Ikan bilis: grades, quality and how to choose
Four piles at the market, four prices, and no labels explaining any of it. Here is what you are actually looking at.
Dried anchovies are the quiet foundation of a great deal of Malaysian cooking, and almost nobody chooses them carefully. Most people buy whichever packet is nearest, or whichever pile the auntie points at. Which is a shame, because ikan bilis varies more between batches than almost anything else in the pantry, and the difference between good and poor shows up directly in your stock.
What the sizes mean
The piles are usually sorted by size, and size determines use rather than quality. Both ends of the range are useful; they are simply for different jobs.
The smallest, sometimes silvery and barely longer than a fingernail, are for frying crisp: nasi lemak, sambal, snacking straight from the pan. They cook in seconds and burn almost as fast.
Medium is the general-purpose size, and what most households buy without thinking about it. Fine for stock, fine for pounding into sambal, fine fried.
The largest are stock fish. Too coarse to eat whole and pleasant, but they give the deepest broth, and they are usually the cheapest by weight.
If you cook a lot, buying two sizes rather than one middle compromise is the single easiest upgrade to make.
Headless costs more, and is usually worth it
You will see both whole fish and fish with the heads and guts removed. Headless is more expensive because someone did the work, and because you are paying for less weight of fish.
The reason to pay it: the head and gut carry most of the bitterness. In a stock simmered for any length of time, that bitterness comes through and cannot be seasoned out. For frying it matters less, since you are not extracting anything.
So: headless for stock, whole is fine for frying, and if you buy whole for stock, pull the heads off before they go in the pot. It is tedious and it noticeably improves the result.
The one thing to check
Look at the colour. Good ikan bilis is pale and silvery-grey. A yellowish or brownish cast means the oils in the fish have oxidised, and oxidised fish oil tastes rancid, faintly of cardboard and old nuts. No amount of rinsing or frying removes it.
This is the most common defect and the easiest to spot, and it is why the pricier pile is often the better value.
The rest of the checks
Dryness
They should feel properly dry and snap rather than bend. Any suppleness means moisture, and moisture in dried fish means a short life and a real risk of mould.
Whole fish, not dust
A pile that is half broken pieces and powder has been handled badly or sat too long. Broken fish also fry unevenly, because the fragments burn while the whole ones are still going.
Salt crust
A light bloom of salt is normal. A heavy white crust means the batch was salted hard, usually to compensate for something, and you will be fighting the seasoning all through the dish.
Smell
Clean, marine, faintly sweet. Sharp or sour is a bad sign.
To rinse or not
A contested one. Rinsing removes surface salt and market dust, which is a real benefit, but it reintroduces moisture, which is the enemy of a crisp fry.
What works: if you are frying, do not rinse. Wipe them or shake off the dust and fry dry. If you are making stock, a quick rinse is fine and often improves clarity, since you are adding water anyway.
If you must rinse before frying, dry them thoroughly on a cloth first, and expect to lose some crispness regardless.
Storing them properly
Ikan bilis does not spoil in the way fresh food does. It goes rancid, slowly, as the oil oxidises. Heat, light and air all accelerate it, and a Malaysian kitchen supplies plenty of the first.
- Airtight container, not the bag it came in
- Somewhere dark and as cool as you have
- The freezer for anything you will not use within a month or two, which works well and does not need thawing before frying
Buying in bulk to save money is usually a false economy unless you have freezer space. A large bag going yellow in a warm cupboard costs more than a small bag bought fresh.
Getting them crisp
Cold oil, medium heat, and patience. Putting them into hot oil browns the outside before the inside has dried, and they go soft twenty minutes later. Starting cool lets the moisture leave gradually and the fish crisps all the way through.
Take them out slightly before they look done. They keep cooking in their own heat, and the line between golden and bitter is about fifteen seconds wide.
The stock nobody makes any more
A handful of large headless ikan bilis, cold water, brought slowly to a bare simmer and held for twenty minutes, strained. That is it. It is the base of a great many noodle soups and it costs almost nothing.
Do not boil it hard. Aggressive boiling turns anchovy stock cloudy and slightly bitter, the same way it does with fish bones. Slow is genuinely better here, and the difference is not subtle.
Plenty of kitchens now use a ready-made ikan bilis seasoning instead, and for volume cooking that consistency is worth a lot. For a pot at home on a Sunday, the fish and the twenty minutes are hard to beat.