spicy black bean sauce-song fish head 松鱼头 

sis & bil came for dinner this evening on 17.9.2016. ^^

i had 1/2 song fish head 松鱼头 leftover in the freezer from last week.

3 dishes

i also had a mandarin fish 桂鱼 in the freezer leftover from the time my OPS primary school classmate brought 2 桂鱼 for me airflown from shanghai after CNY…lol! 🙂

i made one HK steamed mandarin fish港蒸 桂鱼 at the time on 17.3.2016.

it’s time to make the other! haha! 🙂

3 dishes

my sis & bil have been frying the vegetables the few times they ate here recently.

this sis brought some tau gay (bean sprouts) to fry with salted fish. 🙂

spicy black bean sauce-song fish head 松鱼头

the paste was still quite good, but it was not as good as the last time on 10.9.2016. that one was like perfect la.

i am thinking maybe 2 reasons- (1)i experimented by adding 2 tbsp shaoxing wine (ie should not add) & (2)i added a bit more black vinegar.

there was another hiccup with the texture. for some reason texture was soft. it did not feel like bad or not fresh & though texture was soft the meat still held together. but it di dnot feel as shiok as the usual firmer texture we are accustomed to.

i am guessing it was because i put the paste on the fish head earlier like >2 hrs waiting for my sis to come. next time i will only add the paste at the time of steaming.

braised mandarin fish 红烧桂鱼

this the first time i am making 红烧dish. ^^

of course i have done this 红烧method many times. basically teriyaki is 红烧. any dish you add a marinade or braising sauce & let it cook while the braising sauce reduced is 红烧 la.

in the case of (say) teriyaki sutchi fillet, you let it reduced to almost dry & caramelised the fish fillet.

for this evening’s braised mandarin fish 红烧桂鱼, i made slices on the fish, dusted a bit of corn flour & fried the fish first.

this method we say 半煎煮i have not done myself before, so just read up a few online recipes.

then i made my usual braising sauce:

• 2 tbsp light soy sauc
• 2 tbsp olive oi
• 2 tbsp miri
• 1 tbsp flat sugar (or if lesser then 2 tsp
• 1 tbsp zhengjiang black vinega
• 1 tbsp corn flour

braised mandarin fish 红烧桂鱼

the fish was pretty nice. great tasting sauce, good, fresh fish (after 6 months in freezer), great texture.

quite nice overall, but not quite the best 红烧 dish i have tried. need to experiment a bit more.

maybe fry a bit more (or a lot more??)

will also ry adding some tomato sauce & also tomatoes, green peppers & red chillies.

salted fish with bean sprouts

sis’ salted fish bean sprouts was nice.

salted fish with bean sprouts

bean sprouts were crunchy & the salted fish very tasty. good stuff!

dark soy sauce ti por 

our relatives in china sent us sent ti por (dry flat fish). it is of course very good for soup, fih head steamboat, frying vegetables & even bakchormee.

for us though we were nostalgic of the dark soy sauce ti por which our mom did 50 years ago.

my sis tried steaming it for like 50mins the last time.

but it was still very tough & hard. so i boiled it instead for like 45mins to 1 hr, and then basically reduced it just like 红烧 till very little liquid was left then added 1 tbsp datk soy sauce.

AND it was pretty good leh!!! almost like what we remembered the feel to be! 🙂

a great, fun, plain home dinner. 🙂

c.h.e.f andy