Ikan goreng


Ikan goreng is an Indonesian and Malaysian dish, consisting of deep fried fish or other forms of seafood. Ikan goreng literally means "fried fish" in Indonesian and Malay languages.
Ikan goreng is very popular in Indonesia. Usually, the fish is marinated with mixture of spice pastes. Some recipes use kecap manis to coat the fish after being fried. Ikan goreng are usually deep fried in ample extremely hot coconut oil until the fish turns golden and crisp. This method is often used with carp, gourami and milkfish in order to turn the fine fishbone crumbly, crisp and edible.

Spices

Prior to frying, fishes are usually marinated with spices mixture, and sometimes kecap manis. The spices mixture may vary among regions and places, but usually it consists of combination of salt, lemon juice, ground shallot, garlic, chili pepper, coriander, turmeric, galangal and salt. Some recipes may employ batter or egg coating on fish prior to frying. After being fried, commonly fish might be consumed right away with steamed rice and sambal terasi or sambal kecap as dipping sauce. The East Indonesian Manado and Maluku ikan goreng usually uses dabu-dabu or colo-colo condiment.
Some recipes of ikan goreng might add additional bumbu mixed with or poured on top of fried fish, such as bumbu acar kuning, made of turmeric, garlic, and other spices paste with sliced cucumber, carrot, chili, and round shalots, or chopped tomato with vinegar. Another close recipes such as fish rica-rica and asam pedas.

Variants

There are many variants and recipes of ikan goreng, differ from the recipes of marinate spices, bumbu toppings, dipping sauces or sambals, to the species of fishes being fried. Almost all kind of fish and seafood can be made into ikan goreng, the most popular are freshwater gourami, bilis, patin, nila, mujair and ikan mas. Seafood fried fishes are bandeng, tongkol or cakalang, tuna, bawal, tenggiri, kuwe, baronang, kerapu, kakap merah, teri, todak, hiu or cucut and pari.