Lawar 

One of my favorite foods in the whole wide world is a traditional Bruneian dish called lawar. It’s a delicious family dish, of which the recipe is passed down from generation to generation. I have YET to see it being served in Malay restaurants, or actually even mentioned anywhere on the net. HOW CAN THAT BE! Absurd. Lawar is delicious, it deserves this long post.

Its ingredients basically comprises of a particular species of fish called temanung which has been deboned, and cut into tiny pieces, finely sliced shallots, a lot of kasturi lime, chopped red chillies, a small amount of shredded garlic and some salt.

The result is a bursty fish dish which is tangy and hot, with the most wonderful texture ever. While it can be served as an appetizer like the Thai squid salad, in our home, most of the time it is eaten with either rice or the national dish, ambuyat.

What is interesting about lawar is that, it does not require any conventional form of cooking, e.g. frying, boiling, sauteing, grilling. Not to say that it is eaten raw just like that. On the contrary, it is cooked, but only using the acids from the liberal amounts of lime added in the beginning.

Many people do not know of the existence of lawar. Last night, I introduced the dish to Boyfriend for the very first time. Fortunately, he’s rather adventurous in his culinary choices so, he had no qualms about trying it. But the thing is, before I mentioned the dish to him a while ago, he had only vague ideas of what lawar is. Hmm. Poor undermentioned heavenly dish.

Anyway, the preparation of lawar is also not difficult, but the most important thing is that to choose the FRESHEST FRESHEST fish you can find. It must be so fresh that, it still smells like the sea, and the flesh is springy (extra bonus if the fish is still alive and swimming). This step, as my mother, my sister and me (self-proclaimed lawar connoiseurs) unanimously agreed last night, is crucial because choosing only moderately fresh fish will result in floppy textured, unappetizingly fishy smelled lawar, the last thing you want it to end up as.

So Boyfriend said, maybe a fisherman (who forgot his lunchbox but happened to have kasturi lime with him) came up with the unique cooking method while they were fishing out in the open sea.

*shrugs*

But whoever it is who came up with the dish long time ago, 😀 :D:D:D:D:D you have made a lot of people very happy. YUM!