3. Chinese pan fried fish (Liu Yu Pian)

Chinese stir fried fish

溜鱼片

Cooking Fish in China

O, o, I love fish. Since I was little, have never been a big fan of meat, but never rejected a single fish dish (that also shows how much I love eating). :)) I am not sure if this is a custom crossing China, but in Northeast at least, when we invite guests to home or restaurant for a nice meal, fish is one of the ‘must have’ dishes on the table, I mean the whole fish, you know.. with tail and head… ; I know, I know, :)) I have heard comments such as ‘scary’ or ‘cruel’ before, but it is a traditional custom, in addition, how to place the fish is very important - the head of the fish; is normally supposed to face the important guest of the day, or the oldest person around the table, for showing welcome and respect.

I used to cook and place fish this way whenever we have guests, but this also means that everyone will have to take a piece of the fish little by little, and pick up the bones themselves, obviously using a fork is not very convenient in this situation. So one day, my lovely hubby softly advised me not to cook fish this way, as it is not common in the West. He has a point. So I gave up, only cook the ‘whole fish’ when everyone is Chinese and ‘him’ - half Chinese now for sure :)). Now, we tend to buy boneless white fish for this dish. It works ok -- I am a bit of scared of touching the skin of the fish anyway. :))) But the way of cooking is a bit different, so is the taste.

Chinese stir-fried fish

This dish is originally called “Liu Yu Pian”, Yu means fish, Pian here means piece, Liu is a way of stir frying, literally ‘to let the fish go through the wok from left to right quickly’. Well, cooking this dish is not super quick, but it does not take very long either. I would say around 20 mins or less?

Ingredients

Fish (two pieces of white boneless fish, sometimes, salmon is also good. We bought this one frozen in fish market in Botley)
Leeks (a third of one whole leek- maybe? Slice it diagonally, so you can get long slices)
Ginger (a few slices).

Oil, salt, cooking wine (if you have at home), rice vinegar (a drop of vinegar is the best for getting rid of ‘fishy’ smell- a trick in Chinese fish dish), white sugar.

Preparation

Again, basically two steps: 1) frying the fish (because a piece of fish is very easily fall in parts during the ‘stirring’, so fry it first with flour mix wrapping); 2) Mix/stir fry the fish with the ingredients.

1)Slice the fish into pieces.

2)Slice the leeks and ginger, eventually into strips.





3) Preparing the mix for fish: Beat one egg white in the bowl (egg white can help the ‘wrapping’ -the surface of the fish crispy); Put couple of table spoon plain flour in (or corn flour), and whisk the mix.

4)Preparing the sauce: In a small bowl, put one tea spoon of corn flour, mix with water, quarter tea spoon of salt (or less), one-third tea spoon of white sugar and half tea spoon of rice vinegar. Mix well everything together. (Do stir the mix again when pouring it into the wok, since the elements in the mix could easily sink to the bottom of the bowl.)

Cooking

1) Put the fish pieces into the mix. (If you pick up a piece of fish, the mix wraps around the fish with only a little bit dripping, it is good thickness.)

2) Place the wok on the fire (medium fire), pour oil in (2cm? maybe, or you can do deep fry if you like), until the both sides are gold and crispy. Place the fish on the plate. (Actually from this step, you can make into different tastes of dishes.)

3) Put the wok back to the fire (a bit stronger fire), pour 2 table spoon of oil, when the oil heats up, put the leeks and ginger in, and pour in 1 table spoon of cooking wine.

4) When the smell of the leeks and ginger come out (only take half minute), put the fried fish pieces in, mix them with leeks and ginger.

5) Pour the mix into the wok, keep on stirring, when the sauce is mixed well with the fish, turn off the fire, remove the fish into a plate. (This probably only take a few seconds, otherwise, the surface of the fish would get too soft and sticky.)



----- The main taste of the fish is with the influence of leeks and ginger, don’t leave the leeks too long to get too soft. oh, also don’t leave it too long before you eat it, otherwise it will lose the freshness you created. :) Enjoy!! :))