Fish Slices with Tomato Sauce (茄汁魚片)

Without any premeditation on my part, the last four recipes I've posted have involved pork, so I'd say its time to shift gears and do some fish. Sweet and sour fish is one of those dishes I frequently enjoy when eating out, but had never tried making at home. Along with eggplant Sichuan style, it's often one of the first dishes I try at Chinese restaurants. There are a lot of variations, and I tend to prefer a more vinegar-forward profile rather than a sweeter one. Peimei has a sweet and sour fish recipe found in the Eastern China section of her first book (this refers to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces, along with the city of Shanghai). This recipe begins with chopping the head off the fish, butterflying and deboning. The fish is battered and fried to spectacular results, and Peimei comments that "most of our foreign friends prefer this way." I did not have a whole fish nor the desire to undertake this. 

What I did have was a pound of assorted cod bits I picked up at Trader Joe's for four bucks. I found another recipe in the Southern China section (Guangdong and Fujian provinces and the city of Hong Kong) that involved fish slices and a very similar sauce, called "fish with tomato sauce." The Chinese name is pronounced qiezhi yupian in Mandarin. I was puzzled by this at first, since the most literal translation would be "eggplant sauce fish slices." This being a southern recipe, I asked Dad for some context and found out the Cantonese pronunciation of qiezhi contains the key: keh jup, thought by many to be the origin of the English word ketchup. The usage of qie here is just an abbreviation for fanqie, the Chinese word for tomato. Amusingly, this literally translates to "foreign eggplant."

The recipe itself is pretty simple. Rather than battering the fish, we simply dredge it in cornstarch after marinating, much like in the sweet and sour pork recipe I posted three years (it's been that long already?) ago. As I mentioned above, I used cod pieces, which were of assorted shapes and sizes. This wasn't ideal, and I would recommend starting with proper fillets and cutting the slices to be more uniform. Cod worked well here, but other fish would do fine. I will probably try it with swai in the future. Overall, I enjoyed the dish, but would make it more vinegar-heavy next time to suit my own preferences.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. white fish fillets (I used cod)
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 10 (approx.) small black mushrooms
• 1/4 c green peas
• 1/2 c (approx.) cornstarch for dredging
• Vegetable oil for frying

Marinade

• 1 egg white
• 1 Tbs cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt

Sauce

• 3 Tbs sugar
• 3 Tbs white rice vinegar
• 6 Tbs water
• 3 Tbs ketchup
• 1 Tbs Shaoxing wine
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Instructions

Start out by soaking the black mushrooms in warm water. I press a folded paper towel on top of the mushrooms to keep them covered with water. Check after half an hour. If the mushrooms are still firm, chop in half, remove stems, and resume soaking. When mushrooms are fully softened, squeeze water out and dice.

Fish pieces marinating

After starting the mushrooms soaking, prepare the fish. Cut fish into small pieces, about one inch squares. In a large bowl, mix the marinade ingredients, add fish, and toss to coat well. Let the fish marinate in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

While the fish is marinating, mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl and keep ready for later. This is also a good time to dice the onion.

Fish after frying

Preheat oil in deep fryer or wok to 375 degrees F. When the oil is ready, spread cornstarch on a plate and dredge the fish slices on both sides. Fry in batches until crunchy. Each batch should take no more than a minute in the oil. Set the cooked fish aside on a paper towel lined plate.

Sauce, ready to add the fish

Heat a small amount of oil in a wok on high heat. Stir fry the onion and mushroom for about one minute. Stir the sauce again and add to the wok. Add the peas and cook for another minute. Add the fish. Turn the burner off and toss to fully coat the fish. 

Notes

This is one of my most faithful recreations of a Peimei dish. I did increase the amount of peas from the original. The amount of mushrooms and peas can be adjusted to personal taste. If I made this again, I would probably also increase the vinegar-to-sugar ratio bring the sourness forward a little more.