My mother in law made me fall in love with eating this fish. First time I saw her cooking it like this, I was intrigued. I had never seen anyone fry roasted panla (cod fish). And then she put it in some buka style stew (you know they stew that has meats, fish in it). It was so good.
So everytime i enter her house, I enter through the kitchen, open the pot to see if there is any fried smoked panla in the stew. She indulges me so much, sometimes she would fry up a batch and send to me because she know I like it.
I learnt this from her and I love it. Though she fries her’s with palm oil, I prefer to fry mine with vegetable oil and make the sauce with a mix of palm and vegetable oil.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 medium sized freshly smoked panla (cod fish)
- 1 1/2 cups coarsely blended pepper mix (tomatoes + pepper + onion) * pepper content should be a little high. I like mine really spicy so I do a ratio of 1 tomato to 5 peppers (2 scotch bonnet + 3 jalapeño ) and quarter of a medium sized onion. Some people can’t handle that kind of heat.
- Vegetable oil for frying and some for the sauce
- 1/4 cup palm oil
- 1 small onion (diced)
- Bouillon Cubes
- Salt
Procedure
- Rinse the smoked fish properly especially if you bought it from an open market, leave it to strain in a seive.
- Fry the fish till it is firm and the skin is slightly crisp. Set aside
- Heat up palm oil to smoke point, add some vegetable oil and add the diced onions. Fry onions till tender and it is starting to crisp, don’t burn the onions.
- Add the pepper mix, season with salt and seasoning cubes (you can use any dried or fresh herbs that catch your fancy)
- Cook with lid on till the ppepper is well cooked.
- Add the fried fish into the pepper sauce, do not stir with a spoon, just shake pot together gently from side to side.
- Cook with lid off and let it simmer on low heat for an additional 5 to 10 minutes
- Allow the fish to stay in the pepper for at least 30 mins before serving
Ounje Aladun 