Recipe - Steam Batu Fish (Yellowtail Scad) With Pickled Mustard Green

The batu fish (yellowtail scad) lives in coastal waters and feed on algae and planktons. It is slightly bigger than its relative kunning (yellowstripe scad) which is usually deep fried and served with nasi lemak.

The fish has mild flavour. What I like about this fish is that the meat  is very sweet. The bones are also confined to the belly which makes it easy to eat. It is also cheap.

One set back is that you have to gut the fish yourself. This is not too difficult. To gut the fish, I use a pair of kitchen scissors and use the tips of the scissors to pull out the gut. Another way to is to cut off the head.

My favourite way of cooking this fish is to steam it. In this recipe, I use pickled mustard green, ginger and tomato to flavour the fish.

yellowtail scad or batu

To prepare this fish for steaming, clean the guts, rub the fish lightly with salt and rinse the fish.

Ingredients (serves 4)
8 batu fish, about 800 grams,
4 slices of ginger, julienne
10 thin slices of pickled (salted) mustard green
1 tomato, sliced thinly
1 spring onion, cut into inch length

Method
Lay the fish on a steaming plate
Spread out the ginger, tomato, spring onion and mustard green over the fish

Pickled mustard green

Steam over medium heat for about 8 minutes.
Serve with a dipping sauce of light soy and cut chillies.










    
Trust the Japanese to eat this yellowtail scad raw in this 3 minute video.