Pomfret

The DDA went pass a fish shop two days ago. The Fish Works sells fresh seafood and doubles as a restaurant. A rather cool idea indeed as not many restaurants actually pride themselves in serving good seafood in London.

The DDA loves seafood. So being a seafood lover, she picked up a leaflet from their shop and went browsing on their website. They carry interesting seafood products, but unfortunately one thing she has learnt is that the seafood one can get in South East Asia, one can not find in Europe.

Suppose when one starts to compare the food, one starts to recall those from home. So this fish came to mind - her favourite fish. At that split moment, she lost the name for her favourite fish! Her mind went into panic mode. She can't remember the name of her favourite fish?!!!

The first reaction was to trawl through her tiny brain to look for the first alphabet of the name. No. No result, so she switched to trawl for the Hokkien word for it. Dig, dig deeper, the word is there somewhere... and fortunately at that moment her uncle came online to MSN. Ha! Such great timing.

So the uncle and the niece went through the fish names in Hokkien. It wasn't easy though. They went pass Tenggiri, Ikan Kembung, Dao Tay, Yellow Tail, Koay Kow.... then she recalls that her favourite fish comes in white and black... Yes! They are called 'Pek Chionh' & 'Or Chionh'. To many the names don't mean anything, neither can it be used to do any search in Google! (hmmm... maybe they should start Google search in Hokkien too?)

Fear not! The DDA can do a Google search using Chinese Pinyin. Of course you would need to be able to identify the correct words you need to use. Handy indeed eh?

So in the end, the DDA found out that her favourite fishes the 'Pek Chionh' & 'Or Chionh' are infact Pomfrets. See below illustrations of the fishes and their Hokkien names parallel to their Chinese, English and Latin terms:


Pek Chionh - 银鲳 - Silver Pomfret - Pampus Argenteus


Or Chionh - 黑鲳 - Black Pomfret - Parastromateus Niger

Now the DDA is finally happy and contented that she's found the name to her favourite fish - the Silver Pomfret (yes, the one on the top is her ultimate favourite). It is a very delicate fish, best cooked simply by steaming it with ginger and spring onions, when it's done and before serving drizzle oil and sesame seed oil with a few dash of soya sauce to taste. Isn't that much much better now?