Ikan Sabuko

Name: Ikan Sabuko
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Dili & Timor
Ingredients: 700 g mackerel or tuna, in thick steaks; 1 tsp salt; 0.5 tsp ground turmeric; 50 g tamarind pulp; 300 ml hot water; 3 tbsp coconut oil; 2 onions, thinly sliced; 8 garlic cloves, sliced; 4 red chillies, sliced; 1 tbsp ginger, julienned; 2 tomatoes, chopped; 1 tsp sugar; 1 tsp salt, or to taste; 50 g sweet basil leaves; 1 lime, cut into wedges

Timor-Leste's mackerel simmered in tamarind water with basil and chilli, cooked down until the sourness sits on top of the oily fish

Origin: Dili & Timor

From the journey of Tamarind.

Ikan sabuko is oily fish, usually mackerel or tuna, cooked in tamarind water with basil, chilli, and a good deal of garlic. It is one of the dishes Timorese cooks name first when asked what the country's food is, and it belongs to the coastal Tetum-speaking north where the fishing is. Tamarind is the whole argument of the dish. Timor is dense with tamarind trees, the pods are gathered and pressed into dark sticky blocks that keep for a year, and the sour water drawn from them is the island's principal souring agent, used the way lime is used further east and vinegar further west. Against a strong, oily fish it does two things at once: it cuts the fat and it firms the flesh, so the fish holds together in the pan rather than flaking apart. The basil is the second signature and it is worth being precise about which one. Timorese cooks use a broad-leaved sweet basil rather than the Thai or holy basils of mainland Southeast Asia, and it goes in at the very end in a large quantity, wilted rather than cooked. The combination of tamarind sourness and sweet basil is what separates this from the tamarind fish curries of Malaysia and Indonesia, which reach for lemongrass and galangal instead. Timorese cooking sits at a genuine crossroads and shows it. Four centuries of Portuguese presence left a taste for pork, coffee, and long braises; the Malay archipelago on every side supplied the tamarind, coconut, and chilli; and Australia and Indonesia have supplied most of the last fifty years' imports. Ikan sabuko is the Malay side of that inheritance, cooked in a Portuguese-influenced kitchen, and it is usually eaten with rice, boiled cassava, or batar da'an, the country's maize and mung bean pot.

Ingredients

Fish

700 g mackerel or tuna, in thick steaks
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp ground turmeric

Tamarind water

50 g tamarind pulp
300 ml hot water

To cook

3 tbsp coconut oil

Aromatics

2 onions, thinly sliced
8 garlic cloves, sliced
4 red chillies, sliced
1 tbsp ginger, julienned
2 tomatoes, chopped

Seasoning

1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt, or to taste

To finish

50 g sweet basil leaves

To serve

1 lime, cut into wedges

Method

Rub the fish steaks with the teaspoon of salt and the turmeric and leave them for fifteen minutes.
Soak the tamarind pulp in the hot water for ten minutes, then work it with your fingers and strain, pressing hard on the solids. Discard the stones and fibre.
Heat the coconut oil in a wide pan and fry the fish steaks for two minutes a side, just to set the surface, then lift them out.
Sear the fish first and cook it through later. Oily fish put straight into sour liquid breaks up, and the seared surface holds it together.
In the same oil soften the onions for eight minutes, then add the garlic, chillies, and ginger and fry for two minutes more.
Add the tomatoes and cook them down for five minutes until they have collapsed into the onions.
Pour in the tamarind water, add the sugar and salt, and simmer for eight minutes until the sauce has thickened and lost its raw edge.
Taste it now, before the fish goes back. It should be assertively sour with the sweetness sitting just behind; adjust with sugar or more tamarind water.
Slide the fish back in with any juices, spoon the sauce over, and simmer gently for six to eight minutes until just cooked through, basting rather than stirring.
Take the pan off the heat and press the basil leaves into the hot sauce around the fish.
Cover for two minutes so the basil wilts in the residual heat rather than cooking, which would take the perfume out of it.
Serve with lime wedges and rice or boiled cassava.

Notes

Block tamarind pressed through a sieve gives a rounder sourness than concentrate; if using concentrate, start with two teaspoons in 300ml of water and taste. Sear the fish before it meets the tamarind. Balance the sauce before the fish returns, since you cannot stir it properly afterwards. Sweet basil, not Thai basil, and a large handful of it added off the heat. Mackerel, tuna, and bonito all work and the dish wants an oily fish; a white fish gives a thin result. It is eaten warm rather than hot and is good the next day.

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control