Chinese Style Steamed Fish

My mother in law made a great steamed fish dish for our reunion dinner and I'm going to share it with you today.

Personally, I think Chinese language is a beautiful language. You can describe very complex emotions or situations in 4 very simple words or a simple phrase. If you watch chinese dramas, they often use phrases to describe feelings, emotions etc. It's difficult to understand sometimes but somehow the phrases can just translate the emotions in a very poetic and descriptive way.

There's a Chinese saying " nien nien you yu" which means prosperity/surpluses every year. The yu for this phrase is pronounced the same way as yu for fish. Hence, we often serve fish on special occasions or chinese new year which symbolizes prosperity for the coming year. It's a symbolic thing. But I'm not a supertitious person, I'm a believer that all blessings come from God. I just appreciate the beauty and complexity of Chinese language and its culture. However, I do believe that our tongue is powerful. Whatever comes out of it carries power. So instead of saying "I'm doomed" why don't we say "I'm blessed" or nien nien you yu instead....=)....there's nothing wrong with proclaiming good things for our life.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone. Wish all my readers prosperity and joy for the coming year.

Chinese Style Steamed Fish

Ingredients:

• 1 Barramundi weighing around 700 grams or any other fish will do too eg: snapper, tilapia
• 1/4 cup julienned ginger
• 1/2 cup sliced spring onion
• chopped red chilli- optional

Seasoning:

• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons rock sugar
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon chicken stock powder
• 2 tablespoons shao tsing wine
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

• Extra 1/3 cup shao tsing wine for steaming
• 2 tablespoons oil
  

Methods:

1. Put all ingredients for seasoning in a small saucepan except the extra shao tsing wine and oil. Boil all the seasoning ingredients until sugar is melted. Taste and adjust seasoning accordingly
2. Clean the fish and put on top of a plate. Put half of the julienned ginger and spring onion on top of the fish
3. Pour the extra shao tsing wine on the fish and steam for 10 minutes or until fish is cooked through.
4. After you finish steaming, pour away the water collected at the bottom of the plate
5. Pour all of the seasoning mixture on top of the fish and top with the remaining half of the julienned ginger and spring onion
6. Heat up oil and pour on top of the fish. Garnish with chopped red chillies
   
7. Serve with rice
   

Garam Masala Noodle

This dish was inspired by Neil Perry's pressure test recipe on last year's masterchef " Garam Masala Poached Fish with Semolina Noodle". What a long name ha? But I adapted this recipe from his recipe and make little adjustments here and there. Of course, I don't have the patience to make my own noodle so I just bought the usual yellow hokkien noodle from any asian groceries. It's still really satisfying. A bit of fusion between Indian/Thai flavour. I served this for one of the dinner parties we had at home and my friends loved it too.

I didn't cook it as long as Neil's recipe, and I made some changes to it as well. The colour looks a bit different too from his recipe. Haahahahha... but it's still good. I used Basa fillet, I kinda like this fish as it has nice firm flesh and a distinct flavour to it. I don't need to be afraid of overcooking it really. But you can replace it with any white flesh fish you like. Neil used snapper fillets.

The recipe I made is for about 8 servings. But you can cut it down to half of course.

Garam Masala Noodle with Fish

Adapted from Neil Perry's Masterchef pressure test recipe

Ingredients:

• 1kg Yellow Hokkien Noodle
• 200-300 grams snow peas
• 5 Basa Fillets, cut into 5-6cm pieces
• 5cm piece ginger, shredded
• 1L coconut milk
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 can diced tomato ( you can just use fresh tomato if you want. I was too lazy...=)..)
• 10 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 bunch Thai sweet basil leaves
• 1.5 big piece of palm sugar ( mine was a 5cm diameter piece, you can adjust accordingly)
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons salt

Spice paste:

• 2 red shallots
• 5 cloves garlic
• 5cm piece ginger
• Red chillies, optional ( you can add more if you like it spicy. I didn't add any chillies for mine)

Dry spice:

• 2 heaped teaspoon garam masala ( you can get it at any big supermarket or asian groceries)
• 1 teaspoon tumeric
• 1 teaspoon whole black pepper, dry roasted
• 8 green cardamom pods - dry roasted, cracked and black seeds removed
• 2 cloves, dry roasted
• 2 star anise, dry roasted

Methods:

1. Grind all the dry spices together until fine. Make sure you dry roast the cardamom/cloves/star anise and black pepper first before grinding. And crack the cardamom pods with your mortar and pestle to remove all the black seeds after you dry roast them before grinding.
2. Process the shallots, ginger and garlic into smooth paste and mix in all the ground spices
3. Heat up oil in frying pan, and fry the shallots/spice paste on low-medium fire for 10-15 minutes until fragrant.
4. Then add in the canned tomato and fry on low fire for another 5-10 minutes until slightly dried up.
5. Add in the coconut milk, water, kaffir lime leaves, shredded ginger and boil on medium fire for another 20-30 minutes until all the flavour of the ginger and lime leaves are infused into the stock.
6. Add in seasoning ( sugar, salt and fish sauce). Adjust seasoning accordingly.
7. You can just switch off the fire now if you're not ready to eat yet and put in the fish whenever you're ready to serve the noodle.
8. When you're ready to serve, reheat the stock and put the fish into the stock and simmer on low fire for another 15 minutes until the fish is cooked.
9. Blanch your noodle and snow peas in hot water until soft
10. Arrange noodle and snow peas in a bowl

11. Put all the basil leaves into the curry stock and switch fire off.

12. Pour the stock with some fish on the noodle and serve warm

Bon appetit!