Name: Thai baked fish
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 4 fish fillets, each about 200 g, with skin, scaled and any residual bones removed; ½ tsp ground cumin; 1 small mild chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped; 1 banana leaf, about 1 metre in size; 4 lime leaves, roughly chopped; 20 g Thai basil; 1 tbsp light (not toasted) sesame oil; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 10 g coriander leaves; 20 g galangal or root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped; salt; 225 g basmati rice, rinsed well in cold water; 2 lemon grass stalks, bulbous ends crushed; 8 lime leaves; 1 tbsp finely chopped lemon grass; 1 tbsp finely chopped galangal or root ginger; 1 small red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped; 1 tbsp sesame oil; 1 garlic clove, crushed; 3 tbsp soy sauce; 2 lime leaves; 1 lemon grass stalk, peeled and the bulbous end roughly chopped

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Fish etc.

By Mark Hix

Published 2004

About

The sudden boom in Thai cooking has led to a lot of Asian shops- and even supermarket chains - stocking banana leaves. If you can’t find them, then foil or greaseproof paper will do the job. Asian herbs are also becoming easier to find in supermarkets; some even sell prepared packets of Thai herb and spice mix.

Fish like sea bass, grouper and snapper are good fish to pitch against Thai flavours, but you can really use most luxury fish - or even humble fish like grey mullet - for thi