heat curry powder over medium heat until fragrant. Remove from heat.
3. In a large pot, heat some oil and stir fry the garlic and shallot. Add the curry powder, stir fry until fragrant. Take care to not burn anything.
4. Mix all the "broth" ingredients together, and pour it into the large pot. Bring to a boil.
5. Add the Golden Curry and red curry paste to the mix, stir to dissolve everything.
6. Add daikon and fishballs to the pot, bring to a boil and then reduce heat. Let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the daikon is cooked thoroughly. Turn off heat and let it rest and absorb the flavour for two-three hours.

Curry fishballs can be enjoyed over rice, noodles, or even alone.

Curry powder on the left is what it looks like after it's heated in the pan. A deeper and more intense colour. The powder on the right is what it looks like originally, a bright and lighter golden yellow.

Fishballs steeping for flavour. Make sure you use a large enough pot, through heating/cooking, the fishballs will expand.

As you can see, I have a lot more stuff in my photos than what's listed in the recipe. I added beef tendon and reconstituted squid. I soaked the squid for a few hours prior to boiling it and cutting it up. With beef tendon... That's a subject that warrants its own paragraph. Only proceed with this if you like beef tendon.

While preparing for this -- I learned quite a bit and I had some miscalculations. I boiled the tendon in water to get rid of the blood and stuff. Then I proceeded to cut it up... And it was very difficult to do so. Tendon, prior to cooking, is extremely tough. And it takes about 4 hours of cooking until it softens up. I ended up putting it into another pot, with some broth, and stuck it into my Thermos Thermal Cooker. In 4 hours, it was done and delicious. So if you don't have a device that helps you cut down the cooking time (such as a thermal cooker, or a pressure cooker), you could let it simmer over the stovetop for 3-4 hours. But you have to make sure you keep an eye on the broth/water level and make sure not to burn your pot. I'd also recommend cutting the tendons AFTER it's done cooking. The collagen in the tendon will also render your sauce into "jello" once it cools down. It'll reheat just fine though.

Note about daikon. I actually used two types. I used the Korean daikon at first, which turned out really delicious as it absorbed a great deal of the broth. Unfortunately, most of it dissolved into the broth and I was left with very few pieces of daikon... I also used the Chinese daikon, which has a much stronger smell, but it seems to hold up better than the Korean one. Personally, I like the Korean daikon better since it absorbs the flavour real well, and it has a less intense scent than the Chinese one. (The Korean daikon is stumpier with a light green top. The Chinese daikon is skinnier, longer, with a much stronger smell.)

Anyway, curry fishballs is a very simple and delicious side dish/snack. The quality of fishballs does matter. You don't have to make things as complicated as I did by adding that many ingredients. Except the perishables, I have all the other ingredients at home already, and I used whatever curry powder, paste, and roux I had at the time. You could use whichever favourite curry you have. My recipe has a tiny bit of heat to it, if you want it to be hotter, add more curry paste. The curry powder is used primarily for colour and fragrance, but doesn't add a lot of heat to the dish. Pick a spicy curry paste/roux that you like to intensify the heat.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy this dish!

Final product! Serve with dumplings.

Find Steph's version of the recipe here.