This Steamed Fish is EASY to make - Chinese Steamed Fish with Ginger & Onion

Steaming a whole fish for this classic homestyle meal is much easier than you think. Delicate white fish with all the aromatics makes this dish just simply fantastic. You can't go wrong. Hey everyone, I'm Flo, dude is behind the camera, and we're all about simple food, simple faith. You know that I can't be bothered with really cooking a whole fish, but sometimes I really want that particular fish. There are some fish out there that you can't get a fillet of, you have to buy the whole thing. I have a fresh sea bream here that I actually bought at Costco. They used to have these in packages of like five fish, but who can eat five whole fish before they go bad? Or I guess you can freeze them, but I can't be bothered with that. So I found a pack of two, which is great. And we're going to have one that I'm making for you today by steaming it. The great thing about buying a fish from Costco is that they've done all the cleaning for you already. So they've removed all the scales, they've opened it up and taken all the insides out. And all you have to do is give it a good rinse and dry it before getting started. You can use any whole white fish like a tilapia or a snapper if you can't find a sea bream. But sea bream is really, really nice to eat. It's really delicate flesh and yeah, it's just really yummy. I'm going to score the fish, just a couple of slits on the back. And this will help the fish to cook evenly because there are some parts of the fish that are thicker than the other. And by opening it up a little bit, then the steam can get in and cook it more evenly. Do the same on the other side. And if you want, you can remove these fins. I'm just going to leave them on. That'll make it more legit home style. I remember my mom, whenever she bought whole fish, is that she would stand at the sink and she'd be like scraping all the scales and cleaning the fish and I'm just like, oh my goodness, I cannot do that. So I'm super thankful that if you buy it at a fish market or well, even at Costco, they will clean it all up for you. I'm going to season each side with a little bit of salt. Just make sure that the salt goes into the little slits as well. And then also with some ground white pepper, just a pinch on each side and put that on my plate. Now I've already checked to make sure that this will fit in my wok. So you want to put it on a platter that will fit into a larger vessel, whatever you're using to steam. Sorry, I also forgot to season the inside. Have about half an ounce of a ginger, thumbs size. It's actually like a thumbs up. Yeah. We're just going to slice this up into matchsticks. Whenever dude is like watching me slice or filming me slice things, I always think of that monkey that's going to show up. Okay. So the way to get rid of the fishy smell is to use ginger, just like the ginger gets rid of chicken smell, like the raw chicken smell. It helps to get rid of the fish smell as well. Actually the fish doesn't really smell if it's fresh. So we're just using half the ginger here. Like all my steamed Chinese recipes, it always makes a delicious sauce that you can eat with rice. This one is no different. We're starting with one teaspoon of sugar. Now the sugar is there to balance out the flavors. We don't want it to be too salty. So that's why I'm adding a teaspoon of sugar. We're adding a one tablespoon of a Shaoxing wine. Shaoxing wine is just a cooking wine. It's a rice wine. If you don't have Shaoxing wine, you can just use regular rice wine or a sherry or even sake would be really good. But we've been known to use bourbon as well. When we ran out of Shaoxing wine one year, two tablespoons of soy sauce. This is just regular soy sauce. I use a light soy sauce and a tablespoon of water and one teaspoon of sesame oil. Let's make sure that sugar is dissolved. Oh smells really yummy already. So this recipe is slightly different from my steamed fish filet recipe. But if you can't be bothered with buying a whole fish, like that recipe is also very good. And we're just going to evenly pour this over the fish. Okay, so I filled my wok up with some water and I put in a trivet. And if you don't have a trivet, you can always roll up like aluminum foil or use an empty can and put another trivet that maybe is flat on top so that it gets enough height away from the water. You don't want the water touching the plate while it's steaming. I'm just going to put the lid on so that it heats up faster. And we're going to bring that to a boil. All right, so the water is boiling. And put the plate right in the middle. And let's see if we can get this tail in. And we're going to let that steam for about 10 to 12 minutes. We'll check at 10. In the meantime, I'm going to slice up the rest of my ingredients. So I have two green onions here. I'm just going to julienne them. And I'm also going to roughly chop up about six stems of cilantro. And if you're one of those people who don't like cilantro, you don't have to use it. But we like the freshness of the greens. Yes, we do. Okay, it's been 10 minutes. We're just going to check to see if the fish is done. Oh my goodness, it looks so good. So one way to check is to see if a chopstick will go all the way through without resistance. So I hit a piece of bone. So let's just poke it elsewhere. And you want to poke the thickest part of the fish. So there's still a little bit of resistance. So I'm going to leave it in here for another two minutes. So that's another two minutes, 12 minute total. Let's try one more time. Yes, it's all the way through now. Perfect. And turn it off. And another way to tell that the fish is done is if the eyeball is white. And it is. You want to hear something really gross, guys? The eyeballs are my kids' favorite part of the fish. Good thing the fish has two. All right, I'm going to lift this out. Oh, it just brings back so many nostalgic memories. Moving on to the aromatics. Turn this on to a medium heat. Adding two tablespoons of, well, I'm using corn oil today. You can use vegetable oil or canola oil, something with a high burn temperature. And we're just going to let that heat through until it's hot. Putting the ginger in. And I'm using the white and light parts of the green onion. So I'm going to throw that in there. I'm going to let that cook for about 30 seconds. Okay, then I'm going to put the dark green onion over the fish and the cilantro. Adding a tablespoon of sesame oil. The sesame oil adds the flavor, but you don't want it to burn away that aroma. So add it at the end. And all this now is going over the fish. Get back here, green onion. All right, there you have it. Oh my goodness, this smells so good. Oh, it looks so good. Are you all ready for? Oh, definitely. So much nostalgia here. This is like stuff that we grew up with and appreciating the flavors more now. And with that, all the sauce that it's created, you gotta douse it. You're not basting it. You're just getting that sauce into the fish. So all the flavors are all over. And you'll see the waiters or waitresses doing that in the Chinese restaurants too, when they bring it to the table. Don't need a whole lot right now because dinner is coming up. But don't skimp on the sauce because that's part of the whole experience. The sauteed ginger in there. So much goodness going on. A bit more sauce because why not? Yes. Oh, texture of the fish looks fantastic. Tender. Flavor's fantastic. The sauce, the mouthfeel all together. Home-style goodness. Really brings so many memories. Nostalgia, flavor, and it's healthy. Awesome. Thanks, dude. Wasn't that easy, guys? It was so much easier than I thought. And I have to say that, yep, I really love sea bream, but I'm not one of those people that likes to eat the tail or suck on the bones or the fish head. But the best part of a whole fish is actually the cheek right here. That's the most tender part of the fish. But of course, if you can't be bothered with making a whole fish, check out my steamed fish fillet recipe below. See you there.