“I did not like to eat fish when I was a kid', Chef Jay confesses when asked what was his early encounters with this ingredient. Ironically today he passionately works with fish every single day as the chef owner of Base Pasta Bar and Bistro in Kuala Lumpur.

Jay recalls his first memories following his mother to the morning market when he was only 5 years old. He remembers seeing different shapes and sizes and vibrant colors of fishes, but devouring them was another thing altogether. “Fishes have a lot of bones and the flesh was usually quite hard, probably because of the way our family cooked it then,” Chef Jay explained.

Fast forward 20 years later, Jay has graduated from culinary school and works in an award winning fine dining restaurant, the Maison Boulud by celebrity chef Daniel Boulud in Singapore. It is here that Jay finally got his “aha” moment working with fish. It was an awakening to see how creative and flexible fish could be when skillfully prepared and cooked.

Chef Jay fondly recalls experiencing for the first time the delicate but firm texture of a poached Turbot (Flat fish), slow cooked in melted butter. His creative culinary sense was awakened and it opened up a whole new dimension to his cooking and menu creation.

Chef Jay started exploring different techniques and processes of working with fish, from dry aging to salt curing and fermentation. He diligently drew from personal research and experiences working with different restaurants, and traditional wisdom of local cooks in Malaysia.

Finally he could test his culinary ideas and wisdom when he was the chef co-owner of Back Alley pasta, his first venture as a restaurant owner. He dry aged Patin fish (Silver Cat fish), salt cured salmon fish, fermented fish innards and bones, and offered different types of grilled and pan seared fishes in his menu.

“I especially love grilling fish especially the fatty fish because it has a different taste profile, although pan searing and baking are also quite rewarding techniques,” Chef Jay explains. He admitted that in the beginning he started with Salmon fish because it was familiar to many customers and the protein was safer, but later on he started exploring using different types of local fish including Patin, Jenahak (Golden Snapper) and Tenggiri (Spanish Mackerel).

Chef Jay's culinary curiosity led him to an interesting cooking experimentation. He made “fish ham” out of the tail end of an enormous Tenggiri fish. He cured and dry aged the fish tail with Tumeric powder and some other spices for 3 long months, and the efforts paid off. The “fish ham' carried a smoky curry like taste, and Chef Jay cut paper thin slices and served it with risotto and some pasta dishes.

The item was not included in the regular menu because of the long process needed to produce the 'fish ham'. But Chef Jay revealed that this unique and exclusive item would definitely be offered in his menu in the near future.

Chef Jay feels that cooking with fish is only one part of the entire process of working with this valuable and delicate protein. He remembered an incident when he had to actually plunge a knife through the head of a live fish, blood was everywhere and the fish took several minutes before it was ready to be placed in the frying pan.

The experience made him reflect a little deeper than just finding the right recipe to cook the fish and offering it in the dinner menu. Chef Jay admitted that although he has worked with different types of fish for the past 20 years of his professional culinary life, he has yet to see where fish comes from.

He recalls an eye opening experience when he was 8 years and caught a huge live Patin fish with 4 other friends in a lake in Ipoh City. It took several of them including Jay to carry the live fish which was flopping actively and splashing water everywhere. Chef Jay admitted that was the fist time he saw where fish came from, contrary to what he usually saw which was fish already cooked and served in restaurants or lying still on market stall counters.

“One of my bucket list item is to go with the fishermen to sea and have a hands on experience to see and understand where my favorite ingredient comes from,” Chef Jay concluded. #