another cooking disaster

ever since i came here in singapore, i have managed to develop some culinary skills so that i would have other better things to eat aside from the local dishes without having to spend too much cash. since i have always loved italian dishes, i have tried cooking different kinds of pastas from cream sauce to marinara sauce with the white wine, of course. i love gourmet food, so if i could chance upon a non-bake and easy to cook gourmet dish, i would always give the dish a shot in my spare time.

however, there's one dish that i always effortlessly fail each time i attempt to cook it. no matter how simple it is, disaster is always the end result. that dish is no other than - pritong isda (fried fish). you might be rolling your eyes with disbelief, but seriously, i can't cook this dish.

my first attempt to cook pritong isda here in singapore was more than a year ago and what happened was i almost got our apartment burned... good thing it was just the range hood that got all damaged. i blogged about it in trembling hands because of the very traumatic experience. but that was more than a year ago, so i thought i must have learned a bit on how to do this very simple dish after a very successful pinakbet (filipino vegetable stew) over the weekend. yes, i know how to cook pinakbet now...and all my other pasta dishes have been quite a success (not to brag, but my housemates all love them, so i take their word.. hehehe they are my only fans :p ).. but i could just not get my pritong isda perfect!! .. ugh! how frustrating can that be?

wondering how i did it? well, i think i got the procedure correctly:

1) soak the fish in salt and pepper

2) put 5 tablespoons of butter on a heated pan (i had 3 pieces of sliced fish, so that would be enough and i didn't use the normal cooking vegetable oil since i want my fish to have more taste)
3) check fire to be very low to avoid burning your kitchen
4) once the butter melts, put in the fish slices slowly and cover
5) check on the fish gradually to see if the part that's dipped in the melted butter gets a bit brown before turning the fish updside down

see, it is pretty simple. i did all the steps above, but i was a bit impatient on the last procedure. it's past midnight already, and i still have work tomorrow...so i kinda rushed things. (you might be wondering what i am doing cooking fish at this time. i'm done with dinner, and i bought this really fresh fish last saturday, and i do not have other time to cook it. if i postpone it more, i would end up a not so fresh fish anymore on my plate. fish meat gets easily spoilt, and it won't taste as good.)

nweyz, back to my fish, i was a bit impatient and turned it upside down a tad bit earlier. well, the butter is all brown already so i guess it was okay. what happened though is i got all the fish meat broken into pieces, or how should it be described? shattered? scattered? shredded? whatever... my fish slices looked more like fish shreds now and i can't turn them upside down anymore. :( instead of a golden brown fried fish, i ended up with burnt fish shreds.. taking a picture of it would make things more heartbreaking, so i decided against it.

i give up. i can't do pritong isda.

p.s. hmmm.. on second thought, i should be thankful i didn't get anything in the kitchen burnt. that's quite a progress then.. so, it could be that i fried the wrong kind of fish. i mean, maybe that kind of fish was not meant for frying.. maybe that fish could have been saved if i had cooked it as tinola, or sinigang... or some other dishes.. i should never loose hope.. maybe i'll fair better on this dish next year with the right kind of fish. :D