Le Fish with Chinese celery – - pla pad kunchai - is Nan's favourite dish. Every time we go to a restaurant, even before looking at the menu, that's what he orders. Unlike me, who loves to taste, discover, test and try, Nan likes his habits and doesn't feel the need to change them.
So I can say it without exaggeration: I've tried dozens of dishes of stir-fried fish with Chinese celery! With sauces of different thicknesses, with fish of different crispnesses, with vegetables or not, with ginger or not.
Here's a recipe that brings together everything we love about this dish.
A few tips for this stir-fried fish with Chinese celery recipe
🌶️ Chinese celery is easy to find in the fresh produce section of Asian grocery shops. It may be replaced by celery stalks leaves.
🌶️ We used Thai garlic for this dish. The cloves are very small and plump. Thai garlic has a rounder, milder flavour than the garlic commonly found in Europe. The unpeeled cloves are crushed and coarsely chopped. You can easily replace it with traditional garlic. Just reduce the quantity.
🌶️ Tempura flour makes the fish crispy on the outside (while it remains tender on the inside). Alternatively, you can use cornflour or all-purpose flour.
🌶️ Fermented bean sauce is essential for this recipe. It flavours the sauce of this dish.
🌶️ Choose a fish that stays firm when cooked. It should be a fairly thick fillet or steaks, so that you can make pieces at least 1 cm thick (more if you wish).
Video of the preparation of this stir-fried fish with Chinese celery
D’autres délicieuses recettes thaïlandaises à base de poisson :
Stir-fried Fish with Chinese Celery
Ingredients
- 400 g of fish in 1-2 cm thick pieces
- 2 tbsp of tempura flour
- 10 cloves of Thai garlic or 2 large cloves of garlic
- a little of ginger , julienned
- 2 spring onions ciboules
- 6-8 stalks of Chinese celery
- a few chillies
- 50 ml of water
- frying oil
For the sauce:
- 1 tbsp of fish sauce
- 2 tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp of rice wine
- 1 tbsp of fermented soy beans
- 1 tsp of sugar
Instructions
- Crush the garlic and chop coarsely. Cut the chillies in half lengthways.
- Finely julienne the ginger. Wash and cut the Chinese celery and spring onions into 3-4 cm pieces.
- Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl.
- Lightly flour the fish chunks with tempura flour.Heat the frying oil in a deep wok. As soon as the oil is hot, add the fish and fry in small batched until golden brown.Set the crispy fish aside on absorbent paper.
- Heat 1-2 tbsp of oil in a pan or wok. Add garlic and chillies and fry until golden. As soon as your nose itches and your eyes water, add the 50 ml of water and then the sauce.
- Simmer over a medium heat to reduce the sauce and thicken the sauce. When the sauce is reduced in half, add the pieces of crispy fish, and mix so that the sauce covers them well.
- Add the ginger, Chinese celery and spring onion. Mix and simmer for 1-2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and serve immediately.
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