Happy moodfood stories, tell us yours!

[MiSO]

I have had not so wonderful experiences with Balinese people, they can be very forward and persisting when it comes to offering their services. So I want to make a switch to something pleasant... food...

Last Monday I ate a salad with fresh Tuna, and it was so good I can't stop thinking about it. A fresh mixed salad with tuna flakes, it had a full Tuna taste and almost melted on the tongue. I think it was grilled. Ever since I ate this I see my self buying fresh Tuna at the market, marinating it with sea salt, pepper and garlic and at last on the grill.
I see a plate with grilled tuna, boiled patatoes and a nice fresh salad of lettuce, tomatoes, onion, avocado. With a nice dressing of lemo, olive oil, salt, pepper & a pinch of unrefined sugar to finish the salad and potatoes.

*Sigh*
*Drool*

Ok, who's next? Let me drool on your moodfood you are dreaming of.

[spicyayam]

I have had not so wonderful experiences with Balinese people, they can be very forward and persisting when it comes to offering their services.

Living here is totally different and I am sure you will make some good friends if you decide to stay. People start leaving you alone when they know you are living here, rather than just passing through. You need to remember, that they are just trying to earn a living like anyone else.

[Markit]

Your recipe sounded great and I will give it a try. I promised myself that I would be eating much more good fresh fish when I came to live here but sadly I just don't get around to it. I keep meaning to buy more of those lovely fresh little fish that are on sale in most markets which I think are tuna - they taste like it but are only about 20cm long and their flesh is quite dark. This doesn't detract from the flavour - much... :( the eye does eat first, as the saying goes. I would love to learn more about which fish are good here and which aren't.

My first mistake was buying one of the large red snapper-like fish, very cheap like all the fish here, and taking it home to cook. Well normally fish needs a couple of minutes boiled, broiled, fried or grilled each side and then eat. The red beast went in for the usual 5 minutes and then I sat down to enjoy and could hardly cut through a piece. After throwing it back I tried again but still shoe leather. Tasted great but couldn't chew it. Found out later that these are consider "poor people" fish.

Oh well without further advice I will just have to keep eating local filet-mignon and pork tenderloin for 80K and 30K Rupiah the kilo, respectively. :lol:

[JohnnyCool]

Grab some marlin and smoke it yourself.
Coconut husks work great.

Tenggiri crops up quite often. I think it's "Spanish mackerel". A very reasonable tasting fish.

I miss fish like "whiting" here. (Possibly extinct.) I've yet to score a nice red snapper. Barramundi is out of the question, although I've seen a few sorry-looking, frozen, over-priced samples in the expensive food venues.

Shark is not too bad, either.

:D

[gilbert de jong]

I have no idea what the name of th fish is :oops: It's a blue/green fish, and as far as I know goes straight on the coconutskin BBQ, not cooked first..
has white meat not many bones (only big ones), and is succelent 'melting' on your tongue soft.
They only pepper and salt it a little, and with the nasi comes ofcourse sambal, wich I don't use because I wanna taste the fish :) .

last night went to dinner at kwizien in Lovina...little pricy but very,very good food and service.
I had the asperagus soup first, then the veal medaillons with buttercreamsauce babycorn and baked small cubic potatoe on the side, finished it of with a choclatemousse, wich stayed in the glass when you hold it upside down, then a double espresso with a drambuie...
To put things in perspective that I don't always eat like this, today I had a simple bakso with a tehbotol :lol:

[ronb]

My first mistake was buying one of the large red snapper-like fish, very cheap like all the fish here, and taking it home to cook. Well normally fish needs a couple of minutes boiled, broiled, fried or grilled each side and then eat. The red beast went in for the usual 5 minutes and then I sat down to enjoy and could hardly cut through a piece. After throwing it back I tried again but still shoe leather. Tasted great but couldn't chew it. Found out later that these are consider "poor people" fish.

In Lovina there are many Ikan Bakar places along the beach front. You look in their iceboxes and choose fish, they BBQ for you and serve with rice and plecing (kangkung with chili I think - sometimes almost too hot for me). Anyway its a good way to try the different fish you could later be buying in fish markets.

I'm not so good at buying fish in fish markets - sometimes its not so fresh, and I think locals can quickly pick the fresh ones - but not me.

[mimpimanis]

if they are pink in the gills - they are fresh... hence the saying :D

[MiSO]

Mouthwatering, literally...

Ron, I also can't recognise fresh from not-so-fresh-fish (yet) I will ask my neighbour-to-be to educate me on this. Pink in the gills, that's a start... I can only recognise fresh herring by lack of the fishy smell.

In the Phillippines I had pieces of white raw fish with red/green pepper, onion & ginger in a limon dressing (bit salt & sugar). It was soooo good! Back home I tried to copy this, but I used salted herring instead.
The combination salty, sour,spicy, sweet, the softness of the herring & crunchiness of the onion and ginger...wow...I was in complete extasy! I am a fool for fish and I hadn't had it this way before. So simple, so super!

Yeah Gilbert...it is the variety that tickles the papilla, just plain rice can make my day as well. I like the combination simple, fresh and nutritious, nothing can beat that!

I once made a raw apple pie with almonds and I want to make a raw mango pie while I am here. Will post the recipe when it's too tasty to be true.

Btw Markit, I think little fish are very tasty, sometimes even better than the bigger ones. Like salted sardines on BBQ or salted mackerel, I prefer the babysized ones.
I had grilled Marlin yesterday, and it was like meat, I had to chew like crazy. Maybe it was the way it was prepared...

[Markit]

Ron that's a great tip I will try that.

Fresh Fish - red and healthy looking gills and clear and round looking eyes, not cloudy or dry and there you have it. Having said all this I have eaten fish that smelled a little off and once it was seasoned and cooked thoroughly it was great.

What do you think curry was invented for?

Maybe some photos there Johnny?

[Adam]

[quoteI have no idea what the name of th fish is It's a blue/green fish, and as far as I know goes straight on the coconutskin BBQ, not cooked first..
][/quote]

Hey Gilbert, any chance of posting a photo of said fish? Green (coloured) fish species aren't common in the fish kingdom, would be interesting to see what it is, from a nerds point of view :mrgreen: .

Seafood quality is quite crappy in Indonesia to be perfectly honest (I might have had a whinge elsewhere about this, I think :roll: ). More correctly, the species available are spectacular but they are handled in a really poor fashion and this is critical to get the best out of seafood, probably moreso than any other 'protein' source. Fish is not easy to choose by the inexperienced and each species has its own little ideosyncracies to check for in terms of the best edibility that species can offer. There is a huge difference between a fish that is 'edible' and a fish that is 'fresh'. In years of scouring 'pasar ikan' I reckon I could count on 1 hand the amound of fish I would classify as truly fresh. On the other hand, I see lots that are downright rotten and it chills me to the bone to see some of the seafood being offered for sale in Bali (even at Restaurants!). If that's not the source of a lot of 'Bali Belly', i'll stand youknowwhat. My ultimate dream, one day, is to set up a fish supply business in Bali. As a fish nerd it makes me sad to see how poor the seafood is in the middle of a tropical archipelago.

Personally, I would stick with the live stuff only. Having said that, Lele can be bought live and do you know what they often get fed??? Maybe I should leave it at that.... :twisted: