Adventures of Katsudon

Ever the travelling gastronomes, we hit the ‘burbs tonight in search of Malaysian food, having got rather complacent with the choices available in inner city Melbourne. We went north, on a recommendation, to a Chinese/Malaysian restaurant called Jade Kingdom in Heidelberg Heights. It looks very much like all suburban Chinese restaurants with an unprepossesing exterior and the usual suspects on the menu like Black Pepper Beef. I went against one of my Kway Teow Rules in ordering the kway teow despite it having Lap Cheong, or Chinese sausage, as an ingredient. To me, FKT should only contain prawns, egg and perhaps squid as its protein sources. Maybe the effort of making the relatively long journey made me order it anyway, as I had come all this way.

The kway teow arrived looking rather promising, having a nice burnt look and lots of bean sprouts. When one poked around though there was way too much Lap Cheong, and I ended up fishing out most of it as I don’t like the sweetness of it in my savoury kway teow.

It was a passable dish, but not memorable, and failed on a few essential points:
1. It was too oily. I like my FKT quite dry - it must be cooked quickly in a really hot wok. It can’t arrive glistening with oil.
2. I already mentioned the chinese sausage. I don’t know why Lap cheong was ever invented, perhaps to torture FKT fans like me. I cannot see any possible use for a sickly sweet hard fatty lump of processed pork as an ingredient for any dish, let alone FKT.
3. The egg was rather bedraggled, oily and pathetic, and lay in a small wet clump on one side of the plate. It should be well fried, slightly burnt, and distributed evenly through the noodles.
4. It didn’t have enough taste and aroma - I think that particular taste comes from a combination of a very hot wok, garlic, and a secret ingredient which I have heard is squid sauce. This FKT had the hot wok only, and it wasn’t quite hot enough.

The dessert was quite enjoyable though - an innovative pandan flavoured sago pudding, served with lashings of coconut milk and gula melaka. Sadly, the waitress frowned at me and looked puzzled when I asked if cendol was available.

Not quite worth a trip out to the ‘burbs, but we enjoyed the drive and change of scene anyway.

We all know fish is healthy brain food, low in fat and high in all the good things, and Katsudon likes to have fish at least once a week. The main problem is that it has to be really fresh so one can’t have it every day, unless one doesn’t work fulltime hhmmmm.

Katsudon has been enjoying steamed fish Chinese style for a number of years now. I remember a scrumptious steamed fish in some Chinese restaurant a long time ago -I think it could have been a steamed Murray cod steamed with julienned ginger, spring onion and lots of yummy sauce! Katsudon LOVES drowning her rice in sauce! Since then I’ve tried heaps of times to emulate that dish and usually with mixed results. My favourite fish to steam have been Murray cod (difficult to find now that you can’t farm it any more - or is that can’t catch the wild fish commercially?), jade perch (a nice small fish, really great for two people, with a thick layer of fish fat - yummy and good for you!), and more recently barramundi. I have also steamed a whole coral trout once, but it was horribly expensive!!

Katsudon used to go to Pacific House on Victoria St in Richmond where you can buy live fish. You choose your fish and they fish it out using a net and place it, flapping madly around, on the weighing scales. Then they kill the fish and gut and scale it and off you go. Be warned though - sometimes the fish keeps intermittently flapping around once it’s handed back to you! This can happen for up to ten or fifteen minutes!

We go to Prahran Markets now and always go to the same fishmonger - I’m not sure why - maybe because they do seem to have the largest range of fish and seafood (They even have Uni! Sea urchin!) or maybe because they are always so friendly. Anyway I’m not sure what they are called but they are on the corner!

I planned to steam a barramundi yesterday but there was none to be had so my fishmonger recommended a bream. About $15 a kilo so $8.70 for a fish for two people. I followed the instructions in one of my favourite cookbooks “Food of China”. The difference is that you don’t steam the fish with the ginger and spring onion. Well you steam it will a tablespoon of ginger, and a marinade of rice wine, soya sauce and sesame oil. When the fish is done (8 minutes for ours) you heat up some vegetable oil and sesame oil until it’s smoking, then you garnish the fish with sliced spring onion and julienned ginger and pour the oil over the fish. It makes a wonderful crackling and sizzling sound. Serve with lots of rice so you can spoon the sauce over it, taking care to avoid any bones!!

The bream was wonderful - the best fish we’ve had so far! The flesh was lovely, white and soft and smooth, and slightly sweet. There were few bones.

So we ate for less than $5 a person - a meal that might cost us more than $20 in a restaurant! Very easy and really quick to prepare and cook, just a bit of chopping at the beginning. Katsudon gives this five stars!