Mark's Seafood Bah Kut Teh

I have problem in looking into detail, seriously. When I received Babe KL's invitation for the Merdeka open house, I quickly made up my mind to do something special for the occasion, so quick that I did not bother to read carefully on her requirement.

"Bah Kut Teh in seafood style should be good!" I thought. And I remembered my "sparking" experience in Sandakan eating the dish, so nice.



Buying, cooking and pictures taking done, I put aside the stuffs waiting to be posted by the day to comes. Then I look again on her site and shoot!, the dish must be original without fancy modification. Where on earth that I could come out with another in the middle of the night!? Mark cannot just goreng two telur mata kerbau (Lianne... :) ) and submit just for the sake of submission. Sorry Babe, and the food fellows. Mark's stall was mismanaged, this year, again.

*****

I had wanted to try cooking seafood Bah Kut Teh long time ago after my unforgetable experience in Sandakan. I never thought seafood can cook in the herby soup with such a good taste. Of cause seafood is super fresh in Sandakan, but the shop owner had added something extra to tweak the original soup matching the flavor from the sea. I ate twice within 24 hours (dinner and the next morning).

Bah Kut Teh is totally non halal. People tried to cook it with chicken when JE strike us few years back, but it never take off. Seafood Teh makes perfect sense as it is non pork and healthy (err... colesterol level not take into consideration here) as those wild delight grow freely in the ocean. And most important, somebody out there in Sandakan already has the perfect recipe!

One fine Sunday morning, I woke up way way earlier than usual to go to the market in Kampung Subang.

Choosing seafood is fun, especially when you know they are going to end up in your stomach later.

Back home, I need to prepared some additional spices to tweak the original recipe. Ginger and pepper is good to cover the stingy sea flavor.

And some garlic to enhance the flavor. Washed and boil in piece with the soup.

Ready mixed herb packet bought from Klang. The origin of Bah Kut Teh.

Step by step to prepare a good Bah Kut Teh.

Oh! And this is the ingredients from the packet bought from Klang. Full of Chinese herbs. All those herbs, ginger, pepper and garlic boiled for more than an hour in a pot. My kitchen was totally filled with flavor.

Prawns were being washed and well taken care of.

Crabs were cleaned as well.

And the fish.

Fish were quickly dipped inside the boiling soup for few minutes and taken off from the pot. Served on a separate plate to preserve the tenderness flesh.

Crabs and prawns were then put inside the pot and ready to serve. They get cooked very fast, just a quick dip and the color changed to yummy red. Hualaa... Mark's Seafood Teh!