Making Your Own Real Food: Fish Dish Edition

  by Hans Malvin on October 15, 2025

This week's blog about making your own real food is about fishes. For me, fish dishes always been on my family strong dishes, especially if you came from Indonesia. The variety of fish dishes in Indonesia is so many, with so many different spice combinations. Since i was a little kid, i have always like to eat fish, because the way my family make fish dishes is always never smells or tastes fishy.

If you ask me why i like fish, the answer is simple, the taste of fish with a lot of spices is so good and it makes the taste inside your mouth always so tasteful, but the mix of so many different taste combined into one, making it delicious. Whether the dish is still hot, right after the dish finish being cooked or if the dish is already cold, its always have the same taste and consistent.

That is why i like fishes, and since i was never aware of eating healthy food, and a couple years ago when i already start on my fitness and healthy eating journey, it never occur to me that fish dishes is healthy and high on protein content.

Once when i cook and eat fish dishes to help give me some variance on healthy food and high protein food, this fish dish starts to fall from my food category because the bones is always got stuck on my gum. But a couple months ago i realized that something like that only happen because i eat small fishes.

And that is why for this week's blog content its about my experience and how to make big fish dishes. First of all, the fish that i will share is all real fish meat foods. I do not use the online fish market, because all of the fish is already gone through process to make the fish meat able to sustain long store time with a ton of preservatives. Mostly in the dory fish, you can feel the different from eating the real and fresh dory fish, and eating the restaurant dory fish that has a lot of preservatives and other substances making the fish feels gooey and taste weird.

But right now i will share about my favorite fish pesmol dish with yellow spices. My favorite types of fish for making this dish is either catfish or red snapper. Both of these fishes are a relatively big fishes so if you afraid if the bones will get stuck on you gum or teeth do not worry because the bones are big and it will not get stuck, so you do not have to get worried about it.  

Why i choose this dish is because the spices are not heavy on calorie, making it perfect if you are on a diet or on a cut phase. Fish dishes also perfect for some changes in food variety, and also gives a lot of nutrients that are only in the fish.

For making this dish, the first step to make it is to clean the fish and to gives the fish a lot of lime to make the fishy smell go away. This step is crucial if you hate fishy dishes. The next step is to cook the fish halfway, and then prepare the spices, like salt, garlic, pepper, turmeric for the yellowish color, if you like some spice you can add some chili, coconut cream, ginger, and some mushroom broth to improve the flavor. 

Aside from cooking the spices together, you can add some seasoning in the fish to give it more taste and then give it a rest for about 30 minutes, to make the seasoning go all the way through the fish. Then you cook all the spices together and then cook the fish with the spices. After you are done with the cooking give the spices sauce on top of the fish, and give the dish some rest to properly absorb the spices into the fish meat.

Although the process usually takes me 1 to 2 hours to make, it is still a great variance of food with both healthy and full of protein and nutrients. I usually make this dishes when i got some day off, so i can properly season the fish and not in a rush to make the dish. 

When you finish cooking the dish, you can store it inside the refrigerator to make it into meal prep. But it does not takes a long time before the meat goes bad, it can only last a day or so. I usually starts making the food in the morning and then meal prep it for one day worth of food, so it can be a simple cook in the microwave to heated it up.

But unlike me that did not like to eat small fishes, this dishes also suitable for small fishes. Other big fish variant that also suitable for this is mackerel fish, tilapia fish and others. The rich flavor goes well with all types of fish meat hardness and texture. But personally in my opinion the best types of fish is either catfish and red snapper, because it is easier for me to get the fish from my surrounding market. But you can change the fish type according to your own taste.

And because by only eating fish meat is hard to fulfill a day worth of calories, i usually insert some other high protein dish in between. But this dish is so lean, and have a minimum of fat content, this can be a perfect choice to go on a diet or when you in a cutting phase. Or if you need more calories you can add some rice, or if you want some extra protein you can add some eggs into it as a side dish.

This is it for this week's blog about making and eating real healthy food, and if you guys want me to make more fish recipe just ask in the comment section.

See you next week. Peace.