Fish in Panang Curry sauce with Thai 'Sweet and Sour'

On Saturday John and I went to see the Kentucky Wildcat's attempt *cough, cough* to play football in Lexington. (I've never seen such bad football. And Kentucky is an SEC team! I really wouldn't be surprised if the team shows up in the ESPN worst 25 list this season. Kentucky - fantastic at basketball, but apparently never learned how to play with the pigskin. The current coach will very likely be let go this year, so the debate is already going for who the next coach should be. John suggested the coach be fired now, and Calipari take over. Could only help.)

While in Lexington, we went to one of John's favorite college-eateries: Bangkok House. This little hole-in-the-wall was located right off campus. Decent Thai food, not the best I've ever had. My curry was plenty spicy! John's main reason for loving the place is the unique sauce served on each table, and really great Pad Thai. The waiter told us the sauce was 'Sweet and Sour'. As far as I know, Thai food doesn't include Sweet-n-Sour, it's an American Chinese food concoction.

Of course, the waiter wasn't going to tell us what ingredients were used in their top-secret sauce. When they brought out our egg rolls, I placed a dollop of the stuff on a plate, and then proceeded to do the place-finger-in-and-analyze technique. Dab, taste taste taste, dab, taste taste taste. I turned sticky immediately, so the main ingredient had to be honey. A strong hint of hoisen... Hmmmmm, what is that slightly sour taste coming from? Not vinegar...Tamarind?

When we got home, I went straight into Katie the Mad Scientest mode. A half a huge bottle of honey later, and wha-bam! Nearly the same Sweet and Sour Sauce. Here are the ingredients:

Bangkok House's Sweet and Sour Sauce:

12 TBS Honey
1 TBS Hoisen
1 TBS Tamarind Concentrate

Mix all together. Place in jar.

Fish in Panang Curry Sauce

For dinner that night I made fish in Panang Curry sauce. Simple stuff.

Take 1 TBS Panang curry paste (I buy mine online from importfoods.com), place in fry pan, cook until fragrant. Then add 1/2 cup of coconut milk, just the rich, white stuff on the top of can, and one heaping TBS of Thai Sweet and Sour (or sugar is fine, too). Allow to cook down for a few minutes. Take 2 fish fillets, season with a few dashes of fish sauce. Place in pan with curry sauce, cook for 15 minutes covered, gently turning over once. During the last five minutes, take a few slices of red bell pepper and layer on top to steam. If you have Kaffir Lime leaf (I didn't), lay a few thinly sliced pieces on top. This recipe was originally pulled from SheSimmers. The foodie photography in this blog link is SOOOO much better than mine. Need to keep on working on those photo taking skills.

This is SPICY!! To reduce heat, either cut back on the amount of curry paste, or add more coconut milk. When I made this recipe, I originally did 2 TBS of curry paste. John and I both consumed about a 1/2 gallon of milk each to ease the fire. Serve with steamed rice and fresh veggies.