Is the Fish Really Limited to the Stove-top Steamer?
Steaming a whole fish or two in an oven is a brilliant idea when there’s not enough space in a wok. I found a recipe for this method and plan to use it often!
Below are some links to more details, including photos:
My Story
One of my favorite dishes is steamed whole fish, so I often found myself with too little of a good thing when I cooked a fish in a wok for our family dinners. Since I didn’t want to continue with this limiting factor, I searched for a solution.
Inspiring Recipe
I was elated to find a method in Chinese oven steamed fish that sounded promising. The recipe was from Caroline’s Cooking, a blog where you can explore recipes in different ways, e.g., by country or holiday.
First Try
Costco sometimes has fresh fish that’s not farm-raised. When I saw Petrale sole available one week, I had to buy a tray to test out this new cooking technique.
Ingredients to Use
With 3.04 pounds of fish, I doubled almost all the remaining ingredients listed on the default recipe. Below are the amounts that I used:
- 6 green onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 12 slices of ginger
- 2 tablespoons + 1/8 teaspoon of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar
Steps to Prepare
For the six steps in the instructions, I only adjusted step 4 by not slitting the sides of the fish. As a result, I placed the last of the garlic and ginger slices on top of the fish.
Time to Eat
After 25 minutes in the oven, I served the cooked fish with the last batch of green onions.
Recipe Rating
Below were the results of the recipe after the first try:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰💰 | 🙂 |
The fish came out soft with a light fish taste and a hint of ginger on the bottom of fish. What it needed more of was that ginger flavor on the top of the fish.
Second Try
The goal of the second attempt was to increase the flavor of the fish.
Ingredients to Use
For the second try, I made some changes to the ingredients as compared to the first time, due to availability, i.e., for the sesame oil, soy sauce, and fish.
Starting with 2.72 pounds of black cod, I used a little less of the majority of the other ingredients in comparison to the first try, as follows:
- 6 green onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 11 slices of ginger
- 1 1/2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon of soy sauce
- 1/2 tablespoon + 1 1/4 teaspoons of sesame oil
- 1/2 tablespoon + 1 1/4 teaspoons of rice vinegar
Steps to Prepare
For this occasion, I modified steps 4 and 6.
For Step 4, I was able to put more slices of ginger on top of the fish, since there were only two fish as opposed to three originally.
Because each fish was thicker this time, I had to increase the cooking time to 35 minutes in Step 6.
Time to Eat
With all the ingredients in one packet this time versus two previously, I was hoping that the fish would be more flavorful.
Recipe Rating
Below are the results of the recipe from the second attempt:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7️⃣ | 🤏 | 💰💰 | 🙂 |
The black cod came out super soft and sauce more gingery. However, there wasn’t much soy sauce flavor.
Because I definitely want to use the oven method to cook whole fish in the future, I do want to enhance the flavors next time by trying the following:
Continuous Improvement
- Borrow the sauce recipe that I used before when steaming a whole fish in a wok and apply it to this recipe.
By using this oven recipe to steam fish, I learned the following that I’d like to share with my previous self:
Lesson for Dumber Self
- Incorporate a favorite item to improve another item.
What will you do now?
Next Step for You
- Try the Chinese oven steamed fish recipe from Caroline’s Cooking blog?
- Share how you were able to cook more than one whole fish at home?
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)