🇲🇾 How to Make Otak-Otak

Craving Otak-Otak? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Otak-Otak at home, in about 45 min, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 400g white fish fillet (mackerel is traditional), skinned
• Paste: 6 red chillies, 4 shallots, 1 lemongrass stalk, a thumb of galangal, 4 candlenuts, 1 tsp turmeric, ½ tsp belacan
• 150ml coconut milk
• 1 egg + 2 tbsp rice flour
• 3 kaffir lime leaves, very finely shredded
• banana leaves, softened over a flame, and toothpicks

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Blend the fish with the paste, coconut milk, egg and rice flour into a thick mousse. It should hold a soft peak, not pour.
2. Fry a teaspoon of the mix and taste it. This is your only chance — once it is wrapped you cannot season it.
3. Fold the lime leaf shreds through by hand.
4. Spoon onto softened banana leaf rectangles, fold the long sides over and pin each end with a toothpick.
5. Grill over low charcoal, 8 min a side. The leaf should scorch and blacken in patches — that smoke is the flavour, and it is why this is not made in an oven.
6. Open them at the table. The filling should be set, springy and faintly orange.