Steamed Fish with Ginger and Soy Sauce

For a really nice piece of fresh fish, there's really no other way to treat it other than to steam it. Flavoured with ginger, maybe a tad bit of garlic, a splash of shaoshing rice wine, soy sauce and a dribble of flavourless oil. Served with lots of steamed white rice... ahhh heaven!

Sainsbury's was doing a special on basa fillets - buy one, get one free. Imagine my excitement :) As freshwater fish, my basa fillets performed rather well with the ginger and soy sauce. It complemented (hid? haha) the slightly muddy taste that freshwater fish tend to have.

Steamed Fish
fish of your choice - a whole fish or fillets
minced young or old ginger - preferably steamed before hand to mellow it slightly
soy sauce
shaoshing rice wine
oil
coriander
spring onion - cut on a slant

• Clean your fish - you don't want nasty little bits of guts or scales to ruin the purity of the finished dish. If your fish has the skin on, make sure the scales are removed.
• Place your fish on a plate that will sit nicely in your cooking pot. I have a metal stand that sits very nicely in my wok. And I have found that my "pasta plate" from M&S (a wide shallow bowl/plate) works well for this dish. If you have a bamboo steamer, use that instead, though I'm not personally keen on that myself - the smell of fish lingers on the steamer for ages! But if you are using a bamboo steamer, steam the fish in that and make the sauce separately in a sauce pan and pour it over the fish afterwards. No steamer? Not a problem. Just wrap your fish, ginger and the sauce in a double layer of foil and bung the packet in a hot oven. Sprinkle the spring onion and coriander on after the fish comes out of the oven.
• Spoon a liberal amount of minced ginger - I used the same mixture I had made for my Hainanese chicken rice - over the fish. In a bowl, mix the soy sauce, shaoshing rice wine, oil and a splash of water together. Pour over the fish.
• Steam the fish -cooking time varies depending on the fish used. I steamed mine for about 6-7 minutes. It'll take about 15-20 minutes in the oven.
  
• Lift your fish out carefully. Sprinkle with spring onion and coriander. Serve with steamed white rice.