This recipe brings back a lot of childhood memories for me. I’ve always loved stir-fry ginger, but I don’t remember liking this dish when there’s no coriander leaves as a topping. One thing I find interesting in life is that as we grow up we sometimes end up liking what we didn’t like to eat when we were younger. I remember not liking one of the most delicious Cambodian soups as a child and often complained about it when my mum made the dish, but now that I’m older I miss the traditional ways of making it and can’t really have enough of that soup.
There are few dishes that use ginger and meat, poultry or fish as the main ingredients. So when a ginger dish is cooked you will see a bowl of ginger and the meat it’s cooked with. I love those dishes so I don’t quite understand myself why I didn’t like this one. Well it’s good thing that I love it now!
This stir-fry ginger dish is very simple to make. The only part of the preparation that might take up a bit of time is cutting the ginger down in to smaller pieces, but if you have a grater that can grate the ginger in to thicker pieces than the usual type graters then it would be fantastic! It would certainly save a lot of time for those that have a busy lifestyle. I personally don’t mind spending time cutting the ginger though, I just like the way we do it traditionally.
Note: when grating ginger for this dish, I recommend using the grater side that would make a bigger strip because when cooking ginger, it can brown easily and often go dry when the ginger is grated too thin and small.
Cooking ginger can soak up a bit of oil so keep in mind not to add too much oil otherwise at the end you will see lots of oil floating on top in the serving bowl. It’s a Cambodian traditional when cooking ginger dishes that we always cook the ginger first to soften it and to get rid of the raw hotness before adding in the preferred meat and seasoning to finish up the dish. So it’s a bit different from cooking other vegetables with meat where we would generally cook the meat first before adding in the vegetables and ending up with meat that is properly cooked and vegetables that will still have a crunchy texture.
STIR-FRY FISH WITH GINGER
Prep-Time: 20 mins Serve: 4
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Ingredients
2 snapper fillets, cut into big cubes
200g ginger root, peeled and cut into thin strips
1 carrot, thinly sliced
1/2 bunch coriander leaves
1 tsp sugar
1 chicken stock cube
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp fish sauce
3 garlic cloves, minced
4 tbsp oil
1/2 cup water
Method
Heat the oil in a wok on medium heat and then add in the ginger once it’s nice and hot. Occasionally stir the ginger to prevent it from sticking to the wok and cook the ginger for about 10 minutes or until all of the raw ginger becomes soft and cooked.
You can remove the cooked ginger from the wok or just push them to one side of the wok so that about 75% of the wok space will be available for cooking. Add 1 tbsp extra of oil into the wok and then add in the garlic and cook the garlic until fragrant or turns golden.
Add in the fish, all of the seasoning and 1/2 cup of water and then cook for 5 minutes or until the fish turns completely white and cooked through. Return the cooked ginger to the wok and stir to combine with the fish, take care not to break the fish by stirring it gently.
Add in the carrots and stir until the carrots pieces become cooked. Remove from the heat and transfer into a serving bowl. Top the bowl with coriander leaves and serve with steamed rice.
