Steamed Fish

It took me a long time to venture into steaming fish, and when I did it, I found that it was surprisingly easy. Seafood can be intimidating because they have to be cooked just right--not too well done, but good enough. They also have to retain the moisture in the meat. But that's what makes it so easy too. It doesn't take very long.


This is a very basic way to steam fish, and it's done a lot in my family. There are lots of variations to it and you can use different kinds of fish. I think best with Salmon or river fish. Here, I used trout.

1 fish
(I eyeball the soy sauce, vinegar and rice wine. This is just a guestimate.)
soy sauce
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon rice wine
2 garlic, cut in chunks
spring onion
ginger (optional)
this flavorful dried black bean (optional and may be hard to find)











Put the fish in a bowl.
Pour the soy sauce, vinegar and rice wine into the bowl, all over the fish
Sprinkle the other ingredients on and around the fish.
In this picture I cut the fish in half because otherwise it wouldn't fit.
And it's best to keep the head and tail on.
You can cut off the hard fin parts, but Chinese food is really about eating all of the fish.

Oh I also added fresh basil leaves--that's also a variation.
Instead you can also add red pepper flakes.

Put the bowl directly into the steamer.
Steam for 10 minutes. It may take longer, but check occasionally.
You can poke it with a chopstick to check. If you see the inside starting to flake, it is done. Really, it should look a little underdone.