Iconic and nutritious. Here is our family recipe to the famous banquet style soy sauce steamed fish with cilantro and green onions. Not only is this dish delicious, it takes no more than 10 minutes! Here’s a few tips to help you along the way…
Choosing Your Fish
We typically buy them live (in the tank) but on occasion will grab fresh (aka dead but on ice and “not frozen”) if they look fresh (clear/not foggy eyes) and if live is just too $$$.
Our preferred size of fish is about 1-1.5lbs. We find any bigger won’t fit in the plate and is less flaky/fresh tasting? Like eating ‘old’ chicken – the meat is a bit tough lol. We typically always get Sea/Water Bass or Green Bass. Not sure if they’re widely available in all supermarkets but should be available at any Asian grocery stores where they’ll gladly clean out the guts and scale them for you. Sometimes they ask if you want to keep the roe/eggs if the fish has any (I don’t really know how to appreciate this so I never get it…).
Sea/Water Bass (Lo Yu): is my personal favourite. It’s a white fleshed fish a bit meaty but not as slippery/flaky as the Green Bass.
Green Bass (Chang Baan): this is my hubby’s fave. Also white fleshed but the meat is very flaky and slippery (dunno how else to describe it!). Also available fresh/live.
Whole fish vs. Fillet Fish? While you can definitely make this dish with fillets of fish, we prefer the whole fish. My family likes to eat it the meat directly off the fish with head and all my son even likes to eat the eyeballs and my other son likes to eat the cheeks and the head is pretty good as well.
Cleaning Your Fish
While the fish monger will gut and scale and even rinse off your fish, take care to really clean the fish. There may be some leftover blood and/or slime on it, but my uncle swears by cleaning the fish as well as you can really scrubbing off the sliminess that’s the fishes defense mechanism it’ll produce this gooiness once the scales are off so try to clean as much as you can to get a much fresher tasting fish.
Delicious easy steamed fish.
Whole Steamed Fish (Microwave Edition!)
Ingredients
- 1 ea 1.5-2lb Water/Green Bass
- 2-3 slices ginger (1 inch wide/long)
- 1 tbsp white pepper
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1/4 cup seafood soy sauce
- 1/4 cup neutral oil (canola, avocado, grapeseed)
- 2 ea green onions sliced thinly
- 5 springs cilantro (or more to preference)
Instructions
- Rinse fish well trying to discard as much of the sliminess as possible. Pat dry outside of the fish and the cavity.
- Lay the fish in shallow microwaveable dish and season with salt and pepper making sure to salt and pepper the cavity of the fish. Place ginger inside the cavity.
- Microwave on high for 5 minutes uncovered (or with a splatter guard but the fish does not need to be wrapped/sealed).
- Take fish out of microwave and discard any liquids. Drizzle the entire fish with oil and top with cilantro and green onions.
- Microwave for another 2 minutes. The fish should flake off easily when poked with a chopstick.
- Drizzle with seafood soy sauce and serve!
Serving Your Fish
There’s a common debate whether the soy sauce should be served around the fish (allowing guests to use as much/llittle f the soy sauce they like) or on top of the fish. I’ve always been a fan of the latter cuz who doesn’t love the delicious seafood soy sauce on fish! Especially served w/green onions and cilantro
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