7th week: Our own product. Catfish Popia (this is our 2nd try)

This week our group will retry our Catfish Popia and hope it will turn out much better. Other than that, we are using wanton skin too. So here's the thing...

Before the task:

Prepare all the ingredients for both recipes.

The ingredients are:

Meet my friend the Catfish.

Spring rolls skin (popia)

Wanton skin

Red and green capsicum (diced)

Onions (chopped)

Garlic (chopped)

Potatoes (diced and boiled)

Chives leaves (sliced)

Curry powder

Turmeric powder

Chili powder

All purpose flour

Salt 

Pepper

*Mix turmeric powder, curry powder and chili powder with water to make curry paste (save turmeric powder a little bit for marinating the catfish).

In addition, coconut milk.

During the task:

The procedure:

1. Clean the catfish and fillet them. Soak them with some lemon juice to remove the fishy odour.

2. Marinate the fillets with turmeric powder, salt, pepper, and flour (to make it more crispy).

3. Deep fry the fillets until they are cooked and the texture are crispy. Set aside and let it cool for a while.

4. Mash the fillets into chunks. Remove all the bones.

5. Saute onion, and garlic until they are fragrant. Be careful not to burn the garlic.

6. Add the curry paste and continue saute / stir the curry until they are a bit dry.

7.  Next, we put coconut milk, capsicums and the catfish. Season with salt and pepper.

* The finished catfish curry*

8. Put the filling onto the middle of the spring rolls skins and wanton skins. Shape them with your desire shapes.

*The popia and the wanton before we fry them. But, for the wanton, Chef's Zaid told to make a boat shape so we changed them into boat shape*

*Chef Zaid assisting us shaping the products*

9. Heat enough oil in a pan for deep frying and deep fry the popia and the wanton until they are golden brown.

*This is the outcome after we fried them*

For the Gingered Chili Sauce:

The ingredients:

Red chillies

Ginger

Garlic

Coriander leaves

Vinegar

Sugar

Salt

The procedure:

1. Fry all the ingredients except sugar, salt, and vinegar with a little oil until they are browned.

2. Blend them in a food processor with some sugar, salt, and vinegar as you desired.

After the task:

*Assemble the product on a plate and serve with Gingered Chili Sauce*

Recommendation:

There's nothing much to recommend but just for the sauce. We will substitute vinegar with lemon or lime juice because the sourness from the vinegar is to strong. Lemon and lime juice have their own sour and sweetness but they are not too strong.

Conclusion:

To conclude, this time the popia and the wanton turns out pretty well but the sauce need to improve more.

Take Care!

6th week: Our own product, Catfish Filo Pastry (3rd try)

This week we will be using Filo pastry. It was a very long filo pastry. 

Before the task:

As usual, we prepared all the ingredients for making the product.

The ingredients:

Filo pastry

Catfish

Onions

Potatoes

Red and green capsicum

Curry paste (Curry powder, chili powder, and turmeric powder)

Turmeric powder

Salt

During the task:

1. Fillet the catfish and wash the fillets with lemon juice. After few minutes, wash again and marinade the fillet with turmeric powder and salt. Set aside.

2. Heat cooking oil (enough for deep frying) in a pot and fry the fillets until they are cooked. Set aside to let them cool.

3. Remove the bones from the fillets and mash them into chunks.

4. In a saucepan, saute the onions until they are a soften. Put the curry paste and cook them until the paste are a bit dry.

5. Put a little bit of water (or as needed) and let them reduce.

6. Put all the other ingredients (except filo pastry) and mix them well. Season with salt.

To assemble:

1. Put 3 to 4 layers of filo pastry and fill them with the catfish filling.

*each layered are brushed with egg wash*

2. Put another 3 to 4 layers of filo pastry and brush the top with egg wash.

This is how they look like before bake.

This is after they are baked.

After the task:

Cut the filo pastry and assemble them on a plate.

Recommendation:

1. Be extra careful when handling with filo pastry because they are so soft and delicate. A slightest mistake can torn your filo pastry.

2.  Make sure when mashing the fillets, remove ALL the bones because there are a few bones left in our fillet when we eat it.

Conclusion:

To conclude everything, using filo pastry is much better when using other pastry. They taste very good and they turn out to be very crispy too. So, filo pastry in our 1st choice but we haven't decide yet on what kind of pastry we will use for the final product.

See you guys next time!

5th week: Our own product, Puffy Pastry Catfish (2nd try)

Last week we did Catfish popia, this week we'll be using puff pastry and we also twist the recipe for the filling a little bit. Not to forget we will be making our own Chili Ginger Sauce this week.

Before the task:

Prepare all the ingredients for making Puffy Pastry Catfish.

