There was a community fish pond near my home where I lived with my grandmother, and she would go there almost every day to catch tilapia. It was a hobby for her, and we had fish for dinner every day. She used to tell me that eating fish would be make me clever and keep her healthy. I try to coerce my daughter into this practice daily.
In traditional Cantonese cuisine, the rule is “fish is best steamed when fresh, and pan fried or hong shao when not”. Hong shao, also known as braised or “red-cooked”, gives off a salty, sweet, aromatic and umami flavour. It features soy sauce, rice wine or Shao Xing wine, sugar, aromatic herbs such as coriander or spring onion, and five-spice powder. The key to cooking hong shao dishes is to control the heat — the correct heat reduces the sugar perfectly so that it blends with the sauces in the most delicious way. In other words, don’t leave your hong shao dish unattended, not even for a minute.
For Food Sakes
Fried fish, Cantonese style
The key to cooking hong shao dishes is to control the heat — and that requires your full attention
Image: Yang Zhao
There was a community fish pond near my home where I lived with my grandmother, and she would go there almost every day to catch tilapia. It was a hobby for her, and we had fish for dinner every day. She used to tell me that eating fish would be make me clever and keep her healthy. I try to coerce my daughter into this practice daily.
In traditional Cantonese cuisine, the rule is “fish is best steamed when fresh, and pan fried or hong shao when not”. Hong shao, also known as braised or “red-cooked”, gives off a salty, sweet, aromatic and umami flavour. It features soy sauce, rice wine or Shao Xing wine, sugar, aromatic herbs such as coriander or spring onion, and five-spice powder. The key to cooking hong shao dishes is to control the heat — the correct heat reduces the sugar perfectly so that it blends with the sauces in the most delicious way. In other words, don’t leave your hong shao dish unattended, not even for a minute.
All the president’s food
I tested this recipe several times before writing it down, amid all of the load-shedding schedules and after visiting several fishmongers to buy different types of fish to try. Finding tilapia is quite impossible in SA, which was quite baffling really, as tilapia is known to be a fresh water fish from Africa. I remembered clearly that in fish markets in China, it was called “Africa fish”. While I struggled to find it here, the blessing of being in SA is the variety of saltwater fish we can find. For this recipe, I tried red roman (very good), red snapper (too many bones) and also baby yellow croakers (which, to my surprise, didn’t have too many bones — even the smaller fish). I’d recommend red roman for this recipe, as it’s quite readily available.
Image: Supplied
Ingredients:
Method:
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