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Pa Tod (ປາທອດ) – Fried Fish with Turmeric
Pa tod means fried fish in Laos. You take whole tilapia or sea bream, score them deeply and rub them with a yellow paste of turmeric, galangal and garlic. In hot oil the skin turns crisp while the flesh stays juicy. At the table you pull the fish off the bone with your fingers, dip it in a sour dip of lime, fish sauce and chili, and eat it with sticky rice.
Pa Tod (ປາທອດ) – Fried Fish with Turmeric
Laura Chen
4
30 minutes
25 minutes
320
Lao
Main course
Pa Tod is whole fish, Lao style: you rub it with a paste of turmeric, galangal and garlic and deep-fry it crisp. Unlike kua pa, where fillet pieces are tossed in a pan with herbs, the fish comes to the table whole. You eat it with a hot lime dip and sticky rice.
Ingredients
- 4 small whole fish (tilapia or sea bream, about 400 g each), gutted and scaled
- 4 garlic cloves
- 20 g fresh turmeric or 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 20 g galangal (a sharp relative of ginger) or ginger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tbsp rice flour
- 1 l vegetable oil for deep-frying
For the dip:
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 3 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 bird's eye chilies, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp chopped cilantro
- Mint for garnish
Instructions
- Score each fish diagonally 3 or 4 times per side down to the bone and pat dry inside and out.
- Pound the garlic, turmeric, galangal, salt and pepper in a mortar into a paste and stir in the fish sauce.
- Rub the fish with the paste, in the cuts and in the belly cavity too, and let them sit for 15 minutes.
- For the dip, stir together the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic, chili and cilantro.
- Dust the fish lightly with rice flour and heat the oil in a wok to 180 °C (355 °F).
- Fry 1 or 2 fish at a time for 4 to 5 minutes per side, until the skin is dark golden and the flesh at the thickest part comes away from the bone.
- Drain the fish on a rack and serve hot with the dip, mint and sticky rice.
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