Home-style Chinese steamed sea bass
Amy says: “Everyone knows about whole steamed fish with spring onion and ginger, which is wonderful, but this dish is a classic example of home-style Chinese cooking. It includes typical Chinese storecupboard staples such as wood ear mushrooms, red dates and goji berries. I love to cook turbot this way, but it’s expensive and large. Sea bass is excellent too, as it’s forgiving and the meaty texture works so well with the mushrooms.”
Ingreadient
- Small handful dried wood ear mushrooms
- Small handful dried shiitake mushrooms
- 8 dried lily flowers
- 3 red dates (jujube)
- 1 tbsp goji berries
- Postage stamp-size piece dried tangerine peel (or mandarin orange peel)
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp shaoxing wine
- Pinch white pepper
- ½ tsp sugar
- ½ tsp potato starch or cornflour
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 4 spring onions
- 1 sea bass, about 500g, scaled and gutted
- Thumb-size piece ginger
- Small handful coriander, roughly chopped
Instruction
- Rinse the mushrooms, lily flowers, red dates, goji berries and tangerine peel, then put them in a large bowl and cover with warm water. Leave for half an hour until soft. Drain, then slice the mushrooms (removing the stalks from the shiitake), tie the lily flowers into knots, thinly slice and remove the stones from the dates and cut the tangerine peel into very fine matchsticks. Put them all in a bowl, then add the soy sauce, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, white pepper, sugar, potato starch/cornflour and 1 tbsp vegetable oil. Mix well.
- Cut 3 of the spring onions in half to create 6 pieces, then put 5 of these on a heatproof plate big enough to hold the fish. Lay the fish on top (so the spring onions act as a trivet and allow the steam to circulate around the fish properly), then put the final spring onion half inside the cavity. Cut 2 slices off the piece of ginger and put them inside the cavity too. Cut the remaining ginger and the final spring onion into matchsticks.
- Put a large steamer over a pan of simmering water or put a wire rack in a large wok or pan filled with simmering water. Pour the marinated dried ingredients over the fish, piling all the solids up. Put the fish plate in the steamer/wok, then cover and steam over a high heat for 8-10 minutes.
- Heat the remaining 3 tbsp oil in a small pan until smoking hot. When the fish is cooked, carefully lift out the plate (wear oven gloves). Pile the spring onion matchsticks and ginger matchsticks on top, then the coriander. Pour the hot oil all over the fish – it should vigorously sizzle and give off a fragrant aroma. Serve.
