China / Main
Cantonese steamed fish
A whole fish steamed with ginger and spring onion, finished with smoking oil and soy.
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
Quantities are auto-calculated from the original recipe as a guide. Items without numbers (e.g. “to taste”) are not changed.
Method 7 steps
Dry the fish, cut two slashes on each side and rub it with salt and wine.
Lay a few spring onion stalks on a plate and set the fish on them, so steam reaches it from below too.
Tuck half the ginger into the slashes and the cavity.
Set the plate into a boiling steamer and cook eight minutes for every centimetre of thickness.
Pour off all the liquid from the plate and discard it; it is bitter.
Scatter the remaining ginger, shredded spring onion and coriander over the top.
Heat the oil until it smokes and pour it over the aromatics, then pour the soy and sugar around the edge of the plate.
