Cantonese-style fish with sweetcorn sauce
Sometimes I try and make the boyfriend's comfort foods. I draw the line at congee, because I can't even with that texture, but it's a repertoire that otherwise includes a lot of pies, potatoes, and Cantonese dishes.
This is one of the latter. A takeout-menu staple I've been giving the side eye in the UK, but which turns out to have all the nursery-food reassurance of mac and cheese.
I'm trying not to say "beige food" here, and goodness knows this was a thankless colour palette to photograph. But things like mac and cheese, cauliflower cheese, congee, semolina puddings, carbonara, and every other bland-looking "I miss my mum" of a meal comes over drab at first, with an instant Proust’s-Madeline comfort moment the second you taste it.
Being visually appealing beyond the warm hug is trickier unless you’re up for farting around with spring onions and tweezers, and frankly who has the energy.
Anyway, this is quite nice and doesn’t take too long, and you might like it too.
Ingredients:
For the fish:
White fish, 2 fillets (about 150g/person, nothing fancy)
Spring onions, 1
Plain flour, 2tbsp
Potato flour, 1tbsp
Cornflour, 1tbsp
Shaoxing, 2tbsp
White pepper, about 1/8tsp
Salt, big pinch
For the sauce:
Chicken stock, 250ml
Sweetcorn, 80g (about half the drained weight of a standard 200g tin)
Spring onions, 2
Egg, 1
Cornflour, 4tsp
Shaoxing, 1tbsp
Plus plenty of oil to fry
This will happily serve two for dinner with some rice, or go into a mix of dishes for a larger dinner.
You can use cornflour instead of the potato flour, if you’ve none to hand. But the batter texture will be a little less crispy.
Most recipes I’ve seen for this are a double-dip batter: cornflour mix, egg, flour mix. To shorten the time I wanted to borrow a karaage batter approach, and get a bit more crunch. Hence the potato flour and the quick dredge.
Instructions:
Cut the fish into 6-7 cm chunks. Slice the spring onions.
Toss together the fish, 2tbsp of shaoxing, and 1/3 of the spring onions, and leave to marinade for a few minutes.
Mix the plain flour, potato flour, 1tbsp of cornflour, salt and pepper.
Loosely beat the egg.
Mix together the 4tsp of the shaoxing and cornflour.
Fry the rest of the spring onion in a little oil until fragrant and colouring just lightly. Add the chicken stock and the sweetcorn, and bring to a gentle simmer. Add the cornflour and shaoxing mix, stirring until it thickens. It should be reasonably thick. I’ll be honest: I mean gloopy.
Take off the heat – we'll bring it back up to temperature before serving.
Add the flour mix to the fish, and gently toss it together, so that it coats thoroughly, forming something between a flour dredge and a batter.
Get some oil nice and hot in a wok or deep fat fryer. You're aiming for 180c ish.
Fry the fish until it's got some crisp and colour to it. Probably about 3 minutes if the oil's nice and hot.
Remove the fish to drain on some kitchen paper, and put the sauce back on a gentle heat, bringing it back to a simmer. Turn off the heat and gently mix in the beaten egg. Don't whisk it or you'll get a weird custard. We're looking for strands or flakes like in an egg drop soup. I stir with chop sticks for this, but that may just be habit.
Plate up or otherwise present the fish how you want to serve it, and pour over the sauce.
It’s simple - yes, verging on plain - but there’s a really nice blend of textures. The crunch of the batter initially, then softening in the sauce. The potato flour gives it just a little glutinous edge under the bite, too.
If it’s a little on the bland side for your tastes, up the white pepper in the batter mix, and consider a little sichuan pepper, and some thin slivers of ginger.
But I like it as is. Served with rice, and some simple vegetables. Steamed gai lan with ginger sauce would work well.