Description:
It's another interpretation of pepes ikan and the original recipe was from Evil Jungle Prince. The recipe is really simple but the dish is full of flavour and very delicious. Here is the link to the picture of rockling fish .

I made some modifications of the recipe. Can't help it!

This recipe is also part of the MFM #10 which is hosted by Sefa.

Ingredients:
2 pieces of rockling fish fillets
Lime juice

Banana leaves
Bay leaves
Kaffir lime leaves

Ground spices:
125 g big red chillies, seeded and sliced (yield about 3 Tbsp ground chilli)
35 g shallots, peeled and sliced
25 g garlic, peeled and chopped
35 g candlenuts, dry panfried
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp sugar

Mix in 1 Tbsp oil

Directions:
1. Prepare the ground spice in a food processor or using mortar and pestle.
2. Wash the fish with lime juice and leave it for 5 minutes. Rinse with water and pat dry with a paper towel.
3. Cut the fish into two. Marinate the fish with ground spice for one hour.
4. Preheat oven to 200 deg C
5. Clean some banana leaves and slightly oil them. Place a piece of fish or two pieces of the tail ends onto the banana leaves, place one bay leaf and one kaffir lime leaf.
6. Secure both ends with toothpicks tightly.
7. Bake for 25 minutes.

Hints:
1. It's better to grind the spices part by part because some spices are harder to grind than the others. I ground the chillies and the other spices separately. Then, put all of them back to the food processor and blitz until combined.
2. To shortcut the ground spice, you can use sambal oelek and almond meal. Don't forget to adjust the taste as sambal oelek has been added with salt and sugar.
3. To make the banana leaves slightly pliable, soak them in hot water for a few minutes. Use an aluminium foil or baking paper if the banana leaves are not available.
4. If chilli is not your favourite, replace it with red paprika (capsicum) and a little bit of ripe tomato.
5. If you want milder garlic odour, you can reduce the amount of shallots and garlic or saute them first before mixing it with other spices.