Pictorial: White Bass Braised with Bean/Soy Sauce

[hzrt8w]

White Bass Braised with Bean/Soy Sauce (酱烧鱼)

Jo-mel: To celebrate your 1000th post, I have created this pictorial for you. Sorry I should have posted this sooner. I learned that you just had tried this recipe. Tepee: Sorry I missed your 1000th. Let me know what Cantonese food you would like to eat. Perhaps I can create one for you to celebrate your 1111st post, or 1268th post, or 1288th post, or 1388th post.

Braising with bean sauce and soy sauce is typical of Northern Chinese cooking. It is not a Cantonese style. In Northern Chinese style, one will typically find brown sauce (bean sauce and soy sauce), sweet and sour sauce or "five willow" (five shredded vegetables).

Serving suggestion: 2

I have found these beautiful White Basses in a local Asian grocery market. I have decided to cook them with a sauce based on chili bean sauce, brown bean sauce, soy sauce and hoisin sauce. Because they are so small, I needed to purchase 2 of them. Together they weighed only 1.5 pounds.

Ask the grocer to cut and clean the fish for you. It is messy to do it at home. Wash the fish thoroughly and pat dry.

Make a few slightly diagonal cross cuts on both sides of the fish. Rub a small pinch of salt on the fish body.

In a pan/wok, use medium heat, add 2 tblsp cooking oil. Pat on some corn starch on both sides of the fish. Fry the fish over medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side.

Gently turn the fish over and fry the other side. Be careful not to let the fish fall apart. Oops! I broke the tail of the small fish! Remove from pan after browning.

Lay the fish on a plate.

This picture shows what you need for the sauce. Chili, garlic, ginger, green onion, dark soy sauce, chili bean sauce, brown bean sauce, chicken broth, and (not shown) vinegar and sugar.

Use 3 green onions, slice diagonally. 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced. 1/2 chili (e..g jalapeno), sliced. 1 inch in length of ginger, shredded.

Use the same pan, add 2 tblsp of cooking oil. Set for high heat. Wait until oil starts fuming. Add minced garlic, sliced chili, shredded ginger and green onion. Stir-fry for a few seconds. Add 2-3 tsp of chili bean sauce, 2 tsp brown bean sauce, 4 tsp hoisin sauce and 1 to 2 tsp of dark soy sauce. (No need to add salt because the fish have been salted and these sauces are already salty.) Dash in 2 to 3 tsp of white vinegar. Stir the sauce and cook for about 20 seconds over high heat. Add 1/4 cup of chicken broth and 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water. Add 2 tsp of sugar.

Wait until the mixture starts to boil. Keep stirring.

Add some corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce until it has the right consistency. Scoop and pour on top of the fish on the plate.

Finished dish.

Edited October 18, 2005 by hzrt8w (log)

[Pan]

It's amazing that you got a picture of the steam coming up from the boiling sauce! You are really cooking and shooting photos at the same time? I can see a cookbook in your future, if you want to do that. Your instructions are very clear, and the step-by-step pictures just add exponentially to the quality of the instruction.

[hzrt8w]

...You are really cooking and shooting photos at the same time? I can see a cookbook in your future, if you want to do that.

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Thanks Michael. Yes I took the pictures and cooked at the same time. Slowed me down a bit but this is just a low budget production!

Yeah, I do want to write a cookbook someday. I just need to build up my portfolio to attract publishers.

[Carlovski]

Don't you cook the fish in the sauce? That's what I do when I cook something similar.

[Dejah]

Don't you cook the fish in the sauce? That's what I do when I cook something similar.

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Usually when we say "braised", it does mean cooking IN the sauce for a period of time.

It may depend on the size/thickness of the fish. I do braise when thick fish steaks are used.

Wash the fish thoroughly and pet dry.

MY dog Atticus doesn't like fish...

Sorry, hrzt...just had to poke fun at you...

All your pictorials have been delicious! Keep 'em coming...

[Ben Hong]

Hmmm .

Smallmouth/black bas and white bass are two of my favourite fish and they're prevalent in plentiful numbers where I live. As an angler, I get to eat them right after being caught sometimes.

Ah Leung, in keeping with you becoming a food stylist or artiste, you should have stacked the fish high for presentation.

[Tepee]

Tepee: Sorry I missed your 1000th.  Let me know what Cantonese food you would like to eat.  Perhaps I can create one for you to celebrate your 1111st post, or 1268th post, or 1288th post, or 1388th post. 

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Thank you for your kind offer, Ah Leung Gaw. I've no preference as to what food you prepare so long as at the end of the day, anyone looking at it can say, "What a Dish!" A significant post would be 1711th. Hint. Hint.

Were you very hungry when you cooked this? Looks like a lot for 2 to eat!!

Edited October 18, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[BarbaraY]

hzrt8w, please keep them coming! I am so enjoying the pictorials and learning new dishes.

I, too, see a book in your future.

[jo-mel]

Awwwwww--- Thanks, Ah Leung! Looking at your masterpiece is to taste it. And the aroma-----! Well, I'm humbled that you would do this for me.

Yes! Get that cookbook going!

Ben-- LOL! Stack them horizontally? HeeHee! DH and I have wonderful memories of the Mirimichi and their salmon.