The ingredients:

Pre-made puff pastry (top)

Catfish fillets (bottom)

Shallot, finely chopped

Garlic, finely chopped

Potato, diced

Red and green capsicum, diced

Kaffir lime leaves

Blended chili

Turmeric powder

Fish curry powder

Salt and pepper

Flour, as needed

*mix turmeric powder, and curry powder with water to make a curry paste (save turmeric powder a little bit for marinating the catfish).

During the task:

The procedures:

 1. Marinate the catfish fillets with turmeric powder, salt, pepper, and a little bit of flour.

2. Deep fry the catfish fillets until it is cooked.

3. Mashed the fillets and remove ALL the boned

*this time we make it chunky*

4. Saute the shallot and garlic until they are browned a little bit (be careful not to burn them or they will taste bitter).

5 Add blended chili and curry paste and saute until fragrant.

6. Then put lime leaves, and water. Let it reduce until they are dry.

7. After they are dried enough, we put all the other ingredients (except puff pastry) and season with salt and pepper.

8. On a clean surface, roll out the puff pastry and cut it into a uniform shape.

9. Remove the excess flour.

10. Put the filling onto the puff pastry and close it. By using fork, gently press each side to make sure they will not open when they are in the oven.

11. Brush them with eggwash and assemble them onto a baking tray that has been put parchment paper on it.

12. Bake them in the preheated oven approximately 30 minutes with the temperature 180 C or until they are browned and become puffy.

For the dipping sauce, the ingredients are:

Ginger

Red chili

Bird eye chili

Garlic

Coriander leaves

Sugar

Vinegar

Salt

Oil

The procedures:

1. Cut the ginger, chilies, garlic, and coriander leaves into chunks and blend them in a food processor with a little bit of water.

2. Adjust the taste with sugar, salt, and vinegar.

3. Heat the oil and put a tablespoon or so into the dipping sauce and mix them well.

After the task:

Assemble the Puffy Pastry Catfish with the dipping sauce and fried ginger.

Recommendation:

We recommend that:

1. Don't use pre-made puff pastry because sometimes they are not properly made.

2. Put extra ginger in the dipping sauce because the acidity in the ginger really goes well with fish or seafood.

3. Make sure when mashing the fillets, remove ALL the bones because there are a few bones left in our fillet when we eat it.

Conclusion:

For the dipping sauce it was a very successful one but the puff pastry didn't puff very well. We don't know what went wrong. Maybe for the next experiment we will make our own puff pastry. Make from scratch! 

That's all for today. Thanks! 

4th week: Our own product. Catfish Popia (1st try)

This week we have to make an experiment for our own product. Our main item for this product is catfish. Nowadays catfish is very popular among the people in the world but as far as we know there is not much product in the market using catfish. So we decided to use catfish and this is our first try making catfish popia

Before the task:

Prepare all the ingredients for the catfish popia.

The ingredients:

Catfish

Spring rolls skins

Red and green bell pepper

Potato

Onion

Fish curry powder

Turmeric powder

Chili powder

Salt and Pepper

Butter

Oil

*Mix turmeric powder, curry powder and chili powder with water to make curry paste (save turmeric powder a little bit for marinating the catfish).

During the task:

The procedures:

1.Clean the catfish and fillet the catfish.

2. Marinate the fillets with turmeric powder, salt, and pepper.

 3. In a large saucepan, heat the cooking oil for deep frying and deep fry the fillets until it is cooked.

4. Let the fillets cool down a little bit and mashed it with fork or hands.

*make sure there is no bone left in the meat*

5. For the curry. Chopped the onion, capsicums, and potato into small dices. Boil the potato in a boiling salted water until it is "Al Dente" (firm to bite)

 6. Sweat the onion with butter.

 7. Then put all the ingredients and mix until they are really incorporated.

*make sure not to over mix the filling because the fillets will be to mushy*

 8. Put the filling onto the middle of the spring rolls skins and shape them into rectangular shape

*we did variety types of shapes*

 *Chef Zaid is making triangle shape

9. In a large saucepan, heat the cooking oil for deep frying and deep fry the spring rolls until they are golden brown.

After the task:

After all the different types of shapes popia that we did, we chose the rectangular shape because the look more okay for us. Assemble the catfish popia on a plate together with chili sauce.

Recommendation:

After the task is done, we recommend that:

1. Put little flour into the marinating for the catfish. The purpose is too add crunchy texture for the catfish.

2. Make sure when mashing the fillets, remove ALL the bones because there are a few bones left in our fillet when we eat it.

3. Make sure your oil it is not too hot or your popia will burn.

Conclusion:

We did not satisfy with our first try because when using spring rolls skin and you deep fry it, the oil has been absorb in the popia and that makes it not tasty and unhealthy. We forgot to make our own dipping sauce. Next week we will make the dipping sauce for the catfish.