Teochew Steamed Fish

This is a nice, light, tangy fish dish that’s very easy to prepare. It’s done in the classic Teochew style, which is an amalgamation of sourness, sweetness and saltiness. When all the tastes are well-balanced, it produces a dish that is refreshing and light on the palate, with no hint of fishiness.

The Teochews almost always use the Pomfret fish for this dish, although I suppose other lean, firm-fleshed fish would work equally well (I’ve never tried this personally).

Once the fish has been gutted, salt is rubbed into the cavity and then rinsed well to remove all traces of fishiness. The fish is lightly seasoned with pepper (especially in the gut cavity). Generally, I leave out the salt when seasoning the fish as there will be plenty of saltiness coming from the other ingredients in the dish.

The fish is very simply topped with strips of salted vegetable (giam cai), around 3 pieces of sweet sour preserved plum (sui suan mei), 2-3 large fresh tomatoes that have been quartered and lots of julienne of young ginger. Very often juliennes of red chillies are also added for color and just a touch of heat and spiciness. (I didn’t have any chillies in the fridge today, so that was left out).

The gravy is just a simple concoction of light soy sauce, sugar (to balance out the sourness of the plums and the saltiness of the giam cai) and garlic oil (finely chopped garlic stir-fried in oil). I think bottled sesame oil could very easily be used as a substitute for the garlic oil, if preferred, although the minced garlic does give an added taste dimension to the fish. All the ingredients are dissolved in Chinese rice wine, and poured over the fish. Proportions for the ingredients depend somewhat on the size of the fish, and on personal preferences. Today I used about 5 tbsps each of light soy sauce and Chinese rice wine, around 1 tbsp of sugar and 3 cloves of garlic sauteed in a little vegetable oil.

For a large fish like today’s, steam for 8-10 minutes. For smaller fish, I tend to steam just 6-8 minutes. I really don’t like over-cooked fish. There’s nothing worse than over-cooked fish. It’s dry, it’s scratchy on the throat, it tastes like dressed up cardboard. Yuk! This is one of my biggest gripe about a lot of restaurants, even top ones. A lot of the time, everything is cooked right, except the fish. [Incidentally, in my humble opinion, that’s how you can tell how good a chef is – by how well he cooks his fish, and in a Chinese restaurant, by how well he steams his fish, where not only the fish texture but also ensuring there is no "fishiness" are major factors. Heat control and timing is absolutely key]. Anyway, enough about that… sorry, didn’t mean to gripe so much… it’s always best not to get me started on over-cooked fish! : P

Once the fish is done, turn off the heat, and quickly sprinkle some julienne of spring onions on top of the fish, cover again briefly and allow the residual heat to slightly wilt the spring onions before serving. And there you have it, a fish dish that’s done in just a few minutes, and it’s pretty yummy too!

Happy fish steaming!

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