[hzrt8w]

Don't you cook the fish in the sauce? That's what I do when I cook something similar.

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I tried that once. I think it depends on the type of fish. Bass is very delicate. (See I broke one of the tails). If I recook the fish in the pan again, I risk tearing the fish meat apart. The fish meat is already cooked, so re-adding to the pan may not serve any purpose other than heating the fish up. If I make the sauce fast enough, I woudn't need to recook the fish.

[hzrt8w]

Wash the fish thoroughly and pet dry.

MY dog Atticus doesn't like fish...

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Arrrrrr!!!!! How did I do that??? Must be the eye sight thing again. Where are my bifocals???? Oh, I don't have a pair.

Notes corrected. Thank you!

[hzrt8w]

.... A significant post would be 1711th. Hint. Hint.

Were you very hungry when you cooked this? Looks like a lot for 2 to eat!!

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The fish might look big in the pictures, but they actually were quite small. Two fish together weighed only 1.5 pound. Two for two, with room to have a third one!

Are you playing word puzzle with me too? 1711... 1711... 1711, want could it be??? More than 700 posts from now. It may take a while! Are you sure?

[hzrt8w]

Ah Leung, in keeping with you becoming a food stylist or artiste, you should have stacked the fish high for presentation.  

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Ben: LOL! Yeah yeah... I need to stack the fish vertically.

Now if I can just learn how to scoop the brown sauce into the darn squeeze bottles... and not to let the ginger/green onions clog on the nozzles.

[wesza]

Ah Leung:

Stop paying attention to all the want-to-be's the right was to cook and display the dishes is what instinctively feel right, working with what you have on hand. [most are just kidding]

Professionally speaking when ever we have a Chef in our kitchens who is more concerned with plating or appearance we relegate them to the "Garde Mange" until the learn that with any cooked hot dish it's more important to deliver it to the customer hot and delicious as fast as possible and not play around making it attractive. Always garni can be previously set up for plating, but in delivery "Less is More". There is to much time wasted playing around with appearances at many establishments that it always effects the finished item.

I don't know if many eGulleters are aware that the greatest expense involved with putting together Cookbooks is the investment required in decorating and setting up the Photo's of the dishes being served for the publishers. Even a Food ad in any periodical may require all types of gimmicking and set ups to complete the presentation.

Keep doing it your way, it different, special, plus it's amazing how well you manage to get it done so "DELICIOUSLY". I admire your candid, unpretentious presentations more then any other attempts I have observed.

Just figure it out in $$$$$$ stack the fish, replace to tails. oh the skins to brown, needs more light, whatever it could take a whole box of fish to get it perfect, working with a crew. Everything needs to be choreographed, timed and most import look good. Whatever you all know what I mean.

Sorry that I was so verbrose, but the magical things "Ah Leung" is doing for everyone should continue exactly as it's being done. And "YES" I think it's better then anything done on the Food Network or on Public Television.

We have two very special eGulleters putting together more and better honest reports then anywhere else, in the Cyber world or the Real world.

Thank you, "Ah Leung" and the most artistic food presenter anywhere "Teepee".

Irwin

[hzrt8w]

Wow... I don't know what to say, Irwin, except "THANK YOU" and blush. (Oops, how come there isn't a blushing smilies?)

Stacking the fish, putting the sauce in a squeeze bottle... of course that's just joking not for real.

You and many posters in the "Presentation difference" thread have a very good point, that the Chinese style is to serve the food hot as quick as possible from the kitchen to the dining table. Except for some pre-carved animal figures with carrots and cucumbers alike, no Chinese chef would monkey around with squeegie bottles to splash random graffitis on the plate. And almost never with deliberately stacking food - they are burning-finger hot, who are you kidding?

Thank you for all your support! My wife is supportive of what I do too. Sometimes when she randomly walked in to the kitchen, she'd say "you are taking pictures again!" But she benefits from it too as she gets to try a great varieties of dishes - something that was lacking with my routine weekly menus in the past year because of my working full time and taking 3 classes.

[Tepee]

Irwin: You're too kind. And, I agree with you that Ah Leung's style is candid and will certainly endear itself to all homecooks.

Ah Leung Gaw: Um....your guesses with the number game....not even lukewarm. Try harder!

(Carlovski @ Oct 18 2005, 02:10 AM)

Don't you cook the fish in the sauce? That's what I do when I cook something similar.

*

I tried that once. I think it depends on the type of fish. Bass is very delicate. (See I broke one of the tails). If I recook the fish in the pan again, I risk tearing the fish meat apart. The fish meat is already cooked, so re-adding to the pan may not serve any purpose other than heating the fish up. If I make the sauce fast enough, I woudn't need to recook the fish.

I'm with Ah Leung Gaw on this one. I try not to manoeveur the fish too much for fear of parts of it dropping off on me, ruining the nice browning.

[spaghetttti]

Ah Leung,

I'm trying my best to catch up to your amazing series of pictorials. This one has me all excited (I guess it doesn't really take much ) and I will try to make this fish dish soon.

Kudos to you and the fabulous series! Thanks so much

Edited October 19, 2005 by spaghetttti (log)