Boiled Fish

"Shui Zhu Yu" is one of the most common Sichuan fish dishes. 'Shui Zhu' is also one of the most famous Sichuan cooking styles. Its essential ingredient is Sichuan bean sauce. 'Shui' means water. 'Zhu' means boil. You might have also heard about 'Shui Zhu Niu Rou' which uses beef in place of fish. You may use 2 cups of soy bean sprouts to substitute for the celery and Napa cabbage stem. Cod is also a good substitute for basa. Enjoy the fish and I wish you 'Nian Nian You Yu'--Happy New Year!"



Ingredients

Fish marinating
One fresh fish around 1000g to 15000g
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon cooking wine

Other ingredients
5 garlic cloves
2 green onion (separate white and green part)
2cups of Shitake mushrooms (You can choose other vegetables you like for example cucumber or bean sprouts)
1 inch root ginger, peeled and sliced
3 star anise
1 large cassia bark, break into small sections
2 tsao-kuo (optional)
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorn
10 dried chili red pepper
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1 tablespoon doubanjiang
2 teaspoons dou-chi
pinch of salt if needed
Water as needed
1/2 tablespoon sesame seeds for garnish

Instructions

Cut the fish meat into thin slices and chop the bones into sections.
Put all the bone section and fish slices in large bowl; add cooking wine, cornstarch and salt.
Boil some water in wok and cook mushrooms or any other vegetables you like. Then lay the vegetables in the bottom of your final container (you can also use cabbage or other vegetable to replace)
Heat up 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in wok, add star anise, cassia bark and taso ko to stir fry for around 2 minutes until you can smell the aroma.
Add garlic, ginger and white part of green onion to stir-fry around 1 minute, then add half of the Sichuan peppercorn and half of the dried chili peppers to stir-fry until smell the tastes.
Add doubanjiang and dou-chi to stir-fry for 1 minute until aroma.
Pour water (around 3 cups) to wok and slow the fire after the water becomes boiling to simmer for 15 minutes,and then add 2 teaspoons of salt.
Pick the bone sections out of the marinading bowl and cook them firstly for around 1 minute.And the thin slices in to cook until the slice becomes white.
Transfer all the content to the serving bowl. Garnish some chopped spring onion firstly and then sesame seeds.
Heat up around 2 teaspoons cooking oil in wok again and add the left Sichuan peppercorn and chili peppers.
Pour the hot oil with Sichuan peppercorn and chili peppers evenly on the surface of the serving bowl.
Garnish another layer of spring onions.

Notes
For those who love spicy very much, you can sprinkle some chili powder and Sichuan peppercorn powder on top before pouring the hot oil.

Reference
http://www.chinasichuanfood.com/boiled-fish-sichuan/

Daisy