Deep-Fried Sea Bass with Fish Sauce
(Pla Kapong Tod Naampla)

A whole pla kapong (sea bass) fried to crackling bronze, flooded with a hot glaze of fish sauce, palm sugar and fried garlic, then scattered with shredded green mango or chilli. The skin shatters. The flesh stays impossibly moist. This is what “simple” cooking looks like when the ingredient is impeccable and the wok temperature is not negotiable. One of the most quietly satisfying dishes in the Thai canon.