In Thailand, pla jaramed (pomfret), a saltwater fish, and pla nuea awn (sheatfish), which lives in freshwater, are the reigning queens of the fish market. They grab the eye of anyone scanning a fishmonger's stand, and immediately set the imagination to work devising menus of dishes that would bring out the succulent best in them.
all too rare: Steamed 'pla jaramed', guaranteed to delight all fish lovers.
But trying to meet the growing demand for them has led to overfishing and reduced catches, and the prices charged these days can make your wallet break into a sweat. But when you do have the cash, the best thing to do is to pick out a choice fish or two and prepare the dish you are craving.
There are good reasons why these fish warrant their status as queens of the seafood realm. They have tender meat with no troubling bones and a delicious flavour. Their unique qualities have made them a favourite in every era, but as the number of people eager to eat them has increased, catches have diminished and prices have gone up.
Let's look at pla jaramed first. Usually they are divided into two types, white and black. They look very similar, but the white variety has smooth skin and the black variety has small scales and is a little darker in colour. The taste is almost the same.
Pla jaramed are especially popular with Chinese cooks and many of the recipes for them are Chinese. In the past, the fish were plentiful and large in size (today the black ones are bigger and meatier than the white ones). Chinese cooks like to fry them and serve them accompanied by a white soya sauce as a seasoning, or a dipping sauce of sliced chillies in nam pla for something spicier.
For the white ones, steaming is the preferred cooking method, and there are many ways to do it. The fish can be steamed with picked salted plums by cutting pork fat into cubes and scattering them over the fish and then squeezing the seeds out of salted plums and putting those on top, too. A sauce made by mixing soya sauce with sesame oil and sugar is then poured over the fish and Chinese celery set on top as a garnish before steaming. The finished dish combines sourness from the plums, saltiness from the soya sauce and the delicious fragrance of the sesame oil.
firm favourite: A delicious plate of 'pla nuea awn' deep-fried with garlic and pepper.
Another recipe for steamed white pla jaramed flavours it with shredded ginger and sliced prik chee fah (spur chilli), which are sprinkled on top. The same mixture of soya sauce, sesame oil and sugar is poured over it before it is steamed. Some recipes replace the soya sauce with the salty, fermented whole soya bean sauce called tao jio. One further recipe, pla jaramed nueng manao (pomfret steamed with lime) is cooked in a similar way.
In the past, the Chinese version of khao tom (rice soup) was made with pla jaramed khao, using only the flesh. There is a restaurant on Soi Bamrungrat off Yaowarat that makes three kinds of Chinese khao tom, one with pla krapong khaw (sea bass), one with white pla jaramed and one with the local species called pla kao. The white pla jaramed version is masterly but get your money ready. The price 30 years ago was 150 baht a bowl. The ingredients in a bowlful of white pla jaramed khao tom include powdered galangal, moo bateng (small cubes of pork simmered in soya sauce and sugar to give them a salty and sweet taste), dried shrimp and thin crisps of dried tofu.
To summarise, Chinese recipes for white pla jaramed usually involve boiling or steaming. The main point is the fish flesh, and other ingredients are added primarily to enhance its flavour. These days, white pla jaramed usually costs between 450 and 650 baht a kilo, depending on size.
Pla nuea awn is considered the best of Thailand's freshwater fish, and Thais have been eating it for a very long time. There are quite a few other species in the same family, including those known in Thai as pla daeng (red pomfret), pla ma, pla nam nguen and pla khang buean. They are all of similar size. There are also larger relatives, including pla khao, pla saiyu and pla khang (redtail catfish). They look like pla sawai, or striped catfish, but are longer. The flesh is tougher and has a fishy smell like that of pla sawai, so that the fish in the latter group are usually used to make spicy curries.
The ones in the first group are almost extinct in Thailand except for pla daeng and pla nuea awn, which can still be found in limited numbers. In the past, Thai cooks prepared pla nuea awn as a tom yam or chu che dish. To make a good chu che, the fresh fish had to be stir-fried with the seasonings, not deep-fried first and then refried with the spices. Thais of earlier generations ate these dishes for the taste of the fresh fish. Deep-frying destroys this fresh flavour.
These days cooks tend to deep-fry the fish with garlic and pepper, or deep-fry it until it is crisp, then fry the seasonings in coconut cream and pour them over the pre-fried fish. This dish is called pla tod rad prik kaeng. Some cooks also like to use pla nuea awn to make the spicy stir-fry called pad cha. One reason why deep-frying has taken hold now as an early step in the preparation is that most of the available pla nuea awn are small. So many fishermen are out catching them every day that the fish don't have time to mature.
Years ago, these fish were so plentiful that there were enough left over to smoke or to prepare as pla krawp (crispy dried fish). Today there is no more Thai pla krawp. The only kind available comes from Cambodia. And pla krawp is not the only kind of fish that comes in from Cambodia. Large pla nuea awn sold in Thailand are also brought in from across the border. Pla nuea awn sells for about 350-450 baht per kilogramme.
White pla jaramed and pla nuea awn can both be seen as indicators of the financial status of the people who eat them.
Those on strict budgets may dream about these choice fish more often than they actually eat them, but they will appreciate them all the more when they do have the chance to savour a plateful. n
