Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Steamed Carp Belly with Chinese Bean Paste


Try reciting this again and again, real fast:
Steamed carp belly...
Steamed carp belly...
Steamed carp belly...

No problem yet?
Try typing (no copy and pasting)
Steamed carp belly
Steamed carp belly
Steamed cra (back space back space) carp belly
Heheheh...

I chuckled again and again in front of my laptop typing this...I need to get a life.

Love this fish (wan yu), especially the belly. The meat's succulent, satiny smooth, the bones are gigantic and relatively soft, easy to spot and pull out. They're gigantic, and they're relatively cheap! HK$30 (USD3.8) can get you a couple giant slabs of carp belly, which is the exact amount needed to get me sated from a fish.

If you're bored with the usual soy sauce, ginger and spring onion steamed fish combo, try this one.

Clean the carp belly slabs and place them on a plate.
Finely chop 1 clove of garlic, cut a sprig of spring onions to 5 cm pieces, julienne a slice of ginger, finely chop red chilli, scatter them on top of the fish, add a couple tbsp of Chinese bean paste (get this from Asian stores/Chinese grocer, in Cantonese it is called min si. It's remotely similar to miso, but a lot sweeter and it still has beans in it instead of a smooth paste)...

...and steam it for 8-10 minutes.


After steaming...hello succulent, satiny smooth cr carp belly...

The heck with food styling (opppps, sorry), let me just quickly devour this.

6 comments:

Tuty said...

Rita,
Is the bean paste = tauco?

Unknown said...

mirip tauco tapi gak fully asin, tuty...ada manis sama asemnya. disini istilahnya "min si"

KennyT said...

How come you eat and cook like a Chinese?

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

i love wan yu belly..the only part of the fish with no small bones!

Unknown said...

kenny...cos i am indonesian born chinese ^_^

joe, yes ar...and the meat, so smooth! wak lud lud~

EatTravelEat said...

Haven't tried steamed carp yet, but I have tried pan fried carp which is then boiled for a soup. Quite nice as my fish guy at the market says- they say carp is "sweet".

Have never tried fish with chinese bean paste before! Have tried it with korean bean paste though.