Happy Chinese New Year! We recently just had Chinese New Year and it’s an ongoing celebration until the 15th day. One of the important menus of Chinese New year’s Eve dinner is fish! Today, I am going to show you how to cook Steamed Yellowtail Snapper with Ginger Soy Sauce. It has simple ingredients and so easy to cook!
Most Chinese families will always have to eat fish during Chinese New Year. Some will do a Prosperity Yu Sheng, and some will do steamed fish or fried fish. My family rarely does Prosperity Yu Sheng, the idea of messing with the raw ingredients and only had a small fish portion does not sit well with us. We like to cook a humble steamed fish at home instead.
Why do we need to eat fish? Because fish in Mandarin is Yu (鱼), and they have the phrase/prayer “Nian Nian You Yu” (年年有余), which means “Abundance and surplus throughout the year.” It’s not even the same Yu but they just like the pun!
Let’s cook Steamed Yellowtail Snapper with Ginger Soy Sauce!
Steamed Yellowtail Snapper with Ginger Soy Sauce
Equipment
- Steamer
Ingredients
- 3 pcs Yellowtail Snapper Cleaned
- 2 stems Spring Onion Cut Diagonally
- 4 cloves Garlic Thinly Sliced
- 50 gr Ginger Thinly Sliced (half & half)
- 2 tsp Mushroom Stock
- 50 ml Water to adjust the taste
- 150 ml Chinese Fish Soy Sauce not Thai Fish Sauce
- 3 tbsp Olive Oil
Instructions
- Steam the fishes with thinly sliced ginger for 15/20 minutes (until cooked) then set aside
- Prepare a heated wok, add olive oil, stir fry thinly sliced garlic, the rest of ginger, and spring onion.
- Pour 150 ml Chinese fish soy sauce and a little bit of water to even out the taste.
- Adjust the taste by adding the mushroom stock.
- Pour over the soy sauce to the steamed fish.
- Served with steamed rice and other Chinese dishes
Quick note: Make sure to get the right Chinese fish sauce that specially made for steaming fish. You could get this in any local supermarket or Asian grocery. Do not mistakenly buy a Thai fish sauce! It happened to my mum once!
Another way to cook this is to simmer the fish along with the sauce for another 15 minutes, so then we could get more flavour of the ginger soy sauce soaked into the fish. But, my mum taught me to just pour the sauce over the steamed fish so we can still taste the freshness and naturally sweet flavour from the fish itself.
What other fish we can use for this steamed fish? Other than yellowtail snapper, red snapper and sea bass is also another common choice. Groper fish is one of people’s favourite in Indonesia. Nile Tilapia is nice but for me, it has too many bones.
Obviously, we are not serving only this Steamed Yellowtail Snapper for Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner. We can always pair it with other traditional dishes that go well with this fish, such as Gai Lan with oyster sauce, pork dishes like Hakka Meatloaf, and other beef dishes. It is forbidden to eat shrimp/prawns though. Again, it’s because of the pun! Prawns are ‘Hee’ in the Hokkian language, which also means poor. Chinese is very superstitious and it’s fun!
Happy Chinese New Year to everyone who celebrate! May this year of ox brings a prosperous blessing upon you!
Leave in the comment of what you had/go-to menu for Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner below!
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