Ternate's Fish Gohu Adaptation Dish

Fish Gohu is raw fish dishes which can be found in Ternate, Indonesia. Some people usually refer it as Ternate’s sashimi . Many variations of recipe available for this dish like most other Indonesian cuisine. However, there is one sure thing in every recipe, all of them use the raw Tuna or Skipjack. It is said that the fish will be cooked without being literally cooked.

The original Gohu Fish recipe I often encountered is :

Ingredients :

200 g tuna , cut into small pieces

1 handful of walnuts , roasted and pounded rough

4 tbsp coconut oil , heat it

1 tablespoon grated coconut , fried briefly

10 mexican chilli or cayenne pepper , chopped coarse

Kemangi leaves , chopped coarse

10 shallots, chopped coarse

2 lemon cui ( kietna orange / lime )

salt

Instructions :

- Sprinkle tuna with salt and lemon cui , stirred up until the color of tuna become white

- Mix the walnuts , peppers/chili , shallots , grated coconut , basil with the tuna, then flush with hot coconut oil.

Problems :

1 . Unavailability of ingredients : raw tuna / skipjack , walnuts , lemon cui , shallots are very expensive and hard to find in some countries, kemangi leaves , grated coconut and coconut oil .

2 . Some people find it hard to consume raw fish dishes.

Here is some solution which I suggest :

1 . Replace raw tuna with canned tuna ( I 'm sure I make some chefs wept because I choose such a crappy unfresh ingredients ) , feel free to find another  alternative of  raw fish ( not the frozen tuna). To eliminate the fishy smell , I like to add some ginger .

2 . Walnuts can be substituted with other nuts eg peanuts , or it could be eliminated as well.

3 . Lemon cui can be replaced with lemon or lime juice ( in some countries, it is difficult to find lime, usually one replace it with the bottled lime extract , however even though I'm okay with the canned tuna , I am strongly against the natural ingredients extract such as garlic or lime extract, since I found the taste is pretty awful and cannot resemble the original one) .

4 . Shallots can be eliminated , do not replace it with onions , the smell and the taste is not the same. I would rather replace it with garlic.

5 . Kemangi leaves are very similar to basil leaves, though  they are not exactly the same .

6 . Grated coconut can be eliminated, we already have the nuts to create a crunchy  sensation.

7 . Coconut oil can be replaced with any cooking oil .

Then the adaptation recipe is :

Ingredients :

1 can tuna (in olive oil ) , dispose the oil .

1 handful of walnuts or peanuts if any , roasted and ground coarse , set aside.

4 tablespoons cooking oil , heat it

1 tablespoon grated coconut if any , fry briefly (if you already bought the dry crunchy one then you do not need to fry it)

10 cayenne pepper/mexican chili, chopped coarse

basil , chopped coarse

10 shallots or 5 cloves garlic , chopped coarse

1 knuckle of ginger , crushed or grated

2 lemon cui ( kietna orange / lime ) or about 2 teaspoons of lime juice or lemon juice

salt and sugar to taste , usually the amount of salt is 2 times amount of sugar .

Instructions :

- Heat oil , fry shallots /garlic , ginger , and pepper/chili until fragrant .

- Add tuna , salt and sugar , mix well

- Add basil leaves , stir and turn off the heat immediately .

- Sprinkle with lemon juice.

- Add walnuts and grated coconut if any , stir thoroughly

Quite simple, isn’t it ?