Ikan Masak Taucu

First of all, taucu is needed in this cooking. Taucu is a fermented soy beans in salt. I tried to find pictures of taucu in the Internet but could not find get one that accurate to show how taucu looks like.

Check the tiny black, brown color beans in the picture above, well, that’s taucu. In my place, it is sold in bottles. NVM, next time when I buy a new bottle I will snap the picture. I used Tamin brand for this dish. Tamin is a quite well-known Malay family manufacturer in soy sauce related products.

So to cook this, you can choose any kind of fish you like. I use kembong and cencaru for this. Fry the fish as usual with salt and turmeric. Cut the shallot, garlic and ginger. When the oil is hot in the pan, fry those shallot, garlic and ginger till they turn fragranced. Then you put the taucu. Use about 3 tablespoons but make sure you rinse them first, or otherwise your dish will be too salty.

After a while, put 1 1/2 bowl of plain water inside, throw in everything else – the fried fish, red chili, cucumber, onion and don’t forget, the magnificent asam gelugur. Add your seasoning to it and let it simmer. Actually this dish will taste better if you cook it the day before, or if you’re serving it for lunch, cook the night before. All the herbs, the salty taucu and the sour asam gelugur will mix well and when you pour the gravy into your plate of rice, emmm..yummy! If you need more zest, eat with sambal belacan.

My mom used to say that this taucu dish is usually cooked during Malay wedding preparation days in Perak. Maybe it’s true since Tamin soy sauce products started in Perak. I’m not sure whether they still serve this to people who come and help for weddings since most of the weddings today hire caterers for the reception. No more gotong royong to slice the onion like in the olden days.