Pad Pla Cha (Sizzling Fried Fish)

The last week has certainly been a chaotic one- in our corner of the world we've had horrendous amounts of rain which led to wide scale flooding in our city centre, followed by our substation getting flooded, blowing up and widespread blackouts. It really was strange to have 3 days without electric, internet or even phone signal; most people also use digital phones so even a basic phone call using a landline was out. Consequently, cooking in the dark at friends and family's houses (we don't have gas here, only electric so we had to borrow) using up whatever food we had that hadn't yet gone off did not make for a productive week to run a food blog- all the shops were shut due to flood damage and having no power and even the museum where I work (unfortunately next to the river) had suffered from the flood waters so the beginning of week there was much cleaning up to be done.

This recipe for pad pla cha was made last week before all of this even began and has been waiting to get uploaded for a bit. The 'cha' part of the name describes the sizzling noise made by stir frying at high temperature, there are many variations on pad cha recipes, this is just one! I find deep frying the fish holds it together and helps absorb the flavours of the sauce. It has a couple of specific ingredients- the green peppercorns and the krachai root which give it a unique flavour.

For two people use:

• 2 small fillets of fish (I've use basa- a type of catfish)
• a big handful of flour
• 1 long Asian aubergine/ 3 Thai, sliced
• a handful of green pea aubergine
• a tablespoon of green peppercorns
• a heaped teaspoon of red curry paste (I use Mae Ploy brand)
• 2 small red chillies
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 large red chillies, sliced
• 2 fingers of krachai (fingerroot), peeled and finely chopped
• a large handful of sweet Thai basil (bai horapha)
• a large splash of oyster sauce
• a large splash of light soy sauce
• a small splash of fish sauce
• vegetable oil for deep frying and a splash for the stir fry

Make a rough paste in a pestle and mortar with the small chillies and garlic, set aside. Cut the fish into thin slices and coat them in the flour, dusting off the excess. Heat a pan of oil to a depth of at least 3 inches and when hot, deep fry the fish until crisp and light golden in colour, scooping out and draining onto a paper towel. Set aside briefly.

In a wok, heat a splash of oil over a high heat and briefly fry off the chill/garlic paste and the red curry paste for around 30 seconds until fragrant. Next pop in the sliced aubergine and fry for a few minutes until slightly softened. Next in go the pea aubergines, green peppercorns, krachai and sliced red chilli and fry for just a minute. Now pop in the breaded fish and be much more gentle now, stir through and add in the remaining sauces (soy, fish and oyster), coat everything well. Finally, turn off the heat and throw in the basil leaves, briefly stirring through. 

Serve with freshly cooked rice.