Recipes and how to Cook Naniura Fish – Batak Toba Cuisine

Hello everyone….hope we are all in good health.
Let me tell you a little about the content of this post, which is “Ikan Mas Naniura”. As we know that our country has a lot of culinary wealth, one of which is fish naniura. This food is a typical Toba Batak cuisine originating from North Sumatra.

Naniura in simple language is fish cooked using tamarind and a mixture of other spices that are very typical of North Sumatra, namely andaliman, Batak onions and kecombrang stems. Tamarind itself has a strong sour taste so it can soften fish meat in the shortest possible time. The shape is similar to kaffir lime, but the inside is like Sunkist and the aroma is really very fragrant.

Actually, how to make this fish naniura is very easy but you have to be careful in mixing the spices to produce a delicious naniura fish, it doesn’t smell fishy and doesn’t taste like eating raw fish. I myself just learned to make it from my in-laws recently because my husband really likes it. my husband was young, his parents-in-law used to make it often. So my mother-in-law taught me to make it. she said so that our special food doesn’t disappear from this earth so it must be preserved. I also recently wanted to eat it because my parents are also not fans of the original/authentic naniura. My parents’ version of the naniura is a little different from here, so yeah, that’s it. I’ll share my parents’ version of the naniura sometime.

Ok, let’s go straight to the recipe and how to make it.

Ingredients to cook naniura

• 2.5kg large goldfish
• ️3 tamarind fruit (you can use 8 ounces of lime)
• ️1/4 kg makeup sticks/kecombrang sticks
  Just take the white part and boil it
• ️1/2 ounce Batak onions (stems only fried)
• ️1 ounce red onion (fried)
• ️5 cloves of garlic (fried)
• ️1 ounce candlenut (fried)
• ️3 finger ginger (fried)
• ️1/2 ounce turmeric (raw)
• ️3 finger kencur (optional)(raw)
• ️ According to taste chili (boiled)
• ️1/2 ounce fresh andaliman (raw)
• ️1 Tbsp fine salt (adjust)

How to make Naniura

1. choose a large goldfish so that there is a lot of meat. Clean it, remove the scales and then fillet the carp meat. To be quick, ask the fish salesman to make carp fillet. In my city, they are used to filleting fish for naniura. They immediately know.
2. ️Clean the fish, then cut the meat if you want it whole, or can be cut into small pieces according to the size needs. Set aside into a rather large container. Flush the fish with boiling water, stir quickly for 1 minute then drain.
3. ️ squeeze the tamarind juice into the goldfish earlier. Don’t go with the tamarind seeds so it won’t be bitter. Stir well, set aside.
4. ️ Puree the turmeric and kencur first. If using a blender, use boiled water. Then add it to the fish. mix well.
5. ️ Puree candlenut, onion, garlic, ginger, dressing sticks and andaliman. Put it in the fish. Stir until smooth then add salt. If you want, you can add powdered stock but without broth, the fish is already very tasty. Correct the taste and then rest for at least 1 hour. or 6 hours at room temperature for better taste.
6. ️ After resting, the fish can be eaten. The meat of the fish is soft, like it’s cooked, the taste is delicious and the spices are absorbed perfectly.
7. Please those who want to try, especially the Batak people. Let’s preserve our special food, okay. If the recipe and the method of making it are different from all of your friends, please understand and accept this difference because I believe, every family has its own way.