Salt Marinated Steamed Fish 生死戀蒸魚

Wow, oh, wow, this humble dish is a super duper knock out!  We first tried it at a local restaurant, having been assured by the talkative waiter that this simple salted then steamed fish dish was something special and a great favorite with his regulars.  Well...I've heard that one before and then some...so we were skeptical but willing to try it out.

When the fish arrived at the table it looked simple...minimal even, just the fish, a piece of salted fish on top and a wee bit of shredded ginger on the plate, no sauce or slender curls of spring onion.  Could steamed fish finished off so simply without a sauce really work?  Well, it turns out that the answer is a big 'ol YES!

This Salt Marinated Steamed Fish 生死戀蒸魚 is super packed with tasty multilayered flavor, its meat oh so tender and luscious, you won' believe how super simple it is to make!

Chinese Pan Fried Salted White Herring Fish 香煎曹白咸魚

Yum, yum...  My mouth is watering already!  If you've never tried Chinese Salted Fish before, why not start at the best?  This amazingly deliciously tasty treat is a very traditionally Cantonese way to prepare Chinese Salted Fish, or 咸魚 and you can only really make it properly with the right kind of fish, the best kind of salted fish: Salted White Herring, or 曹白咸魚.   

This is the best way to have Chinese Salted Fish!  This Chinese Pan Fried Salted White Herring Fish is a dish that we all (young and old!) fight over when it appears on the dinner table.

Pan Fried Pork Patty with Salted Fish 煎鹹魚豬肉餅

Some foods just can't help looking kinda 'meh'.  And you feel sorry for these poor foods...but still try your darnedest to avoid having to eat them.  And then BAM-BOOM, somehow you're forced to take a bite...you can't avoid the confrontation...and then it's like what the hey?!  You can't seem to stop eating and eating and eating...!

Well, I had a case like that the other day at a local little Chinese restaurant.  My 老公 ordered a house specialty of pork patties over rice.  When his dinner arrived, a humble looking plate of rice piled carelessly with four meager looking patties, I snickered up my sleeve and politely refused a taste.

Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Fish 鹹魚豬肉餅

Another entry in our Chinese Salted Fish dishes for the jolly old Salted Fish lover (or bold new adventurer!).  It really is worth exploring Salted Fish, even though it may seem over whelming at first.  I still remember the first time I tried anchovies and thought to myself, whoa, what the heck is this stuff?!  And now I love and appreciate anchovies tremendously.  

Chinese Salted Fish is like that, I think, as are many, many other wonderful foods that you come know slowly, exploring and questioning, until the taste blossoms and you fall in love.  Or at least in serious like.  Really, people nowadays don't have time enough for relationships with their food.  

I did not particularly like Salted Fish at first.  But now?  What can I say... What can compare with the unique taste and texture of this humblest of preserved fish created with mere salt, the loving rays of the sun and Father Time.  Anyways, to celebrate the Salted Fish yet again, we have here another classic Chinese dish, Steamed Pork Patty, paired with the Chinese Salted Fish.  Yummy, yumm, what a rice killer!

Steamed Fish with Salted Fish 生死戀

This dish has the most interesting Chinese name, 生死戀, which is the same as the title of the 1955 movie  Love is a Many-Splendored Thing starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones.  It is a most interesting movie to check out if you are interested in old Hong Kong.  You can see for yourself how different and beautiful Hong Kong used to be.

Anyways, the literal translation of 生死戀, is "life, death and love", referring, I'm assuming in the case of this fish dish, to the "live" (or recently alive) fish on the bottom, the "dead" (salt/sun baked preserved) fish on top and the "love" is their consummation of flavors in this delectable dish.  So I thought it was really cool that this dish and the glamorous Hollywood movie have the same exact name.  What a quinky-dink!  I wonder which came first?

Hong Kong 1950's

Chinese Salted Fish 鹹魚

Isn't salted fish just so beautiful!?

Hanging from multitudes of ceilings everywhere, dangling in the gentle breeze by twisted bits of red nylon rope, sometimes exposed in all its wrinkled dried glory, sometimes rather politely wrapped up in a a fold of white paper: maybe you have seen them before while walking through streets the older parts of Hong Kong.  The Chinese Salted  Fish, or 鹹魚, is a Cantonese classic, a food stuff of legend.

In the early days, the peoples of the south, being near the sea and thus a plentiful supply of fish, began to salt and dry in the sun the fishes that they caught so as to preserve them for future need.  It became known as the "poor man's food" because a little bit of Salted Fish, being so very salty, goes a long long way with your rice and thus became a firm dinner favorite with the poor population.