Did you know that a whole fish is traditionally served at the family dinner table over Chinese New Year to symbolise surplus in the coming year? I also thoroughly recommend serving a whole fish to your children rather than fillets or fish fingers the whole time. It reminds, if not teaches them where their food is really from. I produced this dish at lunchtime today, and after first asking me if they could stroke it, we went onto a brief biology lesson of the fish's anatomy, with one child asking me "Mummy, do all fish swim in soy sauce?". Er yes, perhaps locally they do... This is a super easy recipe to make for which I used my steam oven, but you simulate this in a wok as per this image.
What you need:
1 whole fish, gutted & gilled weighing approximately 1kg. We used a whole wild blue cod from MM Fresh.
Half a lemon, sliced
2 inch cube of ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons mirin
2 spring onions, cut on the diagonal
1/2 cup roughly chopped coriander leaves
10 stems pak choi
Brown rice to serve
Method:
Put your rice onto cook.
Cut a slit down the fish's belly and stuff it with lemon slices and grated ginger.
Lay out the pak choi in a baking dish and place the fish on top.
Pour the mirin and soy sauce on top of the fish.
Scatter with sliced garlic, more grated ginger, and half the spring onions.
Steam the fish & pak choi for 10-15 minutes.
Before serving, scatter with more spring onions and freshly chopped coriander.
Serve with brown rice.
1 kg fish serves 2 adults as a main course.