清蒸鱼 (Steamed Fish)

Ingredients

• A whole fish. You want a fresh white fish that is medium fatty and has a light flavor, which will be highlighted by light soy sauce, ginger, and scallion. In China, classics are grouper, sea bass, grass carp, perch. In this recipe I am using Costco Branzino (European sea bass).
• Aromatics
  • Ginger
  • Scallion
• Sauces
  • Important: Seafood flavored soy sauce. I have one that says 蒸鱼豉油 (soy sauce for steamed fish). This is not normal soy sauce: see below.
• Neutral oil (e.g., canola oil, peanut oil; not olive oil)

On soy sauce: the soy sauce we’re using here is NOT normal soy sauce. We are using a “seafood soy sauce.” When you buy this, look for something like 蒸鱼豉油, 海鲜酱油，清蒸豉油.

Normal soy sauce is made with fermented soybeans, wheat, salt, and water, and has a relatively sharp flavor. The seafood soy sauce we’re using is, depending on local variations, soy sauce cooked with rock sugar, some seafood essence (oyster sauce, fish stock, etc.), and a bit of rice wine/aromatics. This sweetens the soy sauce and dilutes the strong soy/salty flavor, which will really enhance the natural flavors of the fish. Normal soy sauce will be too salty and will drown out the natural flavors of the fish.

If you want to make your own, a basic formula is 2 parts light soy sauce, 2 parts fish/chicken stock, 1 part sugar, and a splash of Shaoxing wine. Though the seafood soy sauce isn’t too expensive and you can buy it at Chinese supermarkets.

Don’t skip the seafood soy sauce! It is important and really elevates the dish, trust me!

Cleaning the fish: the purpose is get rid of “fishy” smells, mostly trimethylamine (TMA) and volatile amines (e.g., ammonia). This is primarily found in the “surface slime” and skin, and also in blood/dark muscle near the spine. TMA is formed when trimethylamine oxide (TMAO) is reduced to TMA by bacterial enzymes, etc., which happens the longer the fish has been dead. Fresh fish shouldn’t actually have any fishy smell.

I’ll assume that the fish has already been processed (de-scaled and the guts have been removed, so that you have access to the spine area). Salt the outside of the fish and also the inside, near the spine. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes until some water starts coming out. Then, wash the fish in a Shaoxing wine/water mixture. Then, rinse the fish with water. In brief, the salt loosens the slime and draws out fluids. Then, the alcohol dissolves and carries away some odor molecules and neutralizes some alkaline amines like TMA. Shaoxing wine also has pleasant flavors that mask off-flavors.

Steaming: Prepare a large plate on which to steam. Make ginger slices and scallions and line them at the bottom of the plate. Then, use chopsticks to create a “steaming rack,” and put the fish on top of it. Try to put the fish so that the belly faces down.

Note here the fish doesn’t actually touch the ginger and scallion. Then, place into a steamer and steam for 5-7 mintues, depending on how large your fish is. You might be wondering what the point of the ginger and scallion are if the fish doesn’t touch them. What happens is that during steaming, the aromatics will release volatile compounds carried by the steam that lightly perfumes the fish. Further, as the fish is on the rack, some of the muddy flavors of the fish will drip out onto the plate and away from the fish, making the flavor cleaner. This allows us to highlight the flavor of the fish without getting too much strong flavor from the aromatics.

Aromatics and oil pour: Julienne some ginger and scallion. Remove the fish from the steamer and onto a separate plate. Drape this ginger and scallion on top of the fish. Heat up some oil until it just starts to smoke, and then pour the oil on top of the ginger/scallion/fish so that the oil contacts the aromatics as much as possible. Finally, pour some of the seafood soy sauce on top of the fish and around the plate (you can dip pieces of the fish into the soy sauce/oil around the plate, which is very delicious).