Chinese Fish

New Year 2009 is a wonderful occasion to try a change of ideas and update 2008’s resolutions.
The Chinese cooking methods have been winners for thousands of years from steaming to stirfry or deep fry, their food is delicious fast easy and cheap as well as increasing in popularity every year as other fads fade away.
Buy a tower of bamboo steamers, consider the sizes you may prefer, they are really worth the investment and each little basket looks good enough to take food straight to the table from the stove when serving to cocktail for 2, large crowds or starving singles in front of TV…
Always buy at least two baskets and a lid, this gives you the range of multilevel cooking so when cooking the fish in today’s recipe for example, just add another basket full of treats for an entrée or nibbles into another steaming basket just before the mains are cooked.. Produce a basket of steamed dim sims or little dumplings, make them yourself with little pastry circles from the Asian shop or buy them in big packs from supermarkets frozen sections.

All you need to dress them up is a collection of good saucy bottles, preferably with Asian labels. Into small dishes to accompany your Chinese feast, switch different tastes such as a choice of sweet chilli sauce a soy or oyster sauce. Its really worth a visit to China Town at this time of the year.

Recipe. Steamed crispy skin fish with ginger. Chinese style.

Buy platesized whole cleaned fish 300- 500g, scaled and gutted. Make sure they have bright eyes, firm flesh and are very fresh.
( Snapper bream whiting or baby salmon.)
One thumb sized piece of juicy fresh ginger, peeled and grated or chopped into matchsticks.
bunch of coriander or parsley chopped
5 tbspns peanut oil.
3 chopped spring onions.
1 tbspn caster sugar.
2 tbspns Chinese wine or sherry or apple juice.
1 tbspn sesame oil.
4 tbspns soy sauce.
A few cabbage or tough lettuce leaves for lining the steamer .basket. Shredded small chilli without seeds- optional
Method.
Wash and dry the fish and with a sharp knife slash the skin across a few times on both sides in the thickest parts of the fish.
Fill the bottom of the steamer or saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Line the basket with leaves and put the fish on top of them. Mix together the soy sesame oil rice wine and sugar then pour this over the fish.
Add the ginger and half the shallots and chilli.
Steam for 10 minutes with the lid on.
Give the fish a skewer test and then steam it for another five minutes if it needs that extra time to come away from the bone when pierced with the sharp knife.
To get a crispy skin effect: heat the oil to smoky, take fish out of steamer and pour the very hot oil over fish, add the oil to cooking juices. This produces exquisite smells hearty crackles and sizzles. Scatter fish with any leftover herbs and shallots and serve with favourite rice or salad..

Carving fish. Carve up your fish carefully by running a sharp thin bladed knife along backbone to lift flesh from head to tail with an egg lifter. Cut into 3 sections down to the bone then turn fish over and repeat. Pour hot sauces over the fish before eating it hot