Saturday 24 January 2009

May there be surpluses every year (Nian Nian Yu Yue)


As Chinese New Year is just round the corner, I went grocery shopping in my local Chinese supermarket. The lady boss convinced me to buy fresh whole sea bass for Chinese New Year as fish signifies abundance/surpluses. Well after all it's once a year kind of event and fish is a must..... :-)
My favorite style of cooking fish will be steaming it if it's real fresh. All needed is sauce to cook with. So I decided to do steam fish Teochew style. Been awhile since I had real good fish :-)


Steam Fish Teochew Style
Ingredients (serve two)

  • 1 sea bass (about 500-700gm)
  • ginger -size of thumb, peeled and julienned
  • 2 tsp garlic in vinegar
  • 2 tbsp of light soya sauce
  • 1 dry sour plum
  • corriander for garnishing
  • spring onion for garnishing
  • 1 bird eye chilli
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1 tbsp pickled green mustard (I use cherry tomato)
  1. Clean the fish and remove the scale.
  2. In a dish, place the fish, top up with ginger, garlic, light soya sauce, chilli, sour plum, oil and tomato.
  3. In a wok, boil some water. When water start to boil, place the dish in a rack in the wok and close the lid and let it steam for 10-12mins on high heat. Alternatively you can use steamer.
  4. Once cooked, remove from wok and top up with corriander and spring onion.
  5. Served immediately. Goes well with rice or rice congee.
I finished the whole fish :-), it's so simple, fresh and yet delicious.

Wishing all my family & friends who celebrated Chinese New Year, Nian Nian Yu Yue and Gong Xi Fa Chai.

Stay tune to my blog for more Chinese New Year dishes :-) .

5 comments:

Unknown said...

gong xi fa cai and may there be surpluses every year

Anonymous said...

Nian nian yu yue to you too!

Perry R. Lim said...

wha...finished off the whole fish by yourself. mesti sedap!

Christine Toh said...

Thanks Lily. Your cooking blog has been really good and hope to learn cooking tips from you :-).

Christine Toh said...

Hi Fen,

Same to you :-).

Hi Perry,

Yes, simple and yet delicious, Sampai habis satu ekor, tinggal tulang aje :-)