Cantonese steamed fish

Ingredients

• Sea bass or bream — whole, gutted800 g
• Ginger — in fine matchsticks60 g
• Spring onions6
• Steamed fish soy sauce60 ml
• Sugar1 tsp
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Coriander20 g
• Shaoxing wine2 tbsp
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Dry the fish, cut two slashes on each side and rub it with salt and wine.

   8 min

2. 2

   Lay a few spring onion stalks on a plate and set the fish on them, so steam reaches it from below too.

   5 min

3. 3

   Tuck half the ginger into the slashes and the cavity.

   4 min

4. 4

   Set the plate into a boiling steamer and cook eight minutes for every centimetre of thickness.

   12 min

5. 5

   Pour off all the liquid from the plate and discard it; it is bitter.

   3 min

6. 6

   Scatter the remaining ginger, shredded spring onion and coriander over the top.

   4 min

7. 7

   Heat the oil until it smokes and pour it over the aromatics, then pour the soy and sugar around the edge of the plate.

   5 min

About the dish

The steam has to be full from the start. The fish goes into an already boiling steamer: a gradual heat leaves the flesh loose and watery.

Timing goes by thickness, not weight: eight minutes for every centimetre at the thickest point. Fish overcooked in steam cannot be rescued.

The liquid that collects under the fish is poured off and thrown away. It is bitter and muddy; fresh sauce goes on instead, then smoking oil to open up the ginger and onion.

Worth knowing

• — The sauce goes round the edge, not over the fish. Poured on top it washes the aromatics off and buries the flavour of the fish.
• — Test at the spine with a chopstick: it should go in without resistance. If it sticks, give it another minute and no more.
• — The fish has to be very fresh. Cantonese steaming masks nothing, and that is the entire point of it.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

340 kcal

Protein

40 g

Fat

18 g

Carbs

4 g

More from China

• Mapo tofu — Tofu in a hot doubanjiang sauce with Sichuan pepper, which numbs rather than burns.
• Gong bao chicken — Diced chicken with peanuts and dried chillies in a sauce where the vinegar matters more than the sugar.
• Jiaozi dumplings — Pork and cabbage dumplings, fried and then steamed in the same covered pan.