One Stone Kill Many Birds

Steaming, the 1 stone kill many (yes, many, definitely more than 2) birds method of cooking.   Easy, fast, retains the original texture, freshness and flavor of the food thus keeping nutrients intact.  Notice the colors remain vibrant too?  One of the healthiest way of cooking.  Works especially well when ingredients are really fresh (fish for example), the heat from the steam gently diffuses through the food and let it cook in its own juice.  Yummeh! 

Besides steaming, this dish has an added health benefit factor.  Some Chinese herbs, specifically red dates, wolf berries and dried longans were used.    Common ingredients that the Chinese used for making herbal soup known to nourish the body.   

What's unique about this recipe is the herbs were first boiled together for awhile to make a soup base before pouring it onto the fish slices and steamed.  Because of this, the taste of the herbs was more prominent and blended into the fish.  The juice from the fish made the broth even tastier which made it good with rice and could be drank directly like a soup.

It is best to take steamed dishes as soon as it is ready.  We had it on a cold rainy day (the monsoon season has started over here) and with a dash of Shaoxing wine on the dish, it did feel so good to have it warm our stomachs :)

Recipe

Source : Steamed Cuisine by Hoe Yee (variations in blue)

Ingredients

Part A

• 500g fish slices (I used threadfin, original recipe was for frog)
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 tbsp fried shallot oil (obmitted, lazy on the pretext of trying to reduce oil intake)
• 1/2 tbsp corn flour

Part B

• 8g Dang qui (obmitted, not in little one's favour)
• 10g wolfberries
• 10g dried longan
• 10g Yuk Chuk (refer note at the bottom)
• 10g red dates
• 100ml water

Seasoning

• 1 1/2 tbsp ginger juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Method

1. Place ingredients Part B in a small pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, let it simmer for 5 minutes and leave to cool.
2. Season fish with seasoning and corn flour and arrange on a steaming plate for at least 1 hour.
3. Pour cooked ingredients B (together with soup) on fish and steam on high heat for 7 minutes or until cooked.
4. Give fish a dash of Shaoxing wine and fried shallot oil if prepared.
5. Server hot with steamed rice.

Note:- I made a very silly mistake here, the recipe stated yuzu, and since it was a chinese translated one, I had to guess what yuzu was, I thought it was yuzu the citrus.  After many hours, fish long digested, it suddenly struck me it was Yuk Chuk the Chinese herb!  I was more familiar with it known as Yuk Chuk in Cantonese instead of Yuzu!  I asked hubs to reconfirm from the Chinese characters! What a blunder, but i think it didn't do much harm instead it was nice because Korean yuzu is slightly tangy and bitterish compared to the rest of the herbs which are sweet.   How silly of me!