Homemade Bear-bear Fish Paste

Last Wednesday, Mommy decided that she wanted to make her own fish balls or fish paste. So she mustered up some courage and asked a fish monger at the market about it. The fish recommended was called "kau yu" in Cantonese. It's a long black fish (sorry, forgot to take a photo of it). Mommy bought the smallest one there. It was nearly 1kg (don't remember the exact weight) and it cost RM18 (is the price reasonable?). He helped Mommy sliced it and Mommy went home and did the rest of the work (briefly described below)...


The fishy process: Mommy scraped the flesh off the skin of the fish with a spoon. Later, she mixed some salt with it and rolled them into balls with a little flour (is this how you do it?**). Feeling inspired and creative, she also made a couple of bear-head-shaped fish paste. The bones and the rest were also kept and used to boil the soup...

** No. According to the experts... Actually, no flour is necessary. Only some salt and water. Also, you should wet your hands before handling it. So that it's not so sticky. For better results, chop-chop-chop it on a board to mince it further. After mixing in some salt and water, throw it into a bowl, take it out, throw it back in and repeat until it is.. err... 'nice'. Then, you can start turning it into whatever shape you like. You could try putting some in one hand, squeeze out a little (if u know what I mean), then use a spoon to scoop a small portion out to form a little ball. Hope my understanding is correct (and whoever is reading this can understand... haha).


See, my bear-head-shaped fish ball...


A closer look at the "bear-bear fish ball". Maybe Mommy can make it nicer next time by putting punched out seaweed eyes and a smile on it...



Fish ball meehoon soup with broccoli for my lunch yesterday...


What's left... Although, I couldn't finish it all, I enjoyed it very much...



Fish ball meehoon soup (again!) with baby spinach for dinner...