Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/gas 7.
- Whack the lemongrass against your work surface and remove the tough outer layer. Roughly chop the lemongrass, shallot, ginger and chillies. Add to a large pestle and mortar with a good pinch of sea salt and the lime leaves and pound to a paste.
- Toast the peanuts in a dry pan over medium heat for 3 minutes until golden. Bash half into the paste. Add the tomato purée, fish sauce and Wilson’s Ginger Flavoured Lime Juice, then mix to combine.
- Score the sea bass skin at 1cm intervals in a criss-cross pattern. Rub the paste all over the fish, inside and out.
- If using a banana leaf, hold it briefly over a gas flame to make it pliable and release its oils. Place the fish in the centre, fold over and seal snugly. Alternatively, use a double layer of baking paper. Place on a baking tray and roast for 25 minutes until the flesh is succulent and comes away from the bone easily.
- For the rice: heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Crumble in the creamed coconut and add the Wilson’s Ginger Flavoured Lime Juice. Tip in the rice and fry for 2 minutes, then pour over 1 mug of boiling water. Turn heat to low, cover and cook for 12 minutes. Remove from heat and steam, covered, for a further 3 minutes.
- For the chilli pickle: combine the sliced chillies, sugar, vinegar and a pinch of salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
- For the salad: place the grated coconut in a serving bowl. Add the sugar snaps, mangetout, both cabbages, cucumber and mango. Pick in most of the herb leaves. Squeeze over the lime juice and toss together.
- Unwrap the fish onto a serving platter. Crush the remaining peanuts and scatter over the fish and salad. Drizzle the fish with soy sauce and scatter over the remaining herbs.
- Bring everything to the table and let people help themselves.
Notes
Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Malaysian-Style Whole Fish, from Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast.
Banana leaves are available from Asian supermarkets. If you can find one, use it — the leaf keeps the steam in and adds a subtle fragrance that baking paper can’t replicate.
Wilson’s Ginger Flavoured Lime Juice goes into both the paste and the rice. In the paste it amplifies the ginger and adds a citrus thread that runs through the fish. In the rice it brightens what could otherwise be a rich, heavy base.
Score the fish deeply enough that the paste actually gets into the flesh — 1cm intervals, all the way through the skin.
