As you can tell – we love steamed fish! We had a dilemma – Max wanted to cook Teochew-style, but Ming doesn’t like pickled vegetables.
So we came up with this dish – Cantonese (Kung-fu) meets Teochew-style steamed fish! Hence the name – Kung-chew fish! (geddit? For the uninitiated, kung chew means banana in Cantonese).
This is essential a Teochew-style steamed fish recipe without the pickled veggies. However, you still get the hint of sourness from the tomato, as well as extra protein from tofu and chicken slices.
To make for up the missing pickled veggies – we added more soy-based sauce to provide the savoury-sweet goodness. In fact, the sauce is very much similar to the simple but delicious Cantonese-style steamed fish topped with ginger.
Garnish it with scallion and coriander leaves – and you get a truly healthy, appetizing and complete meal. In fact, we only had this one dish with rice for dinner. Yums!
We used barramundi (siakap) for this recipe – but the sauce should be quite versatile with any fish of your choice.
Fun fact: Max is of Teochew descent and Ming’s Cantonese – so this dish is really perfect for us!
For step-by-step process and videos, check out our Instagram post here.
Kung Chew steamed fish [Recipe]
Course: Lunch, DinnerCuisine: ChineseDifficulty: Easy4
servings15
minutes20
minutesOur steamed fish recipe combining Teochew and Cantonese styles.
Ingredients
750g fresh fish
300g tofu, cut into cubes
1 medium tomato, cut into wedges
3-inch ginger, julienned
dash of white pepper
salt to taste
4 garlic cloves, chopped
200g chicken breast, sliced thinly (marinated with 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp Shaoxing wine, 1/2 tbsp sesame oil and dash of pepper)
1-2 tbsp cooking oil
- Sauce mix
5 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp Shaoxing wine
1 tbsp sesame oil
pinch of sugar
6 tbsp water
- Garnish
1 stalk of scallion, cut 3-inch lengthwise into thin strips
coriander leaves
Directions
- Prep fish in steaming bowl
- Clean fish thoroughly, pat dry and make slits across the flesh (especially at the thickest parts) on both sides. Rub the fish with some salt on both sides and within the belly. Do the same with white pepper. Place the fish in the steaming dish.
- Arrange the tofu and tomato wedges around the fish. Place the sliced ginger on the fish.
- Marinate chicken
- Marinate the chicken slices with the marinade ingredients. Set aside.
- Cook chicken and make gravy
- Heat up cooking oil in pan. Fry the garlic until fragrant and add the chicken slices. When chicken is cooked, add the sauce mix. When it starts to boil, turn off the heat.
- Pour the gravy on the fish and around the fish in the steaming bowl. Scatter the chicken slices around the fish.
- Steam fish
- Boil some water in the wok/steamer. When it starts to boil, place the fish on a trivet inside the wok. Cover and steam the fish for 10 minutes (or until it is cooked – it is ready when flesh separates easily from the bones).
- Remove when done, garnish and enjoy while hot!
