May 31, 2022

Sweet & Sour Yummilicious Sauce Braised Fish 好味醬酸甜魚

Sweet and Sour fish, Yummilicious Sauce, Braised Fish, chinese, recipe, 好味醬,酸甜魚

This lovely dish is our alternative to the traditional preparation of Chinese Sweet and Sour Fish (see our post on Traditional Sweet and Sour Fish here) and, what can I say, it's amazing!  So much so that we nicknamed this new family favorite as '好味醬魚' which very roughly translates to 'Yummilicious Sauce Fish.'  Because it really is that yummilicious folks!

According to my 老公, this succulent dish is the creation of the old chef of Luk Yu Tea House 陸羽茶室, one of the most historic restaurants in Hong Kong as well as being one of the top restaurants serving traditional Cantonese cuisine.  During this chef's time at the restaurant this dish was a favorite order.  

Later he passed on this recipe to his good friend William Mark Yiu Tong 唯靈, the famous HK food critic.  It is interesting that this dish is a 'fusion' type of dish when you look at the ingredients and yet it was created quite a while ago.  

If you're a seafood lover you've got to try this amazing dish!  Honestly we prefer it over the traditional sweet and sour version.  Savory, slightly sweet, slightly tart, this multi flavor layered Sweet and Sour Yummilicious Sauce Braised Fish 酸甜魚 rocks the f**king boat in the flavor department and we're left licking the plates afterwards.  This, my friends, is the real deal...

 Sweet and Sour fish, Yummilicious Sauce, Braised Fish, chinese, recipe, 好味醬,酸甜魚

So what are those fusion ingredients?  Here they are:  worcestershire sauce and ketchup!  Worcestershire sauce, an English sauce, has been in Hong Kong in various forms since the 1940's and has been incorporated into the cuisine in myriad ways.  You'll especially see it often in dim sum restaurants where it's an absolute essential dip for many dim sum dishes.

As for ketchup, it is fascinating to note that tomato ketchup has been produced in Hong Kong since around 1881!   But even futher back, the idea of ketchup originally came from southern China around 300 BC, where the original ketchups didn't even have tomato in them, being more like a fermented fish sauce.  No tomatoes in ketchup!  A sacrilege, no?  

This early ketchup made its way to England and America where tomatoes where eventually added to the the sauce to make 'em the magically delicious red goo we all love as ketchup today.  Chinese cuisine has enthusiastically incorporated modern ketchup into the cuisine in such scrumptious dishes such as Stir Fried Ketchup Shrimp 茄汁蝦碌.

For our Sweet and Sour Yummilicious Sauce Braised Fish these two ingredients are fused into the traditional soy based sweet and sour sauce to form a new truly finger lickin' sauce, at once savoury, sweet, tart and tomato-y.  

Upon first tasting, you'll wonder what's in this very yummy sauce, at once familiar and yet unfamiliar.  Actually it's so fabulous that we have decided to prefer this sauce over all others!  What kind of fish shall we have tonight? Yummilicious Sauce Fish!  Yay!

Sweet and Sour fish, Yummilicious Sauce, Braised Fish, chinese, recipe, 好味醬,酸甜魚

The fish that we used for this dish is the grass carp 鯇魚.  However, pretty much any kind of fish will work with this sauce, including oily fish like salmon.  Just make sure that you get really fresh fish!  You can use fish steaks, or part, or whole fish, your choice.

To make the texture and the taste of the fish even better, here's a really good tip.  After washing and drying the fish off as much as possible, sprinkle lightly with salt and let it sit for 15-20 mins.  Rinse salt off and dry.  This trick will refresh the taste, kill off any fishiness, and improve the texture.

Sweet and Sour fish, Yummilicious Sauce, Braised Fish, chinese, recipe, 好味醬,酸甜魚

Time to pan fry the fish. It's really important here to dry the fish off as much as possible.  If you do this you'll find that the pan frying to a golden brown will be that much easier to achieve.  Oh, and don't forget to add a couple of slices of ginger to the oil before adding in the fish.  A must when cooking fish as the ginger cancels out any fishiness.

Once the fish is panfried to golden brown perfection it's time to add in the sauce.  Let the sauce simmer, spooning over the fish every once in a while.  When the sauce has thickened and is clinging to the fish it's ready to plate up and serve.  

You'll find that this fish dish will be gobbled up before you know it. I know that when we have this Sweet and Sour Yummilicious Sauce Braised Fish 好味醬酸甜魚 our little family attacks the fish and polishes it off with lethal, concentrated speed.  Shrugs...  Guess it's just something about those sweet, savoury, and tart multi-layered flavours...sighs...pure perfection!

Sweet and Sour fish, Yummilicious Sauce, Braised Fish, chinese, recipe, 好味醬,酸甜魚
Sweet and Sour Yummilicious Sauce Braised Fish Recipe 好味醬酸甜魚
Prep time: 15 mins  Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:


  • 1 fish, any kind you like
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 slices ginger
  • 2 spring onion white part, chopped into 2 inch sections
  • 1/2 tbsp thinly sliced 2 inch lengths of spring onion, green part, for garnish
    Sauce

Directions:

Rinse fish and dry thoroughly with paper towels.  Sprinkle lightly with salt all over and let marinate for 15-20 mins. 

Mix soy sauce, ketchup, worcestershire sauce, sugar, rice wine, white pepper and stock together.

 Heat pan up over low heat  When hot add 2 tbsp oil and ginger slices.  Swirl ginger around in oil for 5 secs.  Add in fish, skin side down and let cook over medium heat until skin is a golden brown.  Add in spring onions whites.  Flip fish over and cook until browned.  

Pour in the sauce, turn heat to low and let cook down until thickened and clinging to the fish, using a spoon to baste the fish with the sauce once in a while.  Remove to serving plate and garnish with spring onion.  Enjoy the yummy!

Tip:  To have curly spring onion garnish, place your thinly sliced spring onion in chilled water for a few minutes.  The spring onion will curl up beautifully.

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2 comments:

  1. I just made this tonight, and it was super delicious! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete