Stir fried stingray with taucu sauce

Whenever we talk about stingray or ikan pari as I know it, we immediately think of ikan bakar which is grilled stingray topped with sambal chilli. Stingrays used to be an inexpensive and largely ignored fish but due to the demand for ikan bakar it is now fairly expensive and sometimes difficult to find. When I saw stingray at the fish monger the other day, I had to buy it as I suddenly remembered when I was young my grandma used to cook it with taucu (bean paste) sauce which is absolutely delicious eaten with white porridge.

Stingrays (魟鱼) are closely related to sharks and skates and are a group of cartilaginous fish. This means that instead of bones, they are supported by cartilage. Stingrays acquired their name for the sharp barbs on their tails which inject poison into the victim. They tend to be kite-shaped with wide flat bodies and swim by moving their bodies in a wave-like motion or flap their sides up and down, giving them the appearance of flying like a bird. This is why they are sometimes called魔鬼鱼 in Chinese which means devil fish because they apparently look like devils when they move in the ocean. Many people will not eat stingrays because of this reason.

Ingredients

2 slices of stingray fish

2 chilli padi

Taucu bean paste

Scrap off the black dirt on the fish

Cut the stingray into small pieces

Heat up a little oil and fry the chopped garlic

Add the bean paste and fry until fragrant then add a little water and mix well

Put in the stingray

Add 1 tsp sugar and mix thoroughly

Add a little more water

Cover and cook on slow fire until the fish is cooked.

Do not overcook or the flesh will become hard.

Remember to stir now and then so the fish is well mixed into the gravy.

Dish up and garnish with cut chilli padi on one side for the adults.

The children can eat from the other side.