Crispy fried whole fish with lemon sauce
Think lemon chicken. Substitute a whole fish fried to a crisp, lay it on a platter and pour the sticky chili-spiked sweet sour lemon sauce over it. Delicious!
Servings 3 people
Ingredients
- 1 kilogram whole firm fleshy fish (2.2 pounds) gutted and scaled
- 1 tablespoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
Sticky sweet sour lemon sauce
- ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 cup white sugar
- ¼ teaspoon grated lemon zest
- 2 bird's eye chilies finely sliced
- 2 pinches salt
- 1 pinch turmeric
For frying
- ¼ cup potato starch or cornstarch
- cooking oil for deep frying
To garnish
- torn mint
Instructions
Prep the fish
- Pat the fish dry with a kitchen towel. Score both sides.
- Rub the herb salt all over the fish including the slits and cavity.
- Place the fish in a covered container and keep in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Make the sauce
- In a small sauce pan, stir all the ingredients for the sauce with a quarter cup of water.
- Set the pan over high heat and allow the mixture to boil.
- Turn down the heat to medium-low and cook the sauce, uncovered, until reduced by half. Set aside. The sauce thickens some more as it cools.
Fry the fish
- Sprinkle the starch on both sides of the fish.
- Set a frying pan large enough to hold the fish on the stove and set the heat to high. Pour in enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least three inches.
- When you see fine wisps of smoke floating on the surface of the oil, slide in the starched fish. Keeping the heat on high, cook the fish for six minutes. Flip to cook the opposite side for another four minutes.
Assemble the dish
- Scoop out the fish (a kitchen spider is useful) and lay on a serving plate.
- Pour enough of the sticky sweet sour lemon sauce over the hot fish so that a little pool forms around it.
- Sprinkle the fish with torn mint before serving.