Rick Stein turns up the heat at Taste

Great British chef Rick Stein attracted huge crowds of Kiwi fans at the Malaysia Kitchen at Taste of NZ this weekend where he demonstrated three specially-designed Malaysian dishes.

During four cooking demonstrations Rick chatted about his love of Malaysian food while creating some of his favourite dishes for guests to sample, heavy with the fiery red chillies he loves.

Rick chose NZ snapper for one recipe where the fish was grilled and stuffed with a shrimp and lemongrass curry paste (see recipe below).

Laksa, a ubiquitous Malaysian dish, was also on the menu along with nasi goreng with grilled lime chicken.

Over four days, the Malaysia Kitchen served up more than 3,000 helpings of Rick’s dishes, prepared by four top Auckland Malaysian restaurants – Sri Puteri (Panmure), Sri Mahkota (Newton), Santhiya’s (Mt Roskill) and Kampung Delights (CBD).

“The event was great fun and I thoroughly enjoyed both it and the welcome I have had from New Zealanders,” Rick says.

Rick’s visit was well reported and the recently-wed chef reached out to further audiences with several high profile appearances including on TVNZ’s Close Up and at a special dinner at Auckland’s Cibo restaurant.

“Malaysian food is fascinating and I hope I have helped spread the word about the wonderfully varied flavours of the cuisine to New Zealanders.”

Malaysian is a big part of the NZ food culture with more than 50 Malaysian restaurants operating around the country.

Malaysia is in South-East Asia and the cuisine is a colourful blend of Malay, Chinese, and Indian food traditions, with Thai, Portuguese, Javanese and Middle Eastern influences – the original fusion food. Many cultures have influenced the country’s cuisine due to its position at a key transit point in the ancient spice route.

For recipe inspiration visit www.malaysiakitchen.co.nz

Rick Stein’s grilled snapper stuffed with a shrimp and lemongrass curry paste (serves four)

4 x 350-400g snapper, scaled and trimmed

Vegetable oil, for brushing.

Salt

For the curry paste:

2 tsp. each of coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, turmeric powder and black peppercorns

30g coconut cream

3 dried red chillies, such as Kashmiri

15g peeled garlic, roughly chopped

15g peeled ginger, roughly chopped

2 lemongrass stalks, outer leaves discarded and core roughly chopped

2 tsp. balachan (shrimp paste)

2 tbsp. lime juice

2 tbsp. palm sugar or brown sugar

½ tbsp. salt

3 tbsp. vegetable oil

1. For the curry paste, cover the dried chillies with boiling hot water and leave to soak till soft. Put the coriander seed, cumin seed, fennel seed, turmeric and black peppercorns into a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Tip the powder into a mini food processor and add the coconut cream, drained red chillies, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, balachan, lime juice, sugar, salt and vegetable oil. Blend to a smooth paste.
2. To prepare the fish, cut off the heads and then starting at the head end, start to cut the top fillet away from the bones until you get the whole blade of the knife underneath it. Rest a hand on top of the fish and cut the fillet away from the bones until you are 3-4 cm away from the tail. Turn the fish over and repeat on the other side, then pull back the top fillet and snip away the backbone close to the tail with scissors. Repeat with each of the fish.
3. Season the cut face of each fillet with some salt and then spread a generous tablespoon of the curry paste onto one fillet. Push the fish back into shape and tie along its length in 3 places to keep it in place.
4. Preheat your grill to high.
5. Brush the fish with a little oil and season with salt. Grill for 4 minutes on each side until crisp and lightly golden on the outside, and cooked through.