Every year, on the eve of Chinese New Year, the family gathers at my parents’ house for a reunion dinner. My grandmother is in charge of the feast, and starts preparing the food a week in advance. While one or two dishes might change from year to year, the majority of the menu features her signature dishes, which the entire family looks forward to every year. Less anticipated (but no less tasty!) is this Cantonese Steamed Fish dish that I’ll contributing to this year’s menu.

“Fish” (鱼) is a homophone for the word “abundance” (余) in Mandarin and Cantonese, making it a symbol of prosperity and good fortune. This classic dish is a popular component in Chinese banquet menus and often features during weddings and gatherings.

The concept is simple: A fresh fish is steamed until just cooked through, then seasoned with umami-rich soy sauce. Thinly sliced aromatics are heaped onto the fish and sizzling hot oil is poured over, extracting the fragrance of the aromatics and mixing with the soy sauce to create a deeply flavourful sauce that complements the fish.

I made two little tweaks that make the sauce even more irresistible. First, instead of using a simple soy sauce mixture, I made an infusion by simmering soy sauce with garlic, ginger, spring onion, sugar and white pepper. Second, I used the same aromatics to make an infused oil (the very same oil featured in the Allium Oil Noodles recipe). The complementary aromatics add depth to the final sauce.

Remember: It’s important that you slice the ginger and spring onion as finely as you can. It makes the dish more elegant and increases the surface area for the hot oil to pour over and extract flavours from.

My favourite way to eat the fish is with plain white rice and with heaps of the fresh aromatics and sauce poured over. This sauce + rice = heaven.

That’s it for this week. Look forward to more New Year yumminess next week!

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Jonathan