Pan Roasted Fish (Hong Sao Ru)

I decided to start with a staple fish dish for our first cooking lesson.  My grandmother always said fish makes you smart so she made us eat a lot of it!

This past weekend I went fishing with my husband and father-in-law.  And usually when we catch fish, we fry it.  Honestly, I can’t remember a time in the last 10 years when we did not fry it.  This time I asked to save my catch as a whole fish to try one of grandma’s recipes.

After nine hours of fishing, I asked my husband to scale and clean my prized trout.  We brought the fish home to grandma, where we embarked on our first lesson.

My trout!

My translations and cooking vocabulary are not accurate, but I included grandma’s details…

Ingredients: 

1 whole fish (salt water trout, snapper or any whole fish)

2 tablespoons canola oil

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine (we used whiskey - grandma believes it’s the same as cooking wine?)

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon fresh ginger coarsely chopped

¼ cup green onions coarsely chopped

Directions:

Use a large, fairly flat non-s tick pan.  Clean a whole fish with the head, tail, and skin intact (no intestines) or buy one from the fish market and ask them to scale and take out the guts. Score the fish diagonally on each side. Then cut the fish in half if you do not have a large enough pan. 

1. Combine soy sauce, sugar, wine, and vinegar in a bowl.
2. Heat oil on high heat.
3. Place fish into pan let fry for 5 minutes.
4. Separate the two pieces of fish and add green onions and ginger into the middle (grandma insisted on this process).  Let cook for a few minutes.
5. Add the sauce mixture to the pan, push the fish back together.
6.  Cover and let cook on high for 2 minutes.
7. Turn off heat.
8. Add water, flip the fish, and let sit covered for 2 minutes.

Problems I encountered:

The heat was not high enough in the beginning, therefore the skin stuck to the pan.  My grandmother assumed because the stove was red, the temperature was too hot. Afterwards I explained the stove turns red even on low heat.   I used a wok only to be scolded that it was a poor choice.  I should have used a flat pan so the fish could fry evenly. 

Overall the dish turned out to be delicious!

Please do not judge the taste based on my presentation.  I am a beginner!