Cantonese steamed sea bass recipe
A whole fish recipe, perfect for celebrating Chinese New Year.
Recipe adapted from Yan-kit’s Classic Chinese Cookbook.
Ingredients
- 1 large or 2 small sea bass (or rainbow trout) cleaned but head and tail on
- 1 good pinch of salt
- 1 good pinch of caster sugar
- 1 cm fresh ginger cut into fine slivers
- 4 spring onions cut into fine slivers
- 1 piece of mild fresh chilli or sweet red pepper cut into fine slivers (optional; it's there because the colour red is lucky!)
- 4 tbsp cooking oil (the Chinese use groundnut but sunflower is fine)
- 3 tbsp light soy sauce
Details
- Cuisine: Chinese
- Recipe Type: Main
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 15 mins
- Cooking Time: 10 mins
- Serves: 2
Step-by-step
- Make a few diagonal slashes on both sides of the sea bass.
- Put it on a heatproof dish, then place this in your steamer or wok and steam for around 8 minutes until it is cooked and the flesh flakes easily. I check the fish’s eyes - if they are opaque then I find the fish is ready. If steaming in your wok you can balance it on a ramekin dish then cover with a wok lid or foil. If you don’t have a steamer large enough you could put the fish in an oven proof dish with a little water and soy sauce, cover and cook in the oven at 180 for around 20 minutes until cooked.
- After steaming, mop up any excess water that has collected in the dish with kitchen paper, but leave any delicious fish juices alone.
- Sprinkle over the salt and sugar and scatter over the ginger, spring onion and pepper.
- Heat up the oil in a small pan until it’s really hot and carefully pour it over the slivers of ginger, spring onion and pepper. You will hear it sizzle at it hits the raw slivers.
- Add the soy sauce and it’s ready to enjoy.
You might also like
Sichuanese `dry-fried' green beans
Ken Hom's Sichuan prawns in chilli sauce