Fried Gourami with Special Sauce, Another Recipe Saved from My Drawer

This recipe originally came from an old Fortune cooking oil promotional recipe bonus.

And yes… I kept it. 😂

Actually, this is one of the reasons I started putting these recipes on my blog.

I often keep recipes because I think: “Maybe I’ll want to try this someday.”

And then the recipe goes into a drawer.

The problem is… when I say drawer, I don’t mean one or two recipe cards. I have a lot of them. Recipes from magazines, food packaging, promotional booklets, supermarket flyers, cooking oil bonuses, and all kinds of random papers I collected over the years.

Finding one specific recipe inside that drawer is another adventure. 😆

So I decided that putting them online makes much more sense. I can find them again easily, the recipes don’t get damaged or lost, and maybe someone else will find something interesting to cook too.

I haven't tried every recipe I save here yet. This blog is partly my digital recipe drawer — only much easier to search. ❤️

Fried Gourami with Special Sauce with Rice

Gurame Goreng Saus Spesial (Fried Gourami with Special Sauce) Recipe

Makes about 8 servings

Ingredients for the Fish

2 whole gourami fish (ikan gurame)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
150 g all-purpose flour, for coating
Cooking oil, for deep frying

Ground Spice Paste

2 cloves garlic
4 shallots
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 cm turmeric, roasted
½ tablespoon salt

Grind everything together until smooth.

Ingredients for the Special Sauce

1 onion, sliced lengthwise
2 cm ginger, crushed
½ red bell pepper, diced
½ green bell pepper, diced
50 g green peas
50 g button mushrooms, cut into pieces
100 g tomato sauce
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
¾ teaspoon sugar
300 ml chicken stock
½ tablespoon cornstarch
½ tablespoon water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 spring onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons cooking oil, for sautéing

How to Make the Fried Gourami

Prepare the gourami and carefully open or score the fish so that it spreads out while still remaining attached.
Rub the fish with lemon juice and the ground spice paste.
Leave it to marinate for about 20 minutes.
Coat the seasoned fish evenly with all-purpose flour.
Heat enough cooking oil over medium heat, then fry the gourami until completely cooked, golden, and crispy.
Remove it from the oil and drain well.

How to Make the Special Sauce

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan.
Sauté the sliced onion and crushed ginger until fragrant.
Add the red and green bell peppers. Cook briefly until they begin to soften.
Add the green peas and button mushrooms and stir everything together.
Pour in the tomato sauce, then season with salt, ground pepper, and sugar.
Add the chicken stock and bring the sauce to a gentle boil.
Mix the cornstarch with the water to make a slurry, then pour it into the sauce while stirring.
Cook until the sauce thickens and starts bubbling.
Finally, add the lemon juice and sliced spring onion.
Stir briefly, then turn off the heat.

To Serve

Place the crispy fried gourami on a large serving plate and serve the warm special sauce alongside it — or spoon some of the sauce over the fish just before eating.

And of course, I would probably add a bowl of warm rice. 🍚😂

The sauce sounds quite nice to me because it has tomato, ginger, peppers, mushrooms, peas, and lemon. So you get something savory, slightly tangy, and colorful to go with the crispy fish.

From the Drawer to the Blog

This is exactly the kind of recipe I want to keep here.

Maybe I will cook it next month.

Maybe next year.

Maybe I will rediscover it five years from now and suddenly think, “Oh! I want gurame today.” 😂

At least now I won't have to dig through a mountain of paper to find it.

Slowly, I think my blog is becoming the online version of my old recipe drawer — recipes collected here and there, waiting for the day I finally decide to try them.

And I actually like that. ❤️

Recipe source: Fortune cooking oil promotional recipe bonus leaflet.

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