Name: Grilled Baby Grouper in the Style of the Portuguese
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Malaysia
Ingredients: 5 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped; 1 teaspoon Coarse salt (kosher or sea); 4 rectangular pieces of banana leaf, each about 10 × 12 inches; 4 grouper fillets (each 6 to 8 ounces, see Notes); ½ teaspoon MSG (optional); 4 red chiles, such as large Thai chiles, red horn peppers, or serrano peppers, seeded and coarsely chopped (for hotter fish, leave the seeds in); 2 to 4 tablespoons Asian chile paste; 3 tablespoons vegetable oil; ½ cup loosely packed, thinly slivered mixed fresh herbs, including basil, Thai basil, cilantro, mint, daun kesum, daum kadok, Kaffir lime leaf, and/or other Asian or different herbs (see Notes); 2 tablespoons palm sugar or light brown sugar; 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice or calamansi juice; ½ teaspoon shrimp paste (optional); 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk; 1 piece (2 inches) peeled fresh ginger, coarsely chopped; 6 macadamia nuts or candlenuts

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Complex

Appears in

Planet Barbecue

By Steven Raichlen

Published 2010

About

What’s a Portuguese-style grilled fish doing at a Malaysian fish restaurant run by a woman in a black Muslim headscarf? Indulge me in a bit of history. For thousands of years (literally), Melaka on the west coast of mainland Malaysia has been a center of the spice trade, first with the Chinese, whose junks sailed around Singapore; then with Islamic merchants, whose dhows crossed the Indian Ocean; then with the Portuguese, who turned Melaka into an armed stronghold from which they wrested th