Baked sea bass (Chinese style)
This is a quick, fresh tasting dish that works brilliantly with sea bass, but most large white-fleshed fish would be just as good. Carp would be fine if you can get it.
The time I cooked and photographed this meal I could not get spring onions or black beans so I used a small onion, sliced thinly and 4 large anchovies, finely chopped, instead of the black beans. I also used two small sea bass instead of 1 large. Moral: Don't go shopping late on a Bank Holiday Sunday! However, it was still a great success.
Ingredients
Ingredients
Printable 🖨 shopping 🛒 list & 👩🍳 method for this recipe
- 1 whole fish, sea bass, trout or carp, 750g (1.5 lbs), cleaned and gutted (use two if you can only get small fish)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger powder
- 1 teaspoon salted black beans, soaked, drained and crushed lightly, or 4 large anchovies, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon Chinese wine or dry sherry
- 1 tablespoon root ginger, peeled and finely shredded
- 2 star anise, broken into small pieces
- 2 spring onions, cut on the diagonal, or 1 small onion, peeled and finely sliced
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- Sheet of tin foil, large enough to wrap loosely around the fish
- Dressing
- 1tbs light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Mise en place
- Pre-heat the oven to 180° C (350° F - gas 4), [fan oven 160° C & reduce cooking time by 10 mins per hour]
Method
- Wash, descale and dry the fish
- With a sharp knife make deep cuts across both sdes of the fish. On a very large fish make criss-cross cuts
- Mix the salt, pepper and ginger powder together and rub well into the slashes in the fish
- Mix the crushed black beans, dark soy sauce, sugar and Chinese wine
- Sprinkle the shredded ginger and spring onions on the tin foil and lay the fish on top
- Heat 2 tablespoons of oil until smoking and carefully pour this all over the fish
- When the oil has cooled a little, spread the black bean mixture all over the fish and in the cavity
- Arrange the broken star anise pieces throughout the cavity of the fish
- Bring the foil up and seal well and place on a baking tray
- bake for 20 minutes or until the fish is tender
- Arrange on a serving platter and pour the soy dressing over the fish
Serving suggestions
Serve immediately.
This is nice with special fried rice and a green salad
Chef's tip
If you use two small fish instead of 1 large, as long as your tin foil is large enough, it's probably better to use 1 foil parcel for both fish as the flavours seem to mingle better.
Variation
This recipe would work equally well with trout.