Lunar New Year Feast
This Lunar New Year we invite you to celebrate with this simple yet elegant dish—steamed snapper with Asian greens!
Once prepared, gather your loved ones around the dining table and savour the rich cultural heritage and culinary delights of The Year of the Snake.
Main dish ingredients
1kg snapper, cleared and scaled (with head and tail intact)
3-inch piece of fresh ginger (peeled and cut into thin matchsticks)
3 tablespoons Shaoxing cooking wine
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 clove minced garlic
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
4 green onions with the white parts cut into matchsticks
1 cup of loosely packed coriander stems
½ cup vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
Optional: chilli slices
Asian vegetables and sauce ingredients
Gai lan or bok choy
Oyster sauce
Soy sauce
1 small garlic clove, minced
½ teaspoon minced ginger
2 tablespoons of chicken stock
½ teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon of sugar
Optional: 1 tablespoon fried shallots for topping
Pat your prepared fish dry and cut 6 deep diagonal cuts along both sides of the body.
Massage a bit of salt and pepper on both sides of the fish.
Set up a large, baking paper-lined steamer and place it over a large saucepan with 3 – 4 inches of water in the bottom of the pan.
Place the whole fish in the steamer and scatter with ginger. Cover the lid.
Turn on your cooktop and steam the fish for 13 – 15 minutes until cooked through. Please note that you can pry the flesh open with a fork to check that it is cooked. Cooked fish should appear opaque and if it is still translucent, keep steaming the fish and check it again using the same method in a few minutes.
While the fish is steaming, in a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, cooking wine, sesame oil, minced garlic and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Set it aside once combined.
Once ready, carefully remove the cooked fish, drain off any liquids and place it on a large serving platter.
Scatter the green onions, coriander and chilis (if desired) over the fish.
Heat up the vegetable oil in a small saucepan until it is smoking.
Meanwhile, pour the soy sauce and wine over the fish.
Then, take the heated, smoking oil off the cooktop and quickly drizzle it over the surface of the fish (note, it will sizzle!).
Set up another medium saucepan ¾ full of water and bring it to a boil.
In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients for the Asian greens sauce together. Once combined, set aside.
Place Asian vegetables in boiling water for 1 – 2 minutes until they turn bright green.
Once ready, remove them from the boiling water with tongs and place the greens in a lipped plate or bowl and set aside.
Drizzle your desired amount of prepared sauce over your Asian vegetables and top with dried shallots (if desired).
Once both are finished, serve fish immediately with your side of vegetables. You may also wish to prepare some rice, topped with sesame seeds and siracha.
When shopping for this dish, make sure your snapper isn’t too large, as it needs to fit inside a steamer. If you’re feeding more than four people, we recommend opting for two fish. For Lunar New Year, the fish head and tail are always left on for serving and are seen as auspicious.
