Chinese Steamed Fish

Chinese Steamed Fish

Kung Hee Fat Choy or Happy New Year!  January 23, 2012 is the Chinese New Year Day, the Year of the Dragon.  We don't live our lives by what fortune tellers say will happen each year, but it's always fun to read some of it, especially when you're with a bunch of girlfriends in a Feng Shui shop.  The female half of this couple is a Chinese American and her ancestors, like many other people's Chinese ancestors strongly believed in at least the characteristics of the Chinese Zodiac.

Last weekend our Chinese community held its annual Chinese New Year celebrations - a parade, numerous lion dances, two days of festivities, burning of firecrackers to chase away the bad spirits, etc.  The female half wanted to eat Chinese food to get into the spirit of things, but it seemed like 3/4s of the islands population wanted to do the same thing.  So, we decided to make our own Chinese Steamed Fish.

This recipe calls for more oil than is allowed on the Dukan Diet and if you're in Attack, it's definitely not allowed.   As long as you don't have this dish all the time or just as a celebration dish, you should be fine. We tried to find a recipe calling for the least amount of oil (some recipes called for 1/4-1/2 c. of oil).

This is an 'easy to make' and tasty dish.  We decided to poach our fish.  We should have cut our mahimahi filet thinner.  We really weren't planning on making this dish, so we didn't have whole green onions (only chopped ones) nor did we have fresh ginger.

RECIPE:
Serves 1-2 (if you're serving rice, this will feed two light eaters)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes or less

3/4 lb. mahimahi filet (you can use salmon, opah, etc.)

For poaching:
1/4 c. green onions, chopped (if you have whole green onions, you may want to cut them into 3" pieces)
1/4 t. ground ginger (if you have fresh, use a 3" piece sliced into "coins")
small bunch cilantro, rinsed
1 1/2 T. Shaoxing rice wine (Chinese rice wine) or dry sherry
salt and pepper

Cilantro topping:
2 T. cilantro, rough chop
1 t. sesame oil
2 T. soy sauce
1/2 t. natural sweetener
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper

Oil topping:
2 T. olive oil
2 green onions, chopped (or sliced into 3" slices)
1/4 t. ground ginger (if you have fresh, 2" piece sliced into very thin slices)

We poached our fish in our stir fry pan.  Place the "for poaching" ingredients in your pan with enough water to poach your fish.  Do not hard boil the fish or your fish may flake apart.  We poached ours for about 11 minutes and it was still very moist.  Just before your fish is done poaching, put the cilantro topping ingredients in a small microwavable bowl and microwave for approximately 30 seconds.  When your fish is done, place the fish only on a serving platter and pour the cilantro topping mixture evenly on your fish.  Dry your pan and add the 2 T. olive oil to pan, heat until you see smoke.  Add the green onions and ginger, fry for approximately 10 seconds.  Pour your oil topping over your fish evenly.  Serve immediately with or without brown rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!