Tamarind Grilled Snapper with Noodles

Someone asked me to name a happy place, except from my shit-holey flat. I thought for so long...considering:
- KFC
It is probably heaven, except for the chickens and the slow moving, uninspired, unmotivated staff. But then again, sometimes the slow service pisses me off. So, No. It can't be my top happy place
- The Office
Who am I kidding?!...I should not love my job THAT much, right?
- Exercise classes, whenever that hot hip hop teacher guy is teaching
Although I enjoy exercising and dancing when I am in class, sometimes it really IS kinda hard to drag my ass off my comfy sofa, especially when it is raining cats and dogs outside
- Theme parks
They are supposedly happy places, but sometimes there are so many factors to make them otherwise, such as: sous chef and friends who refused to play any games they deemed "dangerous" such as the merry-go-round (rolling my eyes), too teeny tiny-with very limited games to play (in case of Hong Kong Disneyland), unbeliveably long queue-you can only play a handful of the games nobody wants to play throughout the day (in case of Tokyo Disneyland), etc
- The mall
The cheap ones get me carried away easily, and the expensive ones....there's nothing there I could afford to buy. So, definitely not my favorite happy place
....so I guess it's gotta be.....
- Markets and supermarkets
I loveee markets and supermarkets...there's always something you can buy, and most of the time it won't cost me so much ^_^ (not as much as the latest branded "It" bag at least), and with the teeny tiny seemingly unimportant thing you bought, you can create big, and lotsa yummy things. For daily shopping, I am quite a strict shopper and normally just buy the things which are needed for the day's recipe. However, when I go to supermarkets for FUN, especially INDONESIAN supermarkets, I'd get this and that, and this and that, and I'll end up buying the whole shop.

Sometimes I'd buy something, stash it in my kitchen drawer for "future use" and I'd totally forget that I have it. I've bought a pack of tamarind quite a while ago, and only remember I had it when I saw Wandering Chopsticks' Vietnamese Salt and Pepper Crab with Tamarind, Ginger, Scallions and Garlic!

I dug up my drawer, and found so many buried treasures, such as konyaku jelly powder packets, curry packets, spices, dark chocolate bars (!! How could I?? Maybe cheeky sous chef hid them there?), sweet and sour sauce mix, soup base mix, the list went on and on...and I totally forgot about them!!!

So I've decided to make this
Tamarind Grilled Snapper

Here's the packet of tamarind, I dissolve about 2 tablespoonfuls with a bit of hot water for easy mixing

The marinate/sauce mix
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cloves shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 cm ginger, chop into pieces
- a bunch of fresh corriander, finely chopped
- 2 red chilli, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp tamarind, dissolved in a bit of hot water
- 2 pieces of palm sugar, dissolved in a bit of hot water
- 1 teaspoon salt

Marinate and refrigerate the fish, for at least 1 hour. Preheat oven 150C, grill with the sauce until the meat is almost cooked, turn the oven to 250C and grill until the skin's golden. Alternatively, you can crisp the skin first before dumping it into the oven (I am not into pan frying fish in my tiny flat :p)


The sauce should not go to waste, so, inspired by Wandering Chopsticks, I used the sauce for this plate of ramen. Tasty, hot, sweet, and sour noodles. Sharing this with Presto Pasta Night, hosted this week by A Scientist in the Kitchen


Now let me continue my dig...I remember hiding some mini Snickers from sous chef a while ago